Jûzô Itami

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Based on the Chinese classic “Jin Ping Mei”. Original Japanese cut directed by Koji Wakamatsu and produced by Shochiku. Set in Song-dynasty China, Wu Song rises to fame and becomes a guard captain. He is captivated by his brother’s wife, Pan Jinlian, whose beauty also ensnares the wealthy libertine Ximen Qing. To possess her, Ximen Qing has Wu Song’s brother murdered. When the corrupt authorities refuse justice, Wu Song is imprisoned, escapes with the help of the Liangshan bandits, and joins their ranks. Ximen Qing descends further into decadence, but Wu Song eventually returns, leading an attack on the town.Read More »

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One midsummer night, a ferry boat was heading to Onomichi pulling a corpse. The victim was Otoyo, a madam at the Onomichi bar “Iso Chidori.” The Onomichi Police Department organized an emergency investigation team with Chief Detective Oishi and others to solve this strange case. Toyo’s corpse had two keys. One was the key to the bar, and the other was the key to the apartment of Michiko, a young girl who worked at the same bar. The investigators pursued Michiko, and then Nakanishi, who had been in a relationship with her, but they were unable to find any clues. Eventually, Otoyo’s past came to light. It was revealed that Hongo and Tsuchida, who had been in a relationship with her, were from Mikasajima, just like Nakanishi, and that she had left her mentally disabled son at the island’s town hall and left for a remote island. Returning from Mikasajima, Oishi and his team discovered that the ferry boat was from Daikonjima, Michiko’s hometown. Read More »

A country girl visits Tokyo in search of her college heartthrob. Here she meets horny students, a psychology professor in search of the theory of shame, and Yoshioka who has become a campus nobody.Read More »

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From the original manga by Kazuo Koike (Lone Wolf and Cub) and Kazuo Kamimura and the main inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, Lady Snowblood is a blood spattered Samurai masterpiece from the golden age of Japanese cult cinema!

Meiko Kaji (Female Prisoner Scorpion / Blind Woman’s Curse) is Yuki, a women raised from birth for one terrible, blood splattered purpose…To murder those who raped her mother and left her to rot in a stinking women’s prison, where she died in childbirth. Trained in deadly fighting arts and fatal sword play, Lady Snowblood is cursed to wander the lands in pursuit of her single purpose. She is a demon of vengeance, only sated by the crimson blood of those who stole her mother from her.Read More »

Review from clydefro.com
I wasn’t sufficiently acquainted with Kon Ichikawa’s work (and, truthfully, I’m still not), but the entire tone of his relatively obscure I Am a Cat caught me somewhat by surprise. I’d loved Ichikawa’s Fires on the Plain, a deeply and darkly humorous look at the ridiculousness of war played against that looming seriousness that’s always prevalent in those kind of films. I was then ready for some kind of Japanese incarnation of Harry and Tonto. That’s really not what I got, though. I Am a Cat is definitely steeped in comic undertones, with Tatsuya Nakadai almost parodying himself, but it’s absolutely far removed from Harry and Tonto. Instead, we’re left with some odd tribute to Nakadai’s eternally grumpy protagonist and the stray cat who’s his only true confidante.Read More »

yoko Itakura returns as the government tax agent willing to tackle the toughest cases. This time she takes on a fanatical but lucrative religious cult run by a vile lecher.Read More »

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The tale of an eccentric band of culinary ronin who guide the widow of a noodle-shop owner on her quest for the perfect recipe, this rapturous “ramen western” by Japanese director Juzo Itami is an entertaining, genre-bending adventure underpinned by a deft satire of the way social conventions distort the most natural of human urges—our appetites. Interspersing the efforts of Tampopo (Nobuko Miyamoto) and friends to make her café a success with the erotic exploits of a gastronome gangster and glimpses of food culture both high and low, the sweet, sexy, and surreal Tampopo is a lavishly inclusive paean to the sensual joys of nourishment, and one of the most mouthwatering examples of food on film ever made.Read More »

Synopsis:
Ace tax investigator Ryoko Itakura (Nobuko Miyamoto) sets her sights on the mysterious and philandering Hideki Gondo (Tsutomu Yamazaki), a suspected millionaire who owns a thriving chain of seedy hourly hotels. For years, Gondo has succeeded at hiding the true extent of his assets from the Japanese authorities. As the government investigation progresses, Itakura and Gondo find themselves locked in a battle of wits — one further complicated by their growing affections for each other.Read More »

Synopsis:
Following the release of his Minbo No Onna — less a film than a textbook on how to extricate oneself from yakuza harassment — veteran director Juzo Itami was attacked and almost killed by the mob for his effort. In this crime-comedy, he voices his outrage at the attack, which he viewed as an attack on his right for self-expression. The film centers on Hiwako (played, as always, by Itami’s wife, Nobuko Miyamoto), a grand dame of the stage who witnesses a murder while exercising on a lonely country road. The victim turns out to be a lawyer who was snooping around in a shadowy cult clearly modeled on the subway-gassing sect Aum Shinrikyo. Hiwako manages to get a good look at the perpetrator’s face and identifies him as a cult member. Read More »