Nick Wrigley, Masters of Cinema wrote:
At the close of the war in Japan, a widowed mother makes every possible sacrifice to bring up her ungrateful son and daughter who are unimpressed with their poor standard of living at home. They gradually reject her in search of the material comforts that working as a maid cannot provide. The mother’s despair becomes interminable.

Kinoshita is widely regarded as having more breadth as a director than any other in Japan. Just comparing this film with the other Panorama Kinoshita DVD release TWENTY-FOUR EYES (made the following year in 1954) is quite astonishing. Every film for him – 42 in 23 years – was a chance to experiment. He pushed long takes to the limit with deep focus long shots; he tried fast cutting action; he approached *all* genres and was wildly successful at almost everything he tried his hand at, yet he remained modestly unimpressed with his jack-of-all-trades approach describing it as “half-baked”. Masaki Kobayashi (a pupil of Kinoshita) believed that Kinoshita’s genius lay precisely in his wide-ranging breadth and fearlessness. Indeed, according to Audie Bock’s marvellous book “JAPANESE FILM DIRECTORS” (from which the DVD text extras liberally quote) Kinoshita’s films were more liked in Japan and more successful than both Kurosawa and Mizoguchi at the time of release.

Within 15 minutes it becomes apparent that this is a major film by a major filmmaker. The way the film unfolds, interspersed with genuine newsreel footage to underline the poverty and atmosphere of postwar Japan, is tremendously effective and as brilliantly fresh today as I expect it was when it was made. Throughout the film, the mother (Yuko Mochizuki) occasionally has flashbacks which are presented without sound. This stark, simple device – one which is rarely used in sound cinema – concentrates all the viewer’s attention on the flashbacks’ significance and reinforces her feelings in a particularly unique way. I don’t want to give much away about the plot – suffice to say I was glued to this throughout. [Lovely to see Ozu regular Keiji Sada in a small part as a down-on-his-luck guitarist (Sada unfortunately died in a car accident in 1964 aged 38)]. Rarely written about, this film is astonishing, and deserves a place in every cineaste’s collection.

1.31GB | 1s 51m | 640×480 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/534C40A34D7AA2C/A_Japanese_Tragedy_(1953).mkv
or
https://nitro.download/view/E4CF2F62C7FBD1B/A_Japanese_Tragedy_(1953).part1.rar
https://nitro.download/view/CCF81AAE35FAEE4/A_Japanese_Tragedy_(1953).part2.rar

Language:Japanese
Subtitles:English,German

The post Keisuke Kinoshita – Nihon no higeki AKA A Japanese Tragedy (1953) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
Everyday, 12 April 2006
Author: sharptongue from Sydney, Australia

The style is equivalent to the kitchen sink dramas which came to prominence in the 1950s. No kitchen sinks here, but plenty of the gritty (or, more accurately, muddy) details of everyday life on rice farms and fishing boats, where the only labour-saving device is a cow to pull a rotary hoe – and the cow is only on hire. Much screen time is devoted to planting and harvesting the rice, and catching fish and eels on the lake. Punishing work, liked by no-one.

The first half of the movie meanders among an array of characters, never staying with any one person or group for long. Added to the leisurely pace, it means you’ll need patience to get through to the second half, where the story settles mainly onto one family, who tend a small rice paddy and fish for eels. A lot more happens in the second half. A boating mishap has consequences for the main characters. However, it is still far from action-packed. Even during the dramatic moments, the pace is gentle, even when events are not.

The direction and cinematography are pretty good. Some of the scenery, in rural Ibaragi prefecture, is pleasing to the eye. The acting is uniformly excellent and convincing, though perhaps overly sincere. Overall, Rice appears to be a realistic portrait of poor rural life in Japan in the late 1950s. Reflecting real life, it’s a bit on the dull side.

	
Rice.1957.DVDRIP.x264.AC3.KJNU.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 57 min
Size: 	1.97 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	714x478 ~> 714x535
Aspect ratio:  	4:3
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	2 000 kb/s
BPP: 	0.244
Audio
#1:  	Japanese 2.0ch AC-3 @ 384 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/B740334F089F1E2/Rice.1957.DVDRIP.x264.AC3.KJNU.mkv

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English

The post Tadashi Imai – Kome AKA Rice (1957) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
In Song of the Cart-Pullers (Niguruma no uta, 1959) one of his most visually captivating works, Satsuo Yamamoto resurrected, through the struggles of three-generation family in rural Hiroshima Prefacture, an intimate history of Japanese peasant life, from the harsh late Meiji years to the Taisho Rice Riots and the tragedies of the pacific war.

2.00GB | 2 h 23 min | 716×304 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/C59DF328B70AE53/Niguruma_no_uta_(Song_of_the_Cart-Pullers)_(1959)_–_Satsuo_Yamamoto.mkv
http://nitroflare.com/view/248F23B5B8DF4F7/Niguruma_no_uta.rar

Language:Japanese
Subtitles:English

The post Satsuo Yamamoto – Niguruma no uta AKA Song of the Cart-Pullers (1959) first appeared on Cinema of the World.