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Shôhei Imamura – Nippon Sengoshi – Madamu onboro no Seikatsu AKA Postwar...
Quote:The star of this documentary is a quintessential Imamura heroine: a hard-nosed, ruthless survivor, with a sense of loyalty and an earthy sense of humor. In this movie, she sits in a Tokyo bar,...
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Shin’ya Tsukamoto – Kotoko (2011)
Quote:Mother love gets the Shinya Tsukamoto treatment in the Japanese auteur’s latest mindfuck, a boldly abrasive, sometimes overwhelming tour of an unbalanced psyche. Said psyche belongs to a young,...
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Teinosuke Kinugasa – Yukinojo henge AKA An Actor’s Revenge (1935)
Quote:Here is the 1935/1936 original version of “An Actor’s Revenge”, which was hugely popular at that time and a high point in Kazuo Hasegawa’s career. In fact, he even chose to remake this film as...
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Naoto Kumazawa – Oto-na-ri (2009)
Photographer Satoshi has become famous while working among the rhich and famous. His photos are worh a million. But the young man dreams of taking photos of Canadian landscapes instead of working in...
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Stephen Nomura Schible – Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda (2017)
One of the most important artists of our era, Ryuichi Sakamoto’s career spans from techno-pop stardom to Oscar-winning composer and anti-nuclear activist. This intimate portrait explores Sakamoto’s...
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Yasujirô Ozu – Rakudai wa shitakeredo aka I flunked but… (1930)
Yasujirô Ozu wrote:One could say this is the flip side of I Graduated, But… The student-protagonist scribbles his crib notes on his shirt sleeve, but the day of his graduation exam, the girl at his...
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Kon Ichikawa – Okuman choja aka A Billionaire (1954)
A full description of the film can be found in James Quandt’s edited collection of writings on (and by) Ichikawa Kon from the Cinemateque Ontario (in Sato Tadao’s essay “Kon Ichikawa” on pages 109 –...
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Naoko Ogigami – Toiretto AKA Toilet (2010)
Dysfunctional family and culture run amok in Toilet, which had an absolutely packed house last night at the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival and had many of the cast & crew in...
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Hsiao-Hsien Hou – Kôhî jikô AKA Café Lumière (2003)
Quote:Hou’s latest film continues in a similar vein Cafe Lumiereof hermetic environment and translucently slight narrative that have come to define his later, apolitical (and largely transitional)...
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Yôjirô Takita – Okuribito AKA Departures (2008)
SynopsisDepartures follows Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki), a devoted cellist in an orchestra that has just been dissolved and who is suddenly left without a job. Daigo decides to move back to his...
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Yôji Yamada – Otoko wa tsurai yo: Tabi to onna to Torajiro aka Tora-san 31:...
Quote:On a ship en route to the Sado Islands, Tora-san enjoys the company of a beautiful woman (Miyako Harumi), unaware that she’s a famous enka singer traveling incognito. In this variation on Roman...
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Nagisa Oshima – Seishun Zankoku Monogatari AKA Cruel Story of Youth (1960)
Nagisa Oshima’s groundbreaking film opens with young, attractive Mako and her friend hitching a ride from an old man. After her friend leaves, the man tries to rape her, and she is saved only by the...
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Seijun Suzuki – Jûsangô taihi-sen ori: Sono gôshô o nerae aka Take Aim At The...
A sharpshooter kills two prisoners in a police van at night. The guard on the van is suspended for six months; he’s Tamon, an upright, modest man. He begins his own investigation into the murders. Who...
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Kaneto Shindô – Gogo no Yuigon-jo AKA A Last Note (1995)
Quote:Veteran Japanese filmmaker Kaneto Shindo was 82 when he directed this meditation on life, death, and loss. Following the passing of her husband, elderly former actress Yoko Morimoto (Haruko...
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Nagisa Ôshima – Kôshikei AKA Death by Hanging (1968)
Quote: A clinically presented series of stark white, unembellished placards illustrates the sobering statistical data for the overwhelming public sentiment against the abolition of the death penalty...
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Nagisa Ôshima – Watashi-wa beretto AKA It’s Me Here, Bellett (1964)
Quote:Watashi-wa beretto is a promotional film for the automobile manufacturer Isuzu Jidosha directed by Nagisa Ôshima. Yasujirô Ozu assisted as executive creative consultant. 373MB | 26mn 35s |...
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Kenji Mizoguchi – Tokyo koshin-kyoku AKA Tokyo March [Japanese print] (1929)
IMDB:A classic melodramatic love tragedy addressing social inequality in feudal Japan, depicted in Kenji Mizoguchi’s typical style. The nostalgic scenes of 1920s Tokyo provides a valuable visual...
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Keisuke Kinoshita – Utae wakado-tachi AKA Sing, Young People (1963)
Quote:A college student receives a surprising offer to be a movie star in this unlikely Kinoshita film, sort of college film by the veteran director including even semi nude scene, but eventually the...
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Shinji Sômai – Tonda kappuru AKA The Terrible Couple (1980)
Aspiring to be admitted to a good university and to become a lawyer, Tasiro Yuusuke, a tenth-grader from Kyushu, enrols in a prestigious high school in Tokyo. Plans are made for him to live in his...
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Nagisa Ôshima – Etsuraku AKA Pleasure of the Flesh (1965)
After killing a man that raped one of his students, teacher Wakizaka finds himself embroiled in a plot being blackmailed into looking after a huge amount of cash. With tensions mounting and anxiety...
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