Samurai Spy / Ibun Sarutobi Sasuke (1965)

If you are looking for a samurai or a ninja movie, this is not a good place to start, though there are samurai and ninja aplenty. The hint is in the title -- this is a spy movie, made during the peak of the spy movie era. But it is directed by Masahiro Shinoda, which …

Good for Nothing / Rokudenashi (1960)

Kiju Yoshida's first feature, Good for Nothing is the thinking man's Sun Tribe movie. By this I mean not that it is unusually intellectual or profound, but rather that it goes out of its way to avoid sensationalism or the sexploitation that often hung around the Sun Tribe movies. Though there is a woman involved, …

Heavenly Dragon / Tenryu haha koi gasa (1960)

While providing another look at the phenomenon that was Hibari Misora, Heavenly Dragon also gives us a textbook lesson on tone and casting in the movies. It is the essence of the star vehicle, with Misora playing a double role as a sister and brother. The plot is right out of the basic chanbara formula …

Woman of the Ghostly Lantern / Umon torimonocho maboroshi toro no onna (1961)

Apparently part of a series, Woman of the Ghostly Lantern allows us to look at Japanese popular entertainment movies of its time. It is a basic murder mystery told in a light-hearted manner.  The ronin Bizen has been murdered and two competing detectives try to solve the case. One is the pompous and ambitious Murakami, …

Conquest / Scoundrel / Akuto (1965)

Set in the early 14th century, when there were two Emperors, Akuto shows us a Kyoto that has been occupied by the "northern" forces, who have driven out the "southern" Emperor and whom the old residents see as only slightly better than the peasant barbarians who are also in a state of occasional rebellion. We …

Woman in the Dunes / Suna no onna (1964)

Among all Japanese movies, my most unusual relationship is probably with Woman in the Dunes. It was the first Japanese movie I ever saw, barring perhaps some badly dubbed Godzillas on the Late Show.  It did not lead to my interest in Japanese movies in general, because the "foreign film" college fad of the sixties …

Sanjuro (1962)

Among other things, Sanjuro asks us, "When is a sequel not a sequel?" Though generally seen as a sequel to Yojimbo, and marketed as such by Toho in 1962, it is not altogether clear that they are even related. There's no doubt that Toshiro Mifune is playing the same character: He has the same costume, …

My Second Brother / Nianchan (1959)

Nianchan gives us a look at life in the coal fields that looks a lot like life in the Appalachians of the same era, but without cars. Set in a small town in southern Kyushu where everything depends on the one coal mine, it tells the story of a family whose father has died at …

Ninja, Band of Assassins / Shinobi no mono (1962)

It is one of the great ironies of the ways movies can work that they can often have exactly the opposite effect of their original intention. No better example in Japan is Shinobi no mono. Though it is a film about the corruption and ultimate destruction of a gang of assassins for hire,* it would …

Oh Bomb / Aa bakudan (1964)

Well! It is all but impossible to describe this flamboyant, chaotic, fascinating, and -- oh, yes --  funny film by Kihachi Okamoto. Ostensibly a gangster picture, it follows what would be one of the major templates of yakuza movies. Ona is the leader of his gang but has been in prison for three years. When …