Tag: JAPAN

November 19, 2023 / Arthouse

Gengobe Satsuma, an exiled samurai cast out as an Asano clan retainer is given a second chance to join his brothers in arms to become the 48th Ronin against the Shogunate. His faithful servant gathers the 100 ryo required for his acceptance. Gengobe is also in love with a greedy geisha named Koman. About to be sold to another man, Gengobe learns that for him to keep her, her debt is exactly 100 ryo.

November 19, 2023 / Drama

Tetsuro Tamba portrays Kotaro Takamura, one of Japan’s most celebrated artists. A poet and sculptor, Takamura is married to Chieko, who has artistic aspirations of her own. She gradually comes to realize that her husband has all the talent in the family; as she sinks deeper into depression, Takamura tries to comfort her by writing several poems in her honor. She descends into insanity, while Takamura manifests his despair into some of his greatest artistic achievements.

November 18, 2023 / Experimental

The human eye, a well-known motif of psychedelic culture, is multiplied and intensified in Tanaami Keiichi’s cinematic trip 4 Eyes. Drawing from his experiences designing discotheques, Tanaami presents two prints of the same film in double-projection with a time delay to suggest the mind slipping out of consciousness.

November 18, 2023 / Biography

An exploration of certain conspiracy theories surrounding the JFK assassination from Jack Ruby’s perspective. Ruby owns a run-down strip club in Dallas, and does what he can for credibility, both by giving information to the FBI and by doing the odd favor for his mafia contacts. When hitman Action Jackson is hit, Louie Vitali asks him to help get crime boss Santos out of a Cuban jail. When they get back, the bosses take his headliner Candy Cane under their wing to develop her career in Vegas. A mysterious government man named Maxwell expresses his displeasure to Ruby over his Cuban activities. Slowly all the pieces of a massive conspiracy begin to emerge to Ruby, who can do nothing to stop it.

October 5, 2023 / Drama

White-collar worker Yamashita finds out that his wife has a lover visiting her when he’s away, suddenly returns home and kills her. After eight years in prison, he returns to live in a small village, opens a barber shop (he was trained as a barber in prison) and talks almost to no-one except for the eel he “befriended” in prison. One day he finds the unconscious body of Keiko, who attempted suicide and reminds him of his wife. She starts to work at his shop, but he doesn’t let her become close to him.

August 26, 2023 / Drama

This valiant melodrama is the brilliant debut as a moviemaker of the great Japanese actress Kinuyo Tanaka, who also has a small role in the story. Based on a screenplay by Keinosuke Kinoshita, Koibumi explores the wounds of war, the limits of love and the need to forgive. A sad and troubled man, Reikichi Mayumi finds a new job five years after the end of WWII. He will write love letters for other people, which was not uncommon in post-war times His ideas about love and his personal principles will be tested when he reconnects with his former girlfriend, Michiko, a woman with a dark past marked by war and the further occupation of her country by the US military forces.

July 27, 2023 / Arthouse
July 26, 2023 / Erotic