Intimidation (1960) – Director: Koreyoshi Kurahara – 7/10 (very good)Kurahara’s grip on the narrative is quite impressive and it is pretty astonishing he manages to wedge as much material as he does into the frugal, barely-over-60-minute-long Nikkatsu framework. The director outfits the taut, suspenseful film noir with the highly acerbic […]
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Demon Pond (1979) (orig. Yashagaike) – Director: Masahiro Shinoda – 6/10 (good)On one hand, the visual sumptuousness, the odd musical score, the eerie atmosphere and some bizarre antics do confer a solid foundation to this outlandish fable, on the other hand though, the said assets are rendered partially ineffectual owing […]
The Shadow Within (1970) (orig. Kage no kuruma) – Director: Yoshitarô Nomura – 7/10 (very good) On the face of it, the motion picture constitutes an agreeable, if somewhat standard, example of a psychological drama. What ultimately variegates the work at hand is Nomura’s eye for pleasing visuals and harmonious […]
Hymn to a Tired Man (1968) (orig. Nihon no seishun) – Director: Masaki Kobayashi – 8/10 (excellent) The motion picture marks a shift from previous Kobayashi’s works in two principal ways: firstly, it does not feature a valiant protagonist willing to shed blood for a cause with no regard for […]
Trying to increase my #Japanuary dosage just a little bit more (also see my recent review of Irezumi), I went for Blind Beast (Môjû) next. Arrow Video’s BluRay release seems like a great opportunity to further expand my short exursion into the work of Yasuzo Masumura who also directed this […]
Irezumi (japanese for tattoo), also known as Kiss of the Spider Woman, is a drama from 1966 directed by Yasuzo Masumura (Blind Beast) based roughly on a short story from 1910. Otsuya (Ayako Wakao), the beautiful and ambitious daughter of a businessman, runs off with Shinsuke (Akio Hasegawa), a timid […]
An old woman (Nobuko Otowa) and her daughter in law (Jitsuko Yoshimura) are trying to survive in feudal countryside of Japan in the 15th century. The only way they can make money is by killing lost samurai and selling their belongings to a fence named Ushi (Taiji Tonoyama). The two […]
Many years before I discovered such films as Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai, Sanjuro and Yojimbo, the 1980 NBC TV epic based on James Clavell’s novel SHOGUN was my introduction to legendary actor Toshiro Mifune, the world of ancient Japanese culture and the samurai. Longtime fans of this classic 547 […]
The Quiet Duel is one of the earliest ventures handled by Akira Kurosawa. Takashi Shimura won the Mainichi Film Concours in the Best Actor category for his performance in the flick. During World War II, young doctor Kyoji Fujisaki (Toshirô Mifune) cuts himself while operating on a patient Susumu Nakada […]
“Albeit obsolete, the movie works very well owing to its unflinching sincerity and offbeat structure” A young, attractive journalist Keiko Mitani (Komaki Kurihara) scrutinises the hardships of young Japanese women who were to comfort Japanese workers and soldiers as prostitutes in the first half of twentieth century. She sets off […]