The Burmese Harp/ Harp of Burma/ Biruma no tategoto (1956)

Kon Ichikawa's Burmese Harp was immediately accepted as one of the great humanist anti-war films when it appeared at the Venice Festival in 1956. Considering its story outline, often beautiful photography, and the sincerity of the performances, it would be hard to argue with that opinion, shared by numerous critics of the time and since. …

Desperado Outpost/Dokuritsu gurentai (1959)

From the moment we fade in on Makoto Sato stretched out across the plains (and the widest possible 'scope screen), we know we have stumbled onto something completely unexpected. Desperado Outpost is a kind of movie we never associate with Japan, a wild piece of pure entertainment that has nothing to do with samurai, yakuza, …

Yotsuya Kaidan/Yotsuda Phantom/Ghost Story of Yotsuya (1949)

Let me just state at the beginning -- this is a great movie. No, I mean it. Japanese critics ignored it at the time and still do in their all-time great lists, but then the 2009 Kinema Junpo list leaves out Sansho the Bailiff, so what can you say? Yotsuya Kaidan was one of the …

Wife! Be Like a Rose/ Kimiko/ Tsuma yo bara no yo ni (1935)

Rarely do we find such a sharp contrast in a single film between the "modern" and the "traditional" of pre-war Japanese society as we find in Mikio Naruse's Wife! Be Like a Rose. A surprisingly emotionally complex film, perhaps the best way to describe it would be a comic family tragedy. We start with a …

Don’t Tell Your Wife About It/ Madame Shall Not Know/ Okusama ni shirasu bekarazu (1937)

While this is an entertaining little shomin-geki comedy, it holds some additional interest on a social level. We meet two hen-pecked husbands who get maneuvered by a series of misunderstandings into fighting to protect their wives' honor. I think immediately of Laurel and Hardy's sound shorts, but this doesn't have the pratfalls or extended sight …

Advance Patrol/ 300 Miles Through Enemy Lines/ Nichiro senso shori no hishi (1957)

Most viewers would probably be interested in seeing this film today because it was written by Akira Kurosawa during WWII. It was not produced, of course; speculation is that it was not sufficiently patriotic in that the soldiers are in fact ordered to come back alive, but more likely was that it simply required more …

Our Neighbor, Miss Yae/ Tonari no Yae-chan (1934)

Where to begin? This is a fascinating and entertaining movie, and I would encourage anyone to watch it. But, boy, to these particular eyes, there are a lot of surprises. If you don't like spoilers, don't read any further. Just go find the movie and enjoy. It's an excellent shomin-geki and arguably the best of …

Children of the Beehive/ Hachi no su no kodomotachi (1948)

A ragtag ex-POW gets off a train and doesn't board a new one. This attracts the attention of some young boys hanging around the station. After a long staring contest, he gives one a small loaf of bread, only to see him take it to a crippled man who then resells it. The boy explains …

Women of the Night/ Yoru no onnatachi (1948)

Women of the Night is one of Mizoguchi's most unexpected films. Because it is directed by Mizoguchi and has also been released by Criterion, there is already a considerable amount of commentary about it, both in print and on the web. Nevertheless, I would like to raise a few points about its unusual nature. Most …

Okami / Wolves (1955)

A very interesting movie written and directed by Kaneto Shindo that seems to have slipped through the cracks.¹ Okami starts with a robbery of a mail truck carrying money, but its real concern is what brought the five robbers to this point. After a brief opening sequence, we go into a long flashback in which …