Classmates / Aa doki no sakura (1967)

While many Japanese movies in the 60s were exposing the failures of the Japanese army during WWII, there was also a new audience for war movies in which the Japanese could be heroes again. Interestingly, almost all of these dealt with the Navy, which is consistently depicted in a far more positive light than the …

Samurai Wolf II: Hell Cut / Kiba Okaminosuki Jigoku Giri (1967)

As a general rule, I try not to write about sequels, simply because there are so many other Japanese movies to discuss. For actual series, I like to deal with the first or second feature to describe the series itself, but since all series films involve a certain amount of repetition, it seems pointless to …

Innocent Witch / Woman of Osore Mountain / Osorezan no onna (1965)

Ayako's father hurts his back and can't go out fishing, so her mother resorts to the traditional solution and sells her to a local brothel. Her brief life afterward, in Gosho's subtle and fascinating Osorezan no onna, provides a penetrating look at life in a brothel and in the provincial world of pre-war Japan. At …

Tale of Japanese Burglars / Nippon dorobo monogatari (1965)

One of the basic rules for watching Japanese movies is: They will not turn out to be what you expect. The title, the posters, the DVD cover, and even IMDB all indicate that Tale of Japanese Burglars is a comedy. There are some comic moments, and there are some that seem much funnier to the …

Assassination / Ansatsu (1964)

Masahiro Shinoda's Ansatsu is one of the most visually and aurally imaginative movies of the sixties, which is saying a lot, with one of Tetsuro Tanba's best performances. It can also be one of the most confusing Japanese movies for an American to watch, because it deals with one of the most confusing years and …

Ghost Cat of Otama Pond (1960)

With ominous music on a dark night, a young couple walking home find themselves at a pond the young man once knew. No matter what direction they go, they always end up back at the pond. Finally, they follow a black cat they see to its home, which is an uninhabited ruin. Aha, we say, …

Carmen from Kawachi / Kawachi Karumen (1966)

To call Carmen from Kawachi a surprise would be one of the great understatements in film criticism. Knowing it is directed by Seijun Suzuki and stars Yumiko Nogawa, we would expect a flamboyant, even lurid adaptation of the Carmen story to modern Japan. Instead, we get a movie about a plucky but not particularly bright …

Punishment Island / Captives’ Island / Shokei no shima (1966)

A mysterious stranger arrives in a remote village on a mysterious mission, one of the basic formulas of suspense movies the world over. In Punishment Island, Masahiro Shinoda uses the formula to make a mysterious and suspenseful movie that also tries to be more than that. Saburo, the stranger, is actually no stranger, for he …

Seisaku’s Wife / Seisaku no tsuma (1965)

Seisaku's Wife is an extraordinary movie, the second of five stunning "women's pictures" that Masumura and Ayako Wakao would make together between 1964 and 1967, four of them like this one with a script by Kaneto Shindo.* At the same time, the movie is also a devastating attack on the militarism that permeated Japanese culture …

Pleasures of the Flesh / Etsuraku (1965)

Though released when Japanese movies were starting to show more female skin and made by the same man who became world-famous for the real sex scenes of In the Realm of the Senses, this is a movie that shows very little flesh and even less pleasure in it.* It is told through the eyes and …