Tugumi, who lives in a small seaside town, has been in delicate health from birth. Her parents spoiled her and she is rough and selfish. However, a few people are attracted by her beauty and unique character. In this summer, Tugumi loves Kyoichi Takahashi, who works in the art gallery of the town. One of Tugumi’s old boy friends, the leader of bad boys, attacks Kyoichi and kills Tugumi’s pet dog from jealousy. Tugumi plans revenge.Read More »
Synopsis:
In this downbeat, comedic portrait of ’80s corporate Japan, a section chief and family man (Hajime Hana) fights off the gloom of his impending retirement by rekindling his youthful love of jazz music.Read More »
Director Jun Ichikawa spins this affectionate portrait of the people who populate Shimokitazawa, a bohemian corner of Tokyo filled with small theater companies and smoky coffeehouses.Read More »
Directed by the late, great Jun Ichikawa (Tony Takitani, Dying at a Hospital); about the storied Tokiwa apartment that in the 1950s housed up-and-coming manga luminaries such as Osamu Tezuka, Shotaro Ishinomori, Fujiko Fujio and numerous others.
Mark Schilling of the Japan Times called Tokiwa: the Manga Apartment one of the best Japanese movies of the 90s; Kinema Jumpo named it among the 200 greatest Japanese films of all time.Read More »
Quote:
“Veteran director Jun Ichikawa (Tony Takitani), who died suddenly the night that he finished editing this film (originally a private project), reveals his more personal and playful side while filming with nothing more than a few friends as actors and a camcorder. The film follows Yuki’s visit to Tokyo in search of her missing brother, Hisashi, and their later reunion with Hisashi’s ex-wife. Ichikawa’s camerawork and plain sets draw out a more affectionate and gentle side of these characters and their connection amidst the barren Tokyo cityscape.”Read More »
Via the New York Times: “The solemn, intent faces of the Japanese schoolboys playing video games in Jun Ichikawa’s “No Life King” bespeak a new type of modern horror. Addicted to their favorite new game (from which the film takes its title), these children have become seriously estranged from the real world. The film’s constant emphasis is on the ways in which this has been allowed to happen, and on how emblematic it is of larger attitudes in a technological society. When a young boy trying to converse with his mother must compete with a home computer for her attention, it’s not hard to see why the boy has retreated into his own computer-dominated world.”Read More »
When technical illustrator Tony Takitani asks his wife to resist her all-consuming obsession for designer clothes, the consequences are tragic.Read More »
Quote:
The film centers on a brother and sister who live in their family’s traditional Japanese house long after both of their parents have died. Kenichi (Naoto Ogata), who is in his twenties, works in a used bookstore while his sister, Yoko (Urara Awata), who has just finished up high school, dutifully takes care of the house. Since his parents are dead, Kenichi is serious about looking after his underaged sister. He even spurns his girlfriend — another clerk at the same bookstore — because she wants to get married before Yoko comes of age. On Yoko’s end, she longs to break out and be free. One day, she brings home a bumptious freelance photographer (Toru Tezuka) whose crude ways do not impress the conservative Kenichi. In spite of this — of perhaps because of this — Yoko beds him and soon is spending more and more time with the lad. With his orderly life coming apart at the seams, will Kenichi be able to get his sister back? ~ Jonathan CrowRead More »
Film about Sakamoto Ryōma. The focus is on Oryo, the maid who became Ryoma’s wife and lived with him for one year before his death. Directed by Jun Ichikawa.Read More »