Hiroko Kawasaki

Based on the biographical story by Fumi Kuroyanagi, the film is about the hardships of two sisters living in present day Japan.Read More »

Quote:
Featuring an all-star Shochiku cast, including the legendary Kinuyo Tanaka, Youth, Why Do You Cry? represents the high-water mark of Kiyohiko Ushihara’s silent period, packing its fast-paced plot, which involves the sudden intrusion of a “modern girl” into a widower’s family home, into a truly breezy three hours. A specialist of coming-of-age stories, Ushihara would leave Shochiku Kamata studios to learn more about a revolutionary new development in sound film, known as the “talkies,” in France, Great Britain, and the United States. Nobuhiko Obayashi (House) considered the film a masterpiece, observing that “even though it’s a three-hour-long silent film, I was moved into thinking that I had just watched a musical work of art.”Read More »

Followed by Shindo: kohen Ryota no maki, available here:
The eldest daughter of a noble family is in love with an aviator while being courted by a fellow aristocrat she thinks is a dullard.Read More »

The eldest daughter of a noble family is in love with an aviator while being courted by a fellow aristocrat she thinks is a dullard.Read More »

Synopsis
Based on an Ibuse Masuji short story, this delightful escapist drama is set at a hot spring resort providing sanctuary to people of vastly different backgrounds and personalities bounded by one thing: their common desire to not leave. The resort’s patrons include a Tokyo woman (Tanaka Kinuyo) with a mysterious past who develops a brief relationship with a wounded soldier (Ryu Chishu). A comedic piece filmed and set during wartime Japan, Kanzashi makes a statement with its lightness.Read More »