Tree Without Leaves / Deciduous Trees / Rakuyoju (1986)

An old man walks through the snow and hears his mother calling him in to supper on a summer night, beginning a long journey into his childhood memories. Since the old man is a screenwriter now trying to write his first “novel,” we can assume this is an autobiographical film by Kaneto Shindo about his …

Double Suicide at Sonezaki / Sonezaki shinju (1978)

The love suicide has permeated Japanese popular culture, almost as significant a subject as seppuku itself.* Chikamatsu’s Double Suicide at Sonezaki was one of the major drivers in the subject's popularity, as it was the first play (initially for bunraku then later Kabuki) in which both lovers were commoners. Given its immense popularity on stage …

Homeless / Yadonashi (1974)

The Homeless follows a tried-and-true Euro/American formula of three unlikely people brought together at last in search of the Big Score. Shintaro Katsu is a petty criminal who meets Ken Takakura in prison, but they do not become friends. Released on the same day, Takakura rejects a partnership with Katsu to go his own way. …

Female Prisoner #701 Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 / Joshu sasori: Dai-41 zakkyo-bo (1972)

In the world of what are commonly known as exploitation films, there is nothing quite like the Female Prisoner #701 Scorpion series, and in that series, there is nothing quite like the second, Jailhouse 41. For one thing, the women stay dressed – it is the men who have the nude scenes. The women wear …

Blood for Blood / Bloody Feud / Ryuketsu no koso (1971)

Blood for Blood is a yakuza movie remarkable primarily for Jo Shishido’s sidesburns and Hajime Kaburagi’s music score. Shishido plays the standard yakuza #2 just released from prison to find his old gang under pressure both from traditional enemies and from new, larger Tokyo gangs as well. After a while, there are so many different …

Woman Gambler / Showa onna bakuto (1972)

One of the most popular of all the many film series of the sixties was Kyoko Enami’s Woman Gambler, reaching 16 features at Daei. After Raizo Ichikawa’s death and Shintaro Katsu’s move to independent production, the Woman Gambler was practically Daiei’s only dependable money maker, but it was not enough to keep the studio out …

Lady Snowblood / Shurayukihime (1973)

In spite of his tremendous artistic achievements, it may be that Kurosawa’s greatest contribution to Japanese cinema was the blood spurt introduced in Sanjuro. That reaches some kind of apotheosis in Lady Snowblood, which gives us not just puddles but lakes, even oceans, of blood spurting out of bodies to unimaginable distances, in quantities not …

Rising Dragon Ghost Story / Blind Woman’s Curse / Kaidan nobori ryu / Hichirimen bakuto – Nobarydu takahada (1970)

Though the final scene suggests the beginning of a series, Blind Woman’s Curse is the last movie of the Rising Dragon series, notable historically for showing us the moment of transition from the cute ingenue period of Masako Ota into the iconic powerful womanhood of the meteor that was the re-named Meiko Kaji. It also …

Story of a Prostitute / Shunpu den (1965)

For all of his career, Seijun Suzuki was a contract director who was required to shoot whatever movie was assigned to him with whatever cast was assigned to him. Since he worked at Nikkatsu, this almost always meant modern-dress crime and action movies that were heavily male-centered. In most of his earlier movies, he showed …

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 …