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 …

Roadside Stone / Pebble by the Wayside / Robo no ishi (1938)

The rock left by the side of the road is young Goichi, now approaching the end of fifth grade. Like Takeshi in Childhood Days, he is the smartest boy in his class but is poor and can not afford to go on to middle school. His father is away most of the time, supposedly selling …

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, …

Empty Table / Family Without a Dinner Table / Shokutaku no nai ie (1985)

In his final movie, Kobayashi uses the Asama-Sanso Incident of 1972 to examine not the collapse of left-wing politics in Japan but rather to explore the effects of them on a family. Once again, he turns to Tatsuya Nakadai as his principal character Kidoji, the father of one of the young men eventually captured by …

Four Days of Snow and Blood / 2.26 (1989)

The attempted military coup in  February 1936 is symptomatic of so many issues in Japanese history that, in a way, it is remarkable how little attention it has been given in Japanese movies. It was one of several examples depicted in Memoirs of Japanese Assassins, but Gosha's 2.26 is the first detailed reconstruction that I …

Double Suicide at Nishijin / Nishijin Shinju (1977)

Two decades after River of Night, we return to the narrow world of the Kyoto hand-weavers where we also meet one of the most enigmatic Japanese women I have yet come across in movies. Without any particular intention on her part, Yumi seems to leave death in her wake, both as a prostitute and as …

Pastoral Hide and Seek / Pastoral: To Die in the Country / Den-en ni shisu (1974)

It is not often you will see a movie adapted from a book of poems, but then it is not often you will see a movie like Pastoral Hide and Seek. Surrealism is a term that, like all artistic terms, gets tossed around to mean a lot of things, but this is arguably the most …

Rebellion of Japan / The Banquet / Utage (1967)

In the subtle and emotional Utage, we see the February 1936 coup and the related militarization of society through the love of a young woman for a young officer. Suzuko falls in love with Tate, a friend of her brother, when she first sees him at the hospital where her brother is being treated. The …

Wandering Princess / Ruten no ohi (1960)

After almost five years without any projects, Kinuyo Tanaka returned behind the camera in 1960. The Wandering Princess is her first wide-screen and color film. While it is a reminder of the human side of history, even at the very top levels of society, it never really develops that in a dramatic way. Ryuko, a …

Scattered Clouds / Two in the Shadow / Midaregumo (1967)

If we did not have Yoko Tsukasa’s sleek sixties skirts and hairdo, we might easily think Scattered Clouds had been made a decade earlier. Its color looks like fifties Eastmancolor and its bland compositions look like the work of people still trying to master wide-screen. Its omni-present music score by Toru Takemitsu sounds like it …