Bloody Passion / Passion / Aka to kuro no netsujo (1992)

Bloody Passion starts at such a fever pitch that when the credits finally arrive, you think someone's mis-copied the reels and you've reached the ending. But it is in fact only the beginning of a very odd yakuza story that concludes with another of Eiichi Kudo's extended battle scenes, this time with pistols rather than …

Detective Story / Tantei monogatari (1983)

Of the number of female teen idols following in Momoe Yamaguchi's footsteps, the most successful was Hiroko Yakushimaru, whose movies not only drew huge audiences but who gradually transitioned into a respected actress, though her screen appearances came less often after her marriage in 1991. Detective Story is one of the major steps in that …

Love Hotel / Rabu Hoteru (1985)

Though its two critical scenes occur in a hotel room used for sexual assignations, Shinji Somai’s Love Hotel is a love story, though admittedly an odd one. Overwhelmed by debts which lead to the yakuza rape of his wife, Muraki (Minori Terada) tries to jump out a window and is distracted by a fly. He …

Girl Who Leapt Through Time / Toki o kakeru shojo (1983)

Having seen the popular anime version of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006), I was hardly prepared for the surprise of Obayashi’s live-action version of 1983. Though looking like a Suzuki movie in the constant changes of visual approach, it is a gentle and sensitive portrait of the onset of teenaged love, one of …

Demon Pond / Yashagaike (1979)

A man walks across a desert, eventually running out of water in his canteen. He suddenly comes upon an isolated house where a woman tends a pool formed from water seeping out of the Demon Pond, surrounded now by lush forests. As he talks, the man hiding inside recognizes the voice and reveals himself as …

Tale of Sorrow / Hishu monogatari (1977)

It took almost twenty years after Giants and Toys in 1958 for Japan to come up with such a jaundiced look at the interweaving of celebrity, advertising, and TV and the personal damage left in their wake as seen in  Tale of Sorrow. Along the way, the movie also throws in a sports guru training …

House / Hausu (1977)

The first time I saw Hausu, I thought it was the weirdest movie I had ever seen. I immediately made my wife watch it with me. She agreed, with both of us deciding it was a movie whose look was based on TV ads. The movie has attained such cult status that I had not …

Profound Desires of the Gods / Kamigami no fukaki yokubo (1968)

One of the most persistent themes of Japanese movies since the war has been the collision of “new” and “old” Japan, but rarely has that conflict been more obvious or intense than in Profound Desires of the Gods. However, where most such movies depict  a conflict between Euro/Americanism and the Japan of the Tokugawa & …

Velvet Hustler / Like a Shooting Star / Kurenai no nagareboshi (1967)

The Velvet Hustler is Goro (Tetsuya Watari), a young yakuza who neither is a hustler nor wears velvet, but then the Japanese title was really something along the lines of the alternate title, Like a Shooting Star. Goro is first seen whistling as he steals a red convertible, follows a businessman/yakuza, and shoots him before …

Husband and Wife / Fufu (1953)

The second movie in a casual trilogy about marriage, Naruse's Fufu looks at the problems of a salaryman and his wife in Tokyo in the early fifties. In looks, it seems like a shomin-geki, but it is almost humorless. Ken Uehara is transferred back to Tokyo by his company and faced with the problem of …