Rhapsody in August / Hachigatsu no rapusodi (1991)

Himself one of the last of the Japanese directors to have experienced the war years as an adult, Kurosawa in 1991 used Kiyoko Murata's novella of a woman spending time with her grandchildren as a basis for a movie about the lasting after-effects of the Nagasaki bombing. While Kinoshita had dealt with the blast and …

Tomorrow / Ashita (1988)

Movies can show many things and have many effects on their audience, but even so, it's rare to find a movie that is simply overwhelming. In 1988, Japan produced two of them, one of which (Grave of the Fireflies) is still remembered and admired today, the other of which was essentially unknown outside Japan and, …

Black Rain / Kuroi ame (1989)

Rather naturally, Japanese movies have been far more interested in Hiroshima and Nagasaki than have Americans, but it is remarkable how little anger the films express toward the US. Only the 1953 Hiroshima, financed outside the studio system by the teacher's unions, really works up any fury about the use of the Bomb itself. Black …

Children of Nagasaki / Kono ko wo nokoshite (1983)

Nagasaki is often the ignored city in the atomic bomb history, with most attention still given to Hiroshima. Kinoshita's Children of Nagasaki looks at the effects of that bombing, and as such its subject matter rather overwhelms any urge to criticize the film as a whole. However, because it is placed in Nagasaki, it is …

Ballad of Narayama / Narayama bushiko (1983)

Imamura’s Ballad of Narayama could not be more different from Kinoshita’s version. Where Kinoshita used a kabuki-like stage setting with realistic acting to tell the fable, Imamura opts for intense realism. This makes Imamura’s version more dramatic, at times more humorous, and more immediately powerful. In addition to dispensing with artificial scenery and moving his …

Heart, Beating in Darkness / Yami utso shinzo (1982)

Heart, Beating in Darkness is a rare student project that actually has a story and characters that also make sense, which would lead to a professional career for its writer/director Shunichi Nagasaki. It was shot entirely on 8mm and in natural light, or perhaps natural darkness would be a better description, but with a pair …

Preparation for the Festival / Matsuri no junbi (1975)

The story of my first love affair and how I ran away from my small town to become a writer has been a staple of American literature and film since at least Look Homeward, Angel, but it has been something of a rarity in Japanese movies. Kaneto Shindo had made his first movie about his …

Freezing Point / Hyoten (1966)

If a performer's career can be defined as an arc, then 1965-66 was the zenith of Ayako Wakao’s career. In those two years we run from Seisaku’s Wife to Red Angel, with Irezumi and Gan in between, a sequence that would place her among not only Japan’s finest actresses but also the world’s. In between …

Sandakan 8 / Sandakan hachibanshokan bohkyo (1974)

Sandakan was the British name for a port town in northern Borneo, and Sandakan #8 was the eighth brothel on the main street. Most of the brothels were stocked with Japanese women. During the Meiji era, similar brothels spread all across Southeast Asia, and even into Manchuria and Siberia decades ahead of the Japanese military. …

Inn of Evil / At the Risk of My Life / Inochi bo ni furo (1971)

The Inn of Evil sits on an island where several of Edo’s rivers reach the sea, connected to the mainland by a single walkway, and thus is a gathering place for smugglers. Like the cafe in Carne’s Port of Shadows, it is home to men who no longer fit into society. They aren’t ronin or …