A documentary profiling a Japanese taiko drumming group based in the remote Sado Island, Japan. The film blurs the line between real-life documentary footage of the troupe’s training and practice regimes, and staged performances of their varied musical acts, with sets designed by artist Tadanori Yokoo and an additional experimental electronic music score by Toshi Ichiyanagi.
Tag: JAPAN
The young and handsome Kano Sozaburo is admitted to the Shinsengumi, an elite samurai group that seeks to defend the Tokugawa shogunate against reformist forces. Kano is a skilled swordsman, but his physical beauty leads the members of the strictly male group to compete for his affections, generating tensions that threaten to become lethal. In Gohatto, Nagisa Oshima explores the ambiguous forms of masculinity that the samurai code concealed, with a terrific cast including Ryuhei Matsuda, Takeshi Kitano and Tadanobu Asano subtly capturing the dangers of repressed homoerotic desire.
Two twin girls are separated at birth. One grows up in a loving family. The other one doesn’t. They finally meet by complete accident on a town fair. No one ever told them about the other one so they begin familiarizing with each other.
During the Vietnam War era, the influx of American soldiers to Okinawa boosted the local economy and introduced many bars and nightclubs. With exhausting displays of energy, Yôichi Sai presents a whirlwind romance between a local rocker and the daughter of a mixed American-Okinawan marriage.
A sordid sex club provides the setting for director Sato Hisayasu’s lurid tale of lust, murder, and drugs in underground Tokyo. As with many of the other hostesses at “The Bedroom,” Kyoko indulges in the powerful hallucinogenic “hallusion” as a means of taking herself out of her bleak surroundings while various men pay a hefty fee to have their way with her. When the horribly mutilated bodies turn up indicating that a maniac is on the loose, Kyoko suspects her lover Kei may be the man responsible for the unthinkable crimes. Little does Kyoko realize that the truth is far more disturbing than she could ever imagine..
The Japanese town of Yanagawa so captivated Hideo Miyazaki on his first visit that he decided to use it as the background for one of his stories. However, he entrusted Isao Takahata with directing the project. The producer of Nausicaä was so impressed with the efforts of the locals to protect the canals that run through the town that he would convert the entire film into a documentary about their peculiar history.
This is a film about a man without a face. His arms and legs, bound with ropes, the disabled man is still without even a shudder in a white room. A series of unusual scenes in this room expresses what lies between memories, nightmares, and violent images.