My Sons / Musuko (1991)

Akio is a tobacco farmer* with two sons, both of whom have left home. Tadashi went to university and is now a Tokyo salaryman with a wife Reiko and two little girls. Tetsuo is also in Tokyo but still bouncing from job to job, and he almost misses the family reunion for the first anniversary …

Half Brothers / Stepbrothers / Ibo kyoudai (1957)

To call Ibo kyoudai a surprise would be one of the great understatements. A powerful mix of the josei-eiga and socio/political commentary, it reflects the life of the nation from WWI to the defeat of WWII through the life of a single family, while giving us two of the most powerful roles in the long …

Last Dance / Daibyonin (1993)

Daibyonin roughly translates as “the big sickness,” from which Juzo Itami managed to fashion a comedy about dying of cancer. Euro/American distributors opted to use a somewhat more attractive title, The Last Dance, from the Ben E. King hit “Save the Last Dance for Me” that was apparently a big hit in a Japanese version* …

Turning Point / A Mature Woman / Onna zakari (1994)

I came to Turning Point almost at random, expecting from the title another of Obayashi's teen movies. I could not have been more surprised when I found a subtle and complex study of a woman in her forties, which would have been less of a surprise had I seen the Japanese title Onna zakari. Based …

Princess Goh / Go-hime (1992)

Teshigahara's Go-hime picks up its story just after Sen no Rikyu committed seppuku. While talking to Lord Oribe, Hideyoshi tries to deny anything to do with it, even though we saw in Rikyu that Hideyoshi not only ordered the suicide but also sent men to guarantee it was carried out. Oribe, a famous daimyo disciple …

Rikyu (1989)

The life and death of Sen no Rikyu, the famous master of the tea ceremony, brought out two very different movies almost simultaneously in 1989. I have already posted about Kei Kumai's Death of a Tea Master, but in Rikyu the subject is taken on by Teshigahara, who came out of an almost two decade …

Taxing Woman’s Return / Marusa no onna 2 (1988)

In what will seem awfully familiar to contemporary Americans, The Taxing Woman's Return targets much larger game than in her first feature – personally invented religions, real-estate developers, and government corruption. Rentaro Mikuni has set up a religious scam with his wife playing the Holy Matriarch. She conducts Buddhist chant services that send her followers …

Wuthering Heights / Arashi ga oka (1988)

On its surface the least likely European novel for a Japanese adaptation, Wuthering Heights is transformed by Yoshihige Yoshida, Toru Takemitsu, and a towering characterization by Yusaku Matsuda into one of the finest unknown Japanese movies ever made and certainly the best film adaptation of the novel itself I have ever seen. A blind biwa …

The Love and Adventures of Kuroki Taro / Kuroki Taro to ai no boken (1977)

Kuroki Taro is a stuntman, something of a rarity in Japanese movies.* However, we only see him do one kind of stunt, car races and wrecks, at the very beginning of the movie. The “Love and Adventures” all occur far from the movie set. Juichi and his two buddies are introduced to us on a …

Mr. Mrs. Miss Lonely / Misuta, Misesu, Misu Ronri (1980)

Roughly once a month or so, it seems, I come across a previously unknown Japanese movie and find that it is an experience that is almost impossible to describe. Just such a picture is Mr. Mrs. Miss Lonely, which from its title to its presentation simply defies coherent description or comment without also destroying the …