Attack at Noon / Attack on the Sun / Hakuchu no shugeki (1970)

The year is 1970, the last great burst of student protest in Japan, and Hakuchu no shugeki opens with a journalist interviewing a group of young people about what they really want. The camera, however, soon picks out two twenty-somethings outside the group, Yuri and a young man called Osamu. He follows her in his …

Battle of the Sea of Japan / Nihonkai daikatsen (1969)

By the late sixties, a number of movies about WWII had appeared featuring heroic characters who had died early in the war – Yamamoto was an especially popular subject – and Toho Studio in particular was looking for ways to use its Godzilla trained special effects unit. After Storm Over the Pacific, they at last …