Quote:
The film begins with an explosive action scene where a lone samurai fights and slays dozens of enemy swordsmen, but that is neither the story nor what happened. Mataemon Araki, a legendary samurai and the subject of many a tale and film adaptations, is instead a cunning strategist and can deploy strategy and patience alongside his command of the blade. Here he helps set a trap in order to exact revenge for one who mourns.

Araki.Mataemon.Ketto.kagiya.no.tsuji.1952.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-SbR.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 21 min
Size: 	2.67 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1440x1080 
Aspect ratio:  	4:3
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	4 543 kb/s
BPP: 	0.122
Audio
#1:  	Japanese 2.0ch AAC LC @ 137 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/39C70D10AA0ABA7/Araki.Mataemon.Ketto.kagiya.no.tsuji.1952.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-SbR.mkv

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English (Hardcoded)

The post Kazuo Mori – Araki Mataemon: Kettô kagiya no tsuji AKA AKA Vendetta of a Samurai (1952) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Story about the fall of an accountant enthralled by the sexual charms of a cabaret dancer.

Mesu.inu.1951.1080p.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-SbR.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 39 min
Size: 	7.02 GiB
Video
Codec: 	h264
Resolution: 	1440x1080 
Aspect ratio:  	4:3
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	10 000 kb/s
BPP: 	0.268
Audio
#1:  	Japanese 2.0ch E-AC-3 @ 224 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/80BBC86A21847C5/Mesu.inu.1951.1080p.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-SbR.mkv

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:None

The post Keigo Kimura – Mesu inu AKA The Bitch (1951) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

A vivid, visceral Macbeth adaptation, Throne of Blood, directed by Akira Kurosawa, sets Shakespeare’s definitive tale of ambition and duplicity in a ghostly, fog-enshrouded landscape in feudal Japan. As a hardened warrior who rises savagely to power, Toshiro Mifune gives a remarkable, animalistic performance, as does Isuzu Yamada as his ruthless wife. Throne of Blood fuses classical Western tragedy with formal elements taken from Noh theater to create an unforgettable cinematic experience.

+Commentary featuring Japanese-film expert Michael Jeck

1.60GB | 1h 09m | 790×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/046EA30022B5B98/Throne.of.Blood.1957.BDRIP.576p.x264.AC3.mkv

Language(s):Japanese,English
Subtitles:English

The post Akira Kurosawa – Kumonosu-jô AKA Throne of Blood (1957) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Ogin-sama (1978) Synopsis:
Sen Rikyu is a ceremonial tea master who advises warlord Hideyoshi in sixteenth-century feudal Japan. His daughter, the beautiful Lady Ogin, has an unrequited love for Lord Ukon, who has angered Hideyoshi by becoming a Christian convert. Ogin’s father Rikyu also displeases Hideyoshi by opposing the warlord’s plan to invade China and Korea. When the animalistic Hideyoshi is rejected by Ogin, he threatens her and her father with arrest and worse.

Ogin, a very beautiful young woman, comes to the attention of Hideyoshi, the unifier of 16th century Japan. Her love for another causes her to reject him and precipitates tragedy.

1.37GB | 2h 33m | 640×480 | avi

https://nitro.download/view/186F58FE3A59CF5/Love_and_Faith_(1978)_–_Kei_Kumai.avi

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English (hardcoded)

The post Kei Kumai – Ogin-sama AKA Love and Faith (1978) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
Kanji Watanabe is a longtime bureaucrat in a city office who, along with the rest of the office, spends his entire working life doing nothing. He learns he is dying of cancer and wants to find some meaning in his life. He finds himself unable to talk with his family, and spends a night on the town with a novelist, but that leaves him unfulfilled. He next spends time with a young woman from his office, but finally decides he can make a difference through his job… After Watanabe’s death, co-workers at his funeral discuss his behavior over the last several months and debate why he suddenly became assertive in his job to promote a city park, and resolve to be more like Watanabe.

Ikiru.1952.BDRIP.BFI.4K.576p.x264.AAC.KJNU.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	2 h 22 min
Size: 	3.80 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	790x576 
Aspect ratio:  	1.372
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	3 500 kb/s
BPP: 	0.321
Audio
#1:  	Japanese 1.0ch AAC LC @ 151 kb/s
#2:  	English 2.0ch AAC LC @ 159 kb/s (Commentary with Adrian Martin)

https://nitro.download/view/CFEA1DA1B8CE188/Ikiru.1952.BDRIP.BFI.4K.576p.x264.AAC.KJNU.mkv

Language(s):Japanese, English
Subtitles:English

The post Akira Kurosawa – Ikiru (1952) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
Stray Dog is an intense criminal story that examines the psychology of the characters as in compares the similarities between criminals and detectives. These similarities are balanced on a thin line based on choice, which Kurosawa dissects studiously through the camera lens. Kurosawa’s investigation of the character’s psychology creates a spiraling suspense that is enhanced through subtle surprises and brilliant cinematography. The camera use often displays shots through thin cloths, close ups, and new camera angles, which also makes the film aesthetically appealing. When Kurosawa brings together camera work and cast performance, among other cinematic aspects, he leaves the audience with a brilliantly suspenseful criminal drama, which leaves much room for introspection and retrospection.

3.27GB | 2 h 2 min | 764×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/F2EFDE2574E721A/Nora.inu.AKA.Stray.Dog.1949.576p.BluRay.AAC.x264-HANDJOB.mkv

Language:Japanese
Subtitles:English, Japanese

The post Akira Kurosawa – Nora inu AKA Stray Dog (1949) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

The Most Beautiful is a wartime propaganda film depicting the efforts of female factory workers in a precision-lens manufacturing plant. It is episodic and anecdotal and very documentary-like. Donald Richie records specific instances of documentary techniques borrowed principally from Russian filmmakers such as the austere and static composition of its scenes. This need not be entertained to any considerable degree: the point is, holistically, the overwhelming impression is one of a document. We see many shots of the lens-making equipment, and through these learn the process of lens manufacture itself. Nearly every scene is segmented with shots of a parade (a military band, a marching platoon of young soldiers, etc.) and the film itself was shot in a real factory, a length to which Kurosawa would rarely go in later work.

From the outset we learn that production quotas are being increased to meet the extravagant demand of the war machine. The women workers, however, have only been given an increase of half their normal load. The leader of this tight-knit band asks for a much larger quota so that the women may contribute to the war effort as much as the men. After this we have a series of vignettes as these women struggle to meet the quota amidst sickness, doubt and loss.

This was made at a time when Kurosawa clearly believed in collective action with remnants of Marxism languishing in his subconscious. This fact should not be dismissed. While it does adhere to the rigors of wartime guidelines, Kurosawa wrote this story himself and believed in it. He wanted to make it. While it is filmed in a very episodic way, with focus cast upon various individuals, it rings of the collective. As a result, the structure of this film almost has to be ignored, at least for the purposes of this piece. That’s not to say that The Most Beautiful lacks merit on these grounds for certainly it is an important document of a particular time in history; a history we can come to know as well from propaganda as we can from literature, textbooks and various art forms. But his plot so overshadows whatever personal statement Kurosawa might have intended that we have to look elsewhere for the message. And I think it is to be found in his methods.

In his early work, this film included, you can see Kurosawa intuitively utilizing cinematic techniques to convey a story. It is an unconscious process of discovery, like Edwin Porter realizing parallel editing in The Great Train Robbery or D. W. Griffith discovering various narrative techniques that would become instituted film grammar. The education of Akira Kurosawa as director is rapid. The experiments of his early work would coalesce into a fully conscious cinematic language by the 50s, realized with Rashōmon, Ikiru and others. There is a strong connection between the aesthetics, motifs and storytelling devices used here as in the film preceding it and the postwar work to follow.

But, once again, I think this film is unique in his oeuvre for its traditional, even feudal, belief in the collective. It is humanistic, though less than later works, but not individualistic. Richie puts it succinctly this way: “From this film on he ceased to believe in people, but he had the strength to continue to believe in persons, in individuals.” It may be comforting to read subtle critiques of the war machine into this film, but given what I’ve cited above, it’s hardly tenable. There is, however, a possibility that Kurosawa was indeed inserting crafty, subversive commentary. The following items could lead one to perceive this:

A short scene of four dozen high school-age girls uniformly pledging loyalty to the emperor, the gods, their families and ancestors. They pledge to endure hardships, to be unselfish: “We are women of the empire. Today we will do our best to help destroy America and Britain.” And finally swearing to preserve these ideals for their descendants.

The various propaganda posters in the optics workshop reading, “Follow the example of the war dead!” & “This too is a battlefield.”

The shot of a sword upon an altar that belonged to a fallen soldier, which immediately cuts to the above schoolroom pledge.

But we have to remember that a key plot element is the girls asking to have their production quotas increased. In one sense it’s admirable that these girls conquer their personal struggles for the sake of their country, but in another sense they are being exploited. Fortunately, Kurosawa’s camera never is. Instead, using the lens the girls have so diligently crafted, he magnifies their personal stories by superimposing the “fight!” wartime ennui upon their lives. This is his humanism. And this aspect of the film really makes me want to believe that Kurosawa crafted a subversive picture despite its state-accepted war pandering. Also, watching the living components of a society soon to collapse is an odd activity. It may be instructive. We can imagine the sump of Drunken Angel to be the factory of this film before the American fire bombings that were about to take place. We are forced to ask ourselves: what can we learn from this document? What does it tell us about an ephemeral Japan specifically and what does it tell us about our own societies?

https://nitro.download/view/C15308EFEED7114/Akira_Kurosawa_-_(1944)_The_Most_Beautiful.mkv

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English

The post Akira Kurosawa – Ichiban utsukushiku AKA The Most Beautiful (1944) first appeared on Cinema of the World.