Morning for the Osone Family (1946) & No Regrets for Our Youth (1946)

Among the first serious movies made and released during the Occupation, Osone and Regrets share many significant themes and situations. They also provide our first look at the only two major film-makers who began careers during the war years, Kinoshita and Kurosawa, and who were now released from the censorship or propaganda expectations of their …

Story of a Beloved Wife (1951)

Just as the title says, this is the story of a year in the life of a perfect wife, and just as you would also expect, it is a year that ends in a death scene. The primary interest is that this is an autobiographical movie by Kaneto Shindo about not only his first wife …

Ohara Shosuke-san (1949)

Shosuke Ohara is a character of folklore who wasted all his money, and thus it is the nickname applied to the central character of this very interesting movie by Shimizu. Denjiro Okochi, usually a samurai or a powerful father, here plays the last member of an old samurai family in a provincial small town / …

The Fellows Who Ate the Elephant / Zo o kutta renchu (1947)

Set as it is in 1947, I expected The Fellows Who Ate the Elephant to be a neo-realist study of people on the edge of starvation who were so desperate they raided the zoo. Instead we have a genuine comedy that on occasion gets outright laughs. The only elephant in Japan is sick. Yamashita had …

The Ball at the Anjo House / Anjo-ke no butokai (1947)

Bankrupted by the land reforms and new taxes of the Occupation era, a formerly wealthy family decide to hold one last ball in their home before they lose it. Echoes of Chekhov, particularly of The Cherry Orchard, run through everything we see. Though I think it would be unfair to call it a direct adaptation, …

Osaka Monogatari/ An Osaka Story (1957)

There are so many interesting aspects of Osaka monogatari  that it isn't easy to know where to start. The outline of the story is simple enough. A peasant family unable to pay their taxes runs away to Osaka. On the verge of starvation, they begin sweeping up rice that has leaked out of the carriers, …