Summer Days with Coo / Kappa no Ku to natsuyasumi (2007)

Coo is a kappa, a legendary water creature of Japanese folklore. By accident, young Koichi in modern Tokyo finds what looks like an interesting fossil, but as he cleans it in water, the kappa gradually returns to life. The kappa is immensely grateful and, in the way of animated features everywhere, becomes friends with Koichi. …

Love and Honor (2006)

Since it is also based on a story by Shuhei Fujisawa, Love and Honor is naturally compared to Twilight Samurai and Hidden Blade, Yoji Yamada's two previous films adapted from the same author. Though like those other two movies it includes a sword duel, it is really about a husband and wife and the world …

Drive / Doraibu (2002)

As it happens, drive is one thing the hero of Drive does not have. He does have a company car which he drives with absolute obedience to the rules, as he does everything else in his life. Every day at 11:00, Asakura times a stop at a red light outside a bank so he can …

Twilight Samurai / Tasogare Seibei (2002)

Iguchi is nicknamed “Twilight” by the samurai he works with because he always goes home at twilight rather than stopping for a drink or two with his compatriots, but Twilight Samurai also takes place in the 1860s, the twilight of the samurai era itself when the Shogunate is about to fall. Iguchi has good reasons …

Vengeance for Sale / Vengeance is Such Good Business / Sukedachi-ya Sukeroku (2001)

Revenge is one of the foundation stones of storytelling, drama, and film in Japanese as well as European culture, and Kihachi Okamoto uses it in his last movie to make a sprightly comedy mixed with the cynicism about the Samurai Code to be found in the best sixties chanbara. Most Japanese vengeance movies fall into …

After the Rain / Ame agaru (1999)

Ihei is a wandering ronin who has been done in over the years by his own good nature. He and his wife find themselves stranded at an inn as the river they want to cross is flooded. He enters a prize-fight and uses the prize money for food and drink for all the people in …

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 …

Circus Boys / Nijisseiki shônen dokuhon (1989)

The Art Theater Guild had ceased production and distribution in 1986, but its spirit lived on, most notably in the films of Kaizo Hayashi. In a sense, Hayashi was the first Japanese writer/director who fell in love with movies themselves rather than with making movies, which led eventually to his three movies about Maiku Hama, …

Fighting Elegy / Kenka ereji (1966)

Fighting Elegy is at once one of the most serious and one of the weirdest movies of the sixties. In simplest terms, it is the story of how a 12 or 13-year-old thug grew into a 16 or 17-year-old thug. The dates covered, however, are 1932-36, and the thug ends the movie on his way …

Samurai I / Musashi Miyamoto (1954)

There are several stories that Japanese audiences apparently can't get enough of, and thus remakes seem to occur even more often in Japanese movies than in American ones. The most common is the story of the 47 Ronin, based on a historical event. This has appeared so often, sometimes even twice in a year from …