Tag Archives: Kon Ichikawa

Read More »

Koto is a 1980 film directed by Kon Ichikawa starring Momoe Yamaguchi and Tomokazu Miura in an adaptation of Yasunari Kawabata’s story The Old Capital. Read More »

Kon Ichikawa’s rich adaptation of Natsume Soseki’s classic novel depicts a complex relationship between a student and an older man he calls “sensei.” Read More »

Set in 1926 when Japanese tradition was much stronger, this standard drama looks at the inner workings of a small family, especially the relationship between a sister and brother.
Read More »

It is the Philipines, 1945. The Japanese Imperial Army has been reduced to a ragtag mob hiding in the jungles. Among them is Pvt. Tamura.
Read More »

Follows the fluctuating fortunes of three friends in feudal Japan who are ronin: masterless warriors, who wander from castle to castle, selling their services to whichever lord will fill their rice bowls. These are not the YOJIMBO Super Samurai but rather the rank and file, the spear-carriers. The irony is that even though they use the servants’ entrance, they still feel themselves bound by the samurai code of Bushido; and this tension leads to tragedy.
Read More »

The first story concerns an attractive young woman who works in a Tokyo nightclub. Her plan for a solid financial future has a double whammy. She is investing in a company on the one hand, and on the other, taking action to snare the son of the company’s owner in matrimonial bliss. In the second story, a beautiful young woman is employed by an unscrupulous real estate agent to convince male clients to invest in worthless property. A scrub in the tub usually does the trick. The last story is about a widowed geisha who has no real financial worries and when she falls in love with a forger, she opts to wait for him after he is sent to prison, rather than follow societal or family dictates.
Read More »

400 hundred years ago the inhabitants of the village of Yatsuhaka murdered 8 samurai rebels, whom they were actually helping to hide away, afraid of what the Shogunate would do to them. Before dying one the samurai puts a curse on the village. Strange things start to happen so the villagers decided to erect 8 graves for the murdered samurai to appease their anger. Then four hundred years later the head of Tajimi family and head of the village goes mad and starts killing almost everyone in the village. 25 years later his eldest son is poisoned. Kindaichi Yousuke detective is hired by the family’s lawyer as everyone in the village believes is the curse of the samurai again.
Read More »

Weary of their lot, ten women – all mistresses of the same philandering businessman – join forces to wreak revenge upon him. A comedy of reversed expectations, gleefully upending traditional onscreen representations of gender (the women here act and talk like men, while the men are weak, confused or ineffectual), it’s shot in an exaggerated noir-ish manner – complete with multiple flashbacks and highly stylised visuals – that serves highlight the artificiality of its conceit.
Read More »

Kenichi Horie is determined to challenge his family, the law and the nature crossing the Pacific to America in a small sailboat. Despite his careful planning many unforeseen events will test his determination.
Read More »