Shinsengumi: Assassins of Honor / Shinsengumi (1969)

Throughout the 1960s, the decade after the Americans arrived became a popular topic in Japanese historical movies, as we have seen in numerous earlier posts on this blog. That interest came to some kind of peak in 1969, with Toshiro Mifune’s production of Shisengumi, in which he portrayed the group’s most significant and charismatic leader, …

Militarists / Gekido no showashi: Gunbatsu (1970)

As a movie, Gunbatsu has its problems, but as a history it still has its fascinations. Though the prologue warns us that some of the characters and scenes are fictional, it is relatively easy to spot those scenes, leaving us a straightforward re-creation of General Tojo’s rise and of the war effort from 1936 to …

Wanderer’s Notebook / Her Lonely Lane (1962)

In 1951, Mikio Naruse made Repast, his first film based on a novel by Fumiko Hayashi with a screenplay by Sumie Tanaka, Hayashi actually died before her novel was finished or movie production began so he probably never even met her, but in the ensuing years, her work would also be the source for Inazuma, …

What Is Your Name? / Always in My Heart / Kimi no na wa (1953)

A man and a woman meet in an air raid. After leaving the shelter they talk for a moment on the nearby bridge and promise to meet there again in six months if both are still alive. A second air raid separates them before they learn each others’ names. They do both survive the war …

Live Today, Die Tomorrow / Hadaka no jukyusai (1970)

Based on a real-life case, Kaneto Shindo’s Live Today, Die Tomorrow provides a complex and yet frustrating examination of disaffected youth. Michio graduates from “middle school” and along with all the boys of his class is shipped on a government work program from Hokkaido where there are no jobs to Tokyo. He ends up working …

Room for Rent / Kashima ari (1959)

So few Japanese comedies are available to Euro/American viewers that it would be a great joy just to have Room to Rent as a sampler. Fortunately, it is more than that, a genuine laugh out loud comedy that is thoroughly Japanese and yet universal in its appeal. Essentially, it is a comedy about a place, …

Wandering Princess / Ruten no ohi (1960)

After almost five years without any projects, Kinuyo Tanaka returned behind the camera in 1960. The Wandering Princess is her first wide-screen and color film. While it is a reminder of the human side of history, even at the very top levels of society, it never really develops that in a dramatic way. Ryuko, a …

Tank Commander Nishizumi / Nishizumi senshacho-den (1940)

Very few of the Japanese movies made during the war have survived the effects of bombings and Occupation, so Tank Commander Nishizumi joins a very small group of available movies about soldiers made during the war years. As with so many Japanese movies, it is remarkable for what it is not. It can be called …

Three Women Around Yoshinaka / Shin, Heike monogatari: Yoshinaka o meguru sannin no onna (1956)

The Heike monogatari is one of the great epics of medieval Japan, something like the Homeric epics, the Eddas, or the convoluted histories of England that resulted in Shakespeare’s history plays. As such, it had been retold, re-written, adapted into Noh plays, and thus known in some form by most educated Japanese long before Eiji …

Incident at Blood Pass / Ambush / Machibuse (1970)

A man walks down a road (camera behind of course because this is a Japanese movie), slightly atilt in his posture, and we think we’ve seen that man before. Then he shrugs a shoulder and we know it is Toshiro Mifune, back as the ronin with no name. He soon is given an actual job …