Fumiko struggles to get her literary work published, spending years working Read More »
Tag Archives: japanese
Wandering Ginza Butterfly 2: She-Cat Gambler AKA Gincho nagaremono mesuneko bakuchi (1972) Kazuhiko Yamaguchi, Meiko Kaji, Shin’ichi Chiba, Shingo Yamashiro
Nami(played by Meiko Kaji) returns to Tokyo to find the man who killed her father 13 years ago. Read More »
Vacation AKA Kyûka (2008) Hajime Kadoi, Kaoru Kobayashi, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Nene Ohtsuka
The prison guards working in penitentiaries where death row inmates are locked Read More »
Mishima: The Last Debate AKA Mishima Yukio vs Tôdai zenkyôtô: 50 nenme no shinjitsu (2020) Keisuke Toyoshima, Yukio Mishima, Osamu Kimura, Masahiko Akuta
One of Japan’s most important 20th century literary figures, nominated for the Nobel Prize Read More »
Nekomimi (1994) Jun Kurosawa
Experimental film in which three girls and one boy lead playful lives. Read More »
I Will Buy You AKA Anata kaimasu (1956) Masaki Kobayashi, Keiji Sada, Keiko Kishi, Minoru Ôki
Kobayashi’s pitiless take on Japan’s professional baseball industry is unlike any other sports film ever made. Read More »
The Last Ronin AKA Saigo no Chûshingura (2010) Shigemichi Sugita, Kôji Yakusho, Kôichi Satô, Nanami Sakuraba
16 years after the fateful “revenge of the Forty-seven Ronin” involving samurais from the Ako Read More »
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021) Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Kotone Furukawa, Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Katsuki Mori
An unexpected love triangle, a failed seduction trap and an encounter that results from a misunderstanding Read More »
Delinquent Girl Boss: Ballad of Yokohama Hoods AKA Zubeko banchô: Hamagure kazoe uta (1971) Kazuhiko Yamaguchi, Reiko Ôshida, Yukie Gagawa, Shuushibo
The local yakuza gangs dominating the port of Yokohama do not take well the invasion of their territory Read More »
Delinquent Girl Boss: Tokyo Drifters AKA Zubekô banchô: Tôkyô nagaremono (1970) Kazuhiko Yamaguchi, Kayako Sono, Reiko Ôshida
Rika, an ex reform school student, joins a clan of street vendors: the Yakuza intervention soon breaks their peaceful business. Read More »
Misono Universe AKA La La La at Rock Bottom (2015) Nobuhiro Yamashita, Subaru Shibutani, Fumi Nikaidô, Sarina Suzuki
As a band plays for a crowd in a certain town square in Osaka, a young man rushes the stage Read More »
Marriage AKA Kekkon (1947) Keisuke Kinoshita, Kinuyo Tanaka, Ken Uehara, Eijirô Tôno
In postwar Japan a young woman is unable to marry her sweetheart because her family’s in difficult circumstances and needs her income to keep afloat. Read More »
Fine with Occasional Murders AKA Hare tokidoki satsujin (1984) Kazuyuki Izutsu, Noriko Watanabe, Yôsuke Tagawa, Masataka Matsutôya
Kanako returns from the USA to a troubled mother who witnessed a man Read More »
Trail of Blood AKA Mushukunin Mikogami no Jôkichi: Kiba wa hikisaita (1972) Kazuo Ikehiro, Yoshio Harada, Atsuo Nakamura, Kayo Matsuo
Can a sinful man change and find peace? It’s unlikely in gang-plagued Japan. Read More »
The Lady in a Black Dress AKA Kuroi doresu no onna (1987) Yôichi Sai, Tomoyo Harada, Toshiyuki Nagashima, Hideo Murota
A woman arrives as an acquaintance of a sister in law for a day under the bar master Tamura who had guided Yakuza’s escaping. Read More »