Japanese

A fictionalized account in four chapters of the life of the celebrated Japanese writer Yukio Mishima.Read More »

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Action and adventure abound in this story of friendship between two rival firefighters, Kichigoro and Jirokichi in old Japan. When Mukai Sadayu, the vassal of Kaga Clan’s accounting officer, Shinagawa Daihachi demands that Omon serve him tea in his mansion and she refuses, the clan’s samurai abduct her setting in motion a series of events that will bring the two firefighters into a world of danger and excitement. Jirokichi, leader of the Edo firefighting team “Ha-gumi” must first rescue Omon from the clutches of the vile Kaga Clan’s retainers.Read More »

We find Reiko Ike once again cast as a tough schoolgirl who eventually has to band together with her enemies to upset the reign of their private Catholic high school administration where institutionalized sexual abuse is endemic. Tables are turned finally on the principal, various sanctimonious teachers as well as a visiting American principal, who drives a vulnerable virgin to suicide when he deflowers her! Ike teams up with a guy on his own quest for revenge and the climax sees the prinicpal and other adult evildoers publicly humiliated and exposed before the entire student body.Read More »

Three sisters earn money for their bossy mother by being samisen street musicians.Read More »

letterboxd:
The psychosexual drama Yoji, What’s Wrong With You? examines the identity of women as mothers in Japanese culture, through an Oedipal narrative of a skewed “family romance.” When Yoji announces to his mother that he wants her to meet a new girlfriend, the mother’s jealousy destroys the relationship. Idemitsu’s signature device of using a television monitor within the domestic space works as a powerful metaphor for the ubiquity of the mother in Yoji’s psychological life. Idemitsu’s melodramas always articulate a double-edged irony: With no identity outside of her maternal role, Yoji’s mother fastens onto her son, ultimately destroying him. Yoji himself is seen as emotionally stunted, unable to leave his mother or experience love for any other womanRead More »

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Almost a caricature of the classic backstage story of the stars who battle even though “they’re made for each other” — this time with duo legends Isuzu Yamada and Kazuo Hasegawa — but with an emotional restraint rare even for Japanese films of the period.Read More »

letterboxd:
HIDEO, It’s Me, Mama is a psychological melodrama that introduces narrative and structural devices that are integral to Idemitsu’s work. Exploring the flawed universe of the contemporary Japanese family, she focuses on a woman’s identity as mother through mother-child and husband-wife relationships. Hideo, a young man living away from his parents, is kept under constant surveillance by his doting mother via an omnipresent television monitor. In a cogent metaphor for familial relations in the media-saturated culture of contemporary Japan, Mama can only communicate with her beloved, absent son through the video screen. Idemitsu’s poignant irony is embodied in the scene in which Mama, blind to her husband’s needs, caresses Hideo’s video image. (Electronic Arts Intermix) Read More »

SYNOPSIS:
A naively honorable samurai comes to the bitter realization that his devotion to moral samurai principles makes him an oddity among his peers and a very vulnerable oddity in consequence.Read More »

A nasty schoolgirl does what she pleases, under the protection of her father, who is the school principal. Another girl is not so nasty, but she is determined and tough enough to contest the girl’s gang in a democratic vote – and win. That causes her trouble in school, just when her own father, who owns a truck transport company, is murdered in a fake car accident by an American mobster. Before the girl can react, her naive mother has signed over the company to the mobster, and accepted him as her lover. Repentant, the mother starts drinking, and the good schoolgirl ties up with a halfbreed young man, who also has a grudge against Americans. He starts spying on the gangsters, discovers they are dealing in drugs, but is killed before he can report it. The good girl will lead her team in a desperation assault on the mobsters – and the police will eventually arrive just in time for the showdownRead More »