Hana-bi* (1997)

The enigma that is Takeshi Kitano has never been more prevalent than in Hana-bi. Filled with the moments of explosive violence that is his trademark among international audiences, it is actually a very quiet, gentle love story mixed with an exploration of the creative process itself. First, the violence. Kitano plays the cop Nishi. While …

Hot Little Girl / Shibire kurage (1970)

The story of Shibire kurage is fairly simple – Midori is a young woman supporting herself as a model while saving for her marriage, who through a series of set backs that are not her fault will end up losing her fiancé, her job, and a second possible husband, and will break all ties with …

Life of an Amorous Man / A Lustful Man / Koshoku ichidai otoko (1961)

Saikaku Ihara's Koshoku ichidai otoko of 1682 was one of the most significant and popular novels of the Tokugawa era, all but unknown outside Japan primarily because there have been no translations. The title is usually translated as Life of an Amorous Man, to parallel his later Life of an Amorous Woman that was the …

Oil Hell Murder / Onna goroshi abura no jigoku (1992)

In what would sadly be his last movie before his death in 1992, Gosha turned to Chikamatsu for inspiration. Working from the last screenplay of the great Masato Ide, who had died several years before the film went into production, the movie shifted the focus of Chikamatsu's original to a woman who, though the murder …

Warm Current / Danryu (1939)

Danryu, which only fairly recently appeared on YouTube, marks one of the turning points in pre-war Japanese movie-making. It is a movie in which questions of marriage turn completely on female love rather than social status or familial arrangements. As usual for Japanese films, it takes us a while to reach the real story. Hibiki …

Crowded Train / Manin densha (1957)

In Manin densha the crowded train becomes a metaphor for the new world facing both the salaryman and the educated in postwar Japan, where education quickly outraced the business world. Wherever our hero Tamio goes, whether it is university graduation, the commuter train, the office, or the search for a mate, the world is just …

Kai (1985)

Iwago is a broker who buys and sells young girls in and around Kochi. He buys Kiku to save her from being sold to China where her liver will be harvested for medicines and spontaneously decides she will belong to his own house as a daughter. He later buys Somemayu to resell to the local …

Stolen Pleasure / Tadare (1962)

Made just after Temple of the Wild Geese, Tadare once again places Ayako Wakao in the role of a mistress, but here she is a mistress who will fight for her man. Whether he is worth it, however, is a different question. Wakao is currently the mistress of Asai, played by the epitome of the …

Diary of a Mad Old Man / Futen Rojin nikki (1962)

Diary of a Mad Old man might more accurately be called Diary of a Sad Old Man, as So Yamamura gives us one of the most humiliating portrayals of a man who has lost all self-control until the later Love for an Idiot, also based on a book by Tanizaki. Approaching his 77th birthday, he …

For My Daughter’s 7th Birthday / Kono ko no nanatsu no oiwai ni (1984)

A major life event for a Japanese girl is the seventh birthday,* when she first puts on an obi and begins to be treated not as a child but as a woman-to-be. On young Kaya’s seventh birthday, her mother (Kyoko Kishida) returns to their poverty-stricken home bearing the obi and other presents including candy (since …