Kuroi, a night school teacher, asks his student to each write an essay recalling their experience in his class. During class, a piece of tragic news arrives: Inoda, one of Kuroi’s students, has passed away. The class then shares their memories of Inoda.
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Tag Archives: Japan
Violent Virgin / Gewalt! Gewalt: shojo geba-geba (1969) Kôji Wakamatsu, Eri Ashikawa, Toshiyuki Tanigawa, Miki Hayashi, Crime, Horror, Erotic
Filmed entirely in a desolate field, Violent Virgin opens with two cars travelling along a dusty road. Three men and three women, apparently members of a gang, have a couple bound and blindfolded. After they reach their demonstration, they drag the man and woman, whose names we soon learn are Hoshi and Hanako, out of the cars and dump them on the ground. It seems that Hanako was the boss’s girl, but she eloped with Hoshi. Captured, it seems that they are going to be murdered, but not before they are humiliated by the other gang members.
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The Fossil AKA Kaseki (1975) Masaki Kobayashi, Shin Saburi, Mayumi Ogawa, Keiko Kishi, Drama
In the story, an industrialist learns of a medical condition which will greatly shorten his life. Read More »
Chichi ariki / There was a father (1942) Yasujirô Ozu, Chishû Ryû, Shûji Sano, Shin Saburi, Drama
A father and his son, a son and his father. Horikawa is a widower, a teacher, and a good father to Ryohei, who’s about 10. After a tragedy, Horikawa resigns from teaching and takes Ryohei from Tokyo to the town of Ueno, enrolling him in junior high; to the lad’s sorrow, he will be a boarder. Horikawa returns to work in Tokyo, their separation is complete. Jump ahead more than ten years: with dad’s help, Ryohei has finished college and has a teaching job in Akita. Horikawa considers living with his son, which Ryohei wants, but the elder’s notions of duty and hard work preclude it. Ryohei arranges a ten-day vacation with his father. Heartbreak comes quietly, nearly hidden by dignity.
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Heitai Gokudo / Enlisted Yakuza (1968) Kiyoshi Saeki, Tomisaburô Wakayama, Reiko Ônobuta, Shingo Yamashiro, Crime, Drama
It is the third film in the Gokudo series. In this episode, set in 1937, the main character of the series gang leader Shimamura is drafted into the military and fight in China.
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Moon Over Tao / Tao no tsuki (1997) Keita Amemiya, Toshiyuki Nagashima, Hiroshi Abe, Yûko Moriyama, Action, Fantasy
A retired warrior comes to see his former lord and learns that someone is making indestructible swords from some unknown metal. He is sent together with a swordsman to investigate the source. Along the way they meet a young girl working as a beekeeper. She is later witness to the appearance of three strange females from another dimension.
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The Clone Returns Home / Kurôn wa kokyô wo mezasu (2008) Kanji Nakajima, Mitsuhiro Oikawa, Eri Ishida, Hiromi Nagasaku, Drama, Sci-Fi
The Clone Returns Home is a compelling meditation on the paradox of life and death, and the meaning of love and family. Set in an imaginary – yet utterly imaginable – future, this quietly provocative film skillfully transposes complex emotional drama into the realm of science fiction by exploring the influence of technology on human memory and experience. Filled with stunning imagery and haunting stillness, The Clone Returns Home deftly combines subtly nuanced sci-fi with a uniquely Japanese perspective on the universal themes of family, life, love, and death.
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Violent Cop / Sono otoko, kyôbô ni tsuki (1989) Takeshi Kitano, Maiko Kawakami, Makoto Ashikawa, Action, Crime, Drama
Detective Azuma is a Dirty-Harry style rogue cop who often uses violence and unethical methods to get results. While investigating a series of drug-related homicides, Azuma discovers that his friend and colleague, Iwaki, is supplying drugs from within the police force. After Iwaki is murdered and Azuma’s sister is kidnapped, he breaks all the rules to dish out his particular form of justice.
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The Black Book / Kuroi gashû: Aru sarariman no shôgen (1960) Hiromichi Horikawa, Keiju Kobayashi, Chisako Hara, Tatsuyoshi Ehara, Crime, Drama
A forty-year-old office worker, Ishino get good income, nice family and a love affair with girl co-worker. His life is mostly perfect. One day, way home after affair, Ishino run across his neighbor, Sugiyama. They had known each other but not so close . Ishino hadn’t worry that his affair has catch. A few days later, police told Ishino that Sugiyama was arrested on charge of murder and claiming he had met Ishino in that day. If Ishino proved the Sugiyama’s alibi, Ishino’s life will be destroyed. If he give false evidence, Sugiyama will be hanged…
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Sanada fûunroku / Sasuke and His Comedians (1963) Tai Katô, Kinnosuke Nakamura, Misako Watanabe, Wataru Ômae, Comedy, Fantasy, History
Osaka in the early 1600s, aftermath of the historical Battle of Sekigahara; a group of orphan children are wandering through the battlefield scavenging for armour when they encounter a young boy named Sasuke with magical powers he says came from a meteor that crashed onto the Earth…Outrageous but emotionally affective, the film represents the youth culture whose causes it proclaims, taking the historical facts of the Osaka siege and the long-standing legend of the Sanada clan…
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Crimson Bat, the Blind Swordswoman / Mekura no oichi monogatari: Makkana nagaradori (1969) Sadatsugu Matsuda, Yôko Matsuyama, Chizuko Arai, Jun Tatara, Action, Adventure, Drama
A young blind girl is abandoned by her mother. When her guardian is killed, she learns to wield a sword from a traveling “Ronin”. She travels to seek her mother and her revenge.
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Dororo (2007) Akihiko Shiota, Satoshi Tsumabuki, Ko Shibasaki, Kiichi Nakai, Action, Fantasy, Horror
In the year 3048, the wounded Lord Kagemitsu Daigo proposes a deal to rule the whole world to forty-eight demons in their sealed temple. In return, the demons ask forty-eight parts of the body of his unborn son. When the mutilated baby is born, his mother puts him in a basket in the river flow to save his life. The baby survives and becomes the demon slayer Hyakkimaru that slash demons to retrieve his body parts. During his journey, he meets the female thief Dororo, who was raised as a boy after the death of her parents by the evil Lord Daigo, in a small town and she befriends Hyakkimaru and joins him in his quest seeking revenge against the Daigo’s clan.
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Seishun no yume ima izuko / Where Are the Dreams of Youth (1932) Yasujirô Ozu, Ureo Egawa, Kinuyo Tanaka, Tatsuo Saitô, Comedy, Romance
When a young man inherits his father’s lucrative business, he cheats the system to set up three of his college friends with jobs.
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Yume / Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams (1990) Akira Kurosawa, Ishirô Honda, Akira Terao, Mitsuko Baishô, Toshie Negishi, Drama, Fantasy
Unfolding in a series of eight mythic vignettes, this late work by Akira Kurosawa was inspired by the beloved director’s own nighttime visions, along with stories from Japanese folklore. In a visually sumptuous journey through the master’s imagination, tales of childlike wonder give way to apocalyptic apparitions: a young boy stumbles on a fox wedding in a forest; a soldier confronts the ghosts of the war dead; a power plant meltdown smothers a seaside landscape in radioactive fumes. Interspersed with reflections on the redemptive power of creation, including a richly textured tribute to Vincent van Gogh (who is played by Martin Scorsese), Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams is both a showcase for its maker’s artistry at its most unbridled and a deeply personal lament for a world at the mercy of human ignorance.
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Tokugawa onna keibatsu-shi / The Joy of Torture (1968) Teruo Ishii, Teruo Yoshida, Masumi Tachibana, Fumio Watanabe, Drama, Horror, Erotic
The Joy of Torture is an anthology that is made up three separate stories that all intersect: The first segment is about Shinza who was hurt while working when a log hit him on the head and now sister Mitsu is forced give herself to her brothers boss Mr. Mino in order to help pay for Shinza’s doctors bills. The second segment is about the arrival of mother Reiho and her servant Rintoku at the Jukuin monastery. The monastery is located new to e temple inhabited by priest and one day when one of them named Shunkei runs by Reiho he arouses something inside of her. The final segment is about a tattoo artist named Horicho who has just given Kimicho his greatest tattoo to date. While showing his work off to a group of people, a man named Lord Nambera walks by mocking the tattoo and it lack of realism.
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