Mikio Naruse’s Mother (1952) is a harrowing tale, simply told from the viewpoint of a teenaged girl, about a woman who has to overcome the death of her only son and her husband to ensure a good life for her remaining children (and that of her nephew). The story is relayed partly ... Read More »
Late Autumn is one of director Yasijirô Ozu’s last films—he would only direct two more after this—and although not one of his best, it is still a fantastic picture. The story is about Akiko Miwa (Setsuko Hara), a widow who wants her daughter Ayako (Yoko Tsukasa) to get married, b... Read More »
The influence of jazz is an explosive element to combine with any culture, but the youth in the burgeoning society in the post-war reconstruction of early 1960s Japan were particularly susceptible to its infectious hedonistic backbeats and structures of nihilistic freedom. Koreyo... Read More »
Master director Yasujiro Ozu’s Equinox Flower (1958) is a beautiful film. The story centers on a family whose oldest daughter, Setsuko (Ineko Arima) is near the age where she should be married. Thoughts of her marriage have entered the mind of her father, Wataru Hirayama (Shin ... Read More »
Kon Ichikawa's bleak comedy Odd Obsession fades from black onto the head and shoulders of Tatsuya Nakadai, just beginning the most fruitful period of his wide-ranging career as a leading man for the likes of Masaki Kobayashi, Hiroshi Teshigahara, and Akira Kurosawa. His medical s... Read More »
Akira Kurosawa achieved a marvelous thing when he made Throne of Blood (1957). He managed to take Shakespeare’s tragedy of Macbeth and transplant it to feudal Japan transforming a simply staged tale of greed and corruption into a grand samurai action epic with the same underpinn... Read More »
Cast: Machiko Kyô, Aiko Mimasu, Ayako Wakao Director: Kenji Mizoguchi Country: Japan Genre: Drama Editor’s Notes: This review of Street of Shame is apart of TIFF’s Spotlight Japan series which runs from January 19th to April 6th at TIFF Bell Lightbox. For more information, visit ... Read More »
Kenji Mizoguchi’s Sisters of the Gion (1936) tells the story of two Geisha sisters living in the Gion district of Kyoto (today called Tokyo). The tale begins with Mr. Furusawa (Benki Shiganoya) leaving his wife and child during a bankruptcy auction at his shop. He goes to live ... Read More »
Hiroshi Teshigahara’s 1966 film The Face of Another depicts quite a wide variety of things under the auspice of a psychological drama. That is certainly part of the structure, but it has many other elements as well. The story is basic. Mr. Okuyama (Tatsuya Nakadai) is a busine... Read More »
