Japanese

A beautiful hostess of a small restaurant moonlights as a well-trained assassin tasked with taking the life of a wealthy businessman…Read More »

A psychotherapist suffers from the onslaughts of Satori, the demon whose name is paradoxically homonymic to the word used for enlightenment experiences in the Zen tradition. Many people mistakenly believe that such a state is the goal of Zen practice; however, the demon strikes at people who are in a state devoid of thought or feeling. Satori’s influence spreads from the psychotherapist to a couple who grow increasingly uninhibited.Read More »

The setting is postwar Japan in this standard melodrama from director Yoshishige Yoshida. Shinko (Mariko Okada) is a young teen living in Akitsu when she meets Shusaku (Hiroyuki Nagato). He is a student who comes to Akitsu just before the end of the war to try to regain his health, and Shinko helps take care of him. The couple fall in love, but when they both hear that Japan has surrendered, they attempt suicide together and fail. The two lovers separate as Shusaku leaves town in the aftermath of their failed attempt, then fate tragically intervenes nearly two decades later.Read More »

Doppelgänger, Kurosawa Kiyoshi

Michio Hayasaki, a brilliant developer of medical instruments, is working on a robot chair, equipped with artificial limbs, for people who are completely paralysed. He feels he is being pressed by his employer Medical Cytech to come up with a successful design at short notice and he is in danger of burning out. Then, one evening, he thinks he sees his double. Hayasaki has the shock of his life: superstition suggests that meeting your double means you will soon die. But, after a confrontation with his maladjusted doppelgänger, it becomes clear that Hayasaki could take advantage of his violent tricks. The double reduces Hayasaki’s lab to rubble, clears another double out of the way, hires an assistant for Hayasaki and comes up with a new lab. But in the end, one of them will have to perish…Read More »

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According to the code of the gamblers, Tokijiro, though he dislikes killing, has to join in the fighting when afforded a night’s stay and meals at the home of a town boss. He will be tested again and again in the bloody tale.Read More »

letterboxd wrote:
Toyoichi Otomo suffers from psychological and spiritual troubles after a horrific industrial accident. He lives with his elderly mother and wife near Mt. Aso in rural Kyushu. He seeks solace in a small religious group run by Buddhist nun Chishu-bo who claims to be the 68th descendant of famed 11th century poet Izumi Shikibu. The members of her sect regard her as a living saint. Yet instead of balming his soul, she riles his libido by playing a sexual cat-and-mouse game with the fragile Toyoichi. When she does bed him, it leads to a miracle healing – followed by a terrible calamity.Read More »

The relationships between the hostesses and the customers who visit a typical city bar.Read More »

Machiko (Chieko Baisho) lives comfortably with her father, grandmother and two younger brothers while working at a cosmetics factory in Shitamachi. Her boyfriend Michio (Tamotsu Hayakawa) has dreams of landing a salaried position and settling down in the suburbs, but Machiko begins to question whether middle class life will really bring her happiness.Read More »

A requiem for Nikkatsu itself. In 1988, the powerful studio – realizing that it could no longer compete with the onslaught of AVs { Adult Videos} – decided to halt pink production. Th e Last Cabaret was written and produced as a metaphorical self-portrait, as at least one critic put it: “an homage to their own relevance.” Due to the voracious appetite of a land developer, a popular cabaret {think Nikkatsu here} is forced to close its doors . The owner’s daughter, melancholy over the foreclosure, goes looking for her father’s legendary girlfriends { think Nikkatsu starlets } to reminisce over the good ole days. Nikkatsu would produce only one more pink film, Bed Partner.
Japanese Cinema EncyclopediaRead More »