Sunday, May 19, 2024
Kwaidan
- Commentary: Under construction.
Story 1: Kurokami
Actor Role Actor Role Actor Role Actor Role Michiyo Aratama First Wife Misako Watanabe Second Wife Rentarō Mikuni Husband Actor Name Kenjiro Ishiyama
Story 2: Yuki-Onna
Actor Role Actor Role Actor Role Actor Role Tatsuya Nakadai Minokichi Keiko Kishi Yuki-Onna Yūko Mochizuki Mother Kin Sugai Village Woman
Story 3: Miminashi Hōichi no Hanashi
Actor Role Actor Role Actor Role Actor Role Katsuo Nakamura Hoichi Tetsurō Tamba Warrior Takashi Shimura Head Priest Yoichi Hayashi Minamoto no Yoshitsune
Story 4: Chawan no naka
Actor Role Actor Role Actor Role Actor Role Haruko Sugimura Madame Osamu Takizawa Author/Narrator Nakamura Ganjirō II Publisher Noboru Nakaya Shikibu Heinai
Here's a link to the Wikipedia write-up of the film.
Release Date: 1965
Directed by Masaki Kobayashi.
Labels: Criterion8, folk-horror, masaki-kobayashi
Sunday, December 03, 2023
Harakiri
- Commentary: Under construction.
I am sooo looking forward to the arrival of this film! I've seen it once before, when I lived in Sacramento in the early 80s. It was a bad print with no subtitles (either Japanese or English) and I wasn't going to go to the screening for these reasons, but my Asian Film friends encouraged me, anyway, saying that I would not miss anything by not understanding the speech in it. They were half right, and half wrong. The story is clear without speech. The characterizations are, hmmm, well, relatively clear. The relationships even less clear. So I'm very excited to be adding this to my collection. I feel as though I am finally going to be experiencing the impact of this film the way an astute viewer and appreciator of Japanese film should be doing.
By the way, at Roger Ebert's website, when you search for this movie, more than a few articles discussing it appear. My intention is to read all the articles. In addition, Roger Ebert christened this as one of his Great Movies.
Actor Role Actor Role Actor Role Actor Role Tatsuya Nakadai Tsugumo Hanshirō Rentarō Mikuni Saitō Kageyu Akira Ishihama Chijiiwa Motome Shima Iwashita Tsugumo Miho Tetsurō Tamba Omodaka Hikokuro Ichirō Nakatani Yazaki Hayato Masao Mishima Inaba Tango Kei Satō Fukushima Masakatsu
Here's a link to the Wikipedia write-up of the film.
Release Date: 1962
Directed by Masaki Kobayashi.
Labels: Criterion7, masaki-kobayashi, samurai
Wednesday, March 22, 2023
The Human Condition
- Commentary: Under construction.
Actor Role Actor Role Tatsuya Nakadai Kaji Michiyo Aratama Michiko
This presentation is divided into three parts, none of which are complete without the other two. Thus, the best reviews of this trilogy acknowledge the relationship among the parts. Below are two of the best reviews I've found for the trilogy:
The Human Condition I: No Greater Love
Although the title above seems to indicate that it covers only the first part of the trilogy, the essay actually covers all three parts.
The Human Condition Movie Trilogy Review: Japanese Cinema Classic
The films in this trilogy are:
No Greater Love
Actor Role Actor Role Actor Role Actor Role Chikage Awashima Tōfuku Kin Ineko Arima Shunran Yō Sō Yamamura Okishima Keiji Sada Kageyama
Here is a link to the Wikipedia write-up of the film.
Release Date: 1959
Directed by: Masaki Kobayashi.
Road to Eternity
