Tag Archives: japanese

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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The fifth shogun searches for a woman who would love him for the person he is, and not because of his title and rank. With over a hundred women to choose from,who will bare him a son and become number one? A tragic love story involving the fifth shogun of the tokugawa dynasty and a woman who became one of his concubines.
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A young student falls into a hopeless romantic attraction to an invalid girl whom he can only see from afar.
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In the tradition of JOY OF TORTURE, this film presents three stores of sadism and perversion taking place in Edo during a time of civil war. The first story is about doomed lovers, the second is about a noblewoman who likes to do it with hairy midgets and imported black slaves because of a certain incident in her past and finally the third story is about the marvel of caesarean section.
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The story takes place in feudal Japan, when any commerce with the rest of the world was strictly prohibited. An idealist suddenly appears in an isolated inn (the one that the title refers to), the head-quarters of a group of smugglers, with stolen money intended to ransom his loved one who is forced to work in a brothel.
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The story of an orphan girl, brought up in naive, rustic innocence by an elderly relative, who is suddenly exposed to the brutality, greed and deceptiveness of the outside world, when her grandmother dies. Notwithstanding her healthy distrust of all strangers, which her upbringing instilled in her, it is not long before a cunning racketeer finds her weak point, that temptation which she cannot resist, that weakness, different as it may be, that each of us has, and brings her into his power.
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This groundbreaking drama, one of few to feature gay lifestyles in a Japanese context, is the work of writer, editor, cinematographer, director and co-star Hiroyuki Oki, an avant-garde filmmaker. In the liberal enclave of Kochi City, Japan, a gay college student, You (pronounced using two syllables as “Yo-ooh”), is living a contented life with his lover and classmate. Then he spies an attractive young man at a train station, and their meeting leads to a subsequent sexual encounter. Although You confesses his infidelity to his boyfriend and even seeks the advice of an ex-lover, he does not completely break off his new relationship, leading to a love triangle that forces each of the men to question his sexuality and identity. Running barely one hour long, I Like You, I Like You Very Much (1995) was short for a feature-length film but earned critical respect for tackling what remains an extremely sensitive cultural issue in its home country.
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A series of ghastly murders is being committed. The one similarity in each of the murders is that a weird buzzing sound is always heard right before the murder occurs. Is the killer invisible or possibly some other incredible creature?
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Kousatsu portrays and condemns the oppressive atmosphere of a highly competitive society governed by “hypocritical adults” that prevent young people being young, leading them to commit acts of rebellion and acts of uncontrolled violence or even self-destruct.
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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.
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