Asian

  • Nagisa Ôshima – Nihon shunka-kô AKA Sing A Song Of Sex (1967)

    1961-1970ArthouseAsianJapanNagisa Oshima

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    In Oshima’s enigmatic tale, four sexually hungry high school students preparing for their university entrance exams meet up with an inebriated teacher singing bawdy drinking songs. This encounter sets them on a less than academic path. Oshima’s hypnotic, free-form depiction of generational political apathy features stunning color cinematography.

    This gets our vote as the most overlooked of Oshima’s films, underrated perhaps because its English title makes it appear frivolous. It’s decidedly not. Despite flights of comedy, (unnerving) sexual fantasy, youthful yearning, karaoke and hootenannies, Sing a Song of Sex offers an intent, penetrating portrait of a generation confronting its new freedoms and its inability to act on them. Oshima obviously considered the film very important, one infers from the essays he wrote about it.Read More »

  • Akio Jissoji – Mandara (1971)

    1971-1980Akio JissojiArthouseAsianJapan

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  • Nami Iguchi – Inuneko AKA Dogs & Cats AKA The Cat Leaves Home (2004)

    2001-2010AsianComedyJapanNami Iguchi

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    Quote:
    This is the first feature by Iguchi Nami, who more recently made the film Don’t Laugh at My Romance. Inuneko is also known as The Cat Leaves Home and as (more literally) Dogs & Cats or even Dog/Cat. The title refers to the personalities of the two heroines–one sly and flirtatious, the other stubborn and introverted.

    Iguchi actually shot this as a 8mm feature (in 2001 I believe) before “remaking” it in 35mm. The 8mm feature is also on DVD but I don’t have it; I’d love to see it, provided subtitles are available.

    This 35mm version is the one that played commercially in Japan and made it to festivals worldwide. As far as I know, it wasn’t released commercially outside of Japan, which is a shame as this is one of the most charming recent Japanese films i know. It’s shot in the long-take style preferred by many Asian independent filmmakers, but in a mode closer to, say, the deadpan comedy of Jarmusch than to the muted intensity of Kore-eda. I suppose, in the Japanese cinema, it’s closest in tone to Yamashita Nobuhiro’s Linda Linda Linda.Read More »

  • Yasuzô Masumura – Manji (1964)

    1961-1970AsianDramaJapanYasuzô Masumura

    http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0001XAKR4.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

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    Synopsis:
    A dutiful, unhappy lawyer’s wife falls in love with a young, mysterious woman she encounters at an art class. Soon their affair involves her husband and the young woman’s impotent lover and together the four slowly descent into a web of tangled passions.

    Masumura was the first Japanese student to attend Italy’s prestigious Centro film school, whose alumni include the likes of Michaelangelo Antonioni, Liliana Cavani and Dino de Laurentiis. Filmed in glorious scope, Masumura fills his screen with simple, yet effective compositions. The direction is even, with his cast of players, most of whom have a long association with the director, embodying their roles wonderfully, exuding the passion and turbulence caused by their tangled affair. The exposition is well paced, as twists in the plot emerge with each meeting. The melodrama is high in true Japanese fashion, as pacts and allegiances shift the balance of power throughout the picture. While able to capture the sensuality of his subjects, Masumura does so without excessive voyeurism or blatant sexuality. The result is an exquisite photoplay, rich in the pitfalls of human desire, with interesting and dire unexpected.Read More »

  • Yûzô Kawashima – Shitoyakana kedamono AKA The Graceful Brute (1962)

    1961-1970AsianDramaJapanYûzô Kawashima

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    Quote:
    The original story of amazingly greedy people with cheat, embezzle and corruption, is an original, written by Kaneto Shindo. It’s all set in this little apartment of the Maeda family. The son’s taking money from the talent agency that he’s working for. But the money’s somehow missing. Who’s taking it? Parents, who act like they’re poor, seem to be hiding something. Or is that the daughter, the writer’s mistress? Maybe the tax man, who was helping the agency to evade a tax? The singer looks like he lost so much money, too. Who’s the most greedy, clever, smart, sexy and strongest but never seems to show that and always behave gracefully?Read More »

  • Mikio Naruse – Tsuma yo bara no yô ni AKA Wife! Be Like a Rose! (1935)

    1931-1940AsianClassicsJapanMikio Naruse

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    The effervescent and charming Chiba Sachiko (Naruse’s wife at the time) plays Kimiko, the bold daughter who travels to the countryside to find her estranged father to seek his consent for her forthcoming marriage . When Kimiko discovers that her father has taken up with a young geisha and is just as difficult as ever, her journey forces her to reconsider her ideas about familial ties. The film was Naruse’s biggest success to date and one of his warmest films. WIFE, BE LIKE A ROSE! won first place in Kinema Junpo that year and became one of the exceedingly rare Naruse films to earn distribution in the US.Read More »

  • Hiroshi Shimizu – Tokyo no eiyu AKA A Hero of Tokyo (1935)

    1931-1940AsianClassicsHiroshi ShimizuJapan

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    “This late silent film is little more than an hour long, and achieves a narrative concentration and emotional intensity which place it among the neglected gems of the Japanese cinema of the 1930s. The story focuses on the widower Nemoto, ostensibly a businessman, who has one son, Kanichi, the hero of the title. Nemoto remarries; his new wife is a widow with a son and daughter of her own. However, Nemoto’s business turns out to be out a shady scam, and he disappears, leaving his wife to raise the three children alone. In order to support the family, she is obliged to become a bar hostess. She conceals this shameful employment from the children, but the truth comes out years later, after her daughter is rejected by her husband’s family when they investigate her background. The film contains powerful performances from Mitsugu Fujii, here making the last of his regular appearances for Shimizu, and Mitsuko Yoshikawa, a specialist in the haha-mono (“mother-film”) genre.Read More »

  • Lino Brocka – Tinimbang ka ngunit kulang AKA You Have Been Weighed and Found Wanting (1974)

    Drama1971-1980AsianLino BrockaPhilippines

    A portrait of small-town oppressiveness in the Philippines, made during the Marcos government’s imposition of martial law. Lino Brocka’s 1974 film tells of two social outcasts struggling to survive the hypocritical condemnation of their fellow villagers; the tone ranges from comedy to tragedy to documentary observation of village rituals.Read More »

  • Jun’ya Satô – Golgo 13 (1973)

    1971-1980ActionAsianJapanJunya Sato

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    Review @ sketchesofcinema
    Takao Saito’s Golgo 13 comics aren’t very easy to adapt into live action features due to their international nature, but Toei went all the way with this first attempt. Junya Sato shot the film on location in Iran with mostly foreign cast. The lead role is played by the heavenly cool Ken Takakura, whose combination of charisma, black sunglasses and M16 assault rifle makes him one of the coolest asssassins in film history. Both execution and storywise the film could be better – and it would’ve been a good to opt for local languages istead of having the entire Iran speak Japanese – but with its rare international setting, superb leading man and some exciting action Golgo 13 easily ranks more interesting than Toei’s average action thrillers of the era. Due to the high expenses the studio didn’t allow Golgo 13 to return to the big screen until in 1977 in a slightly inferior Shinichi Chiba film Golgo 13: Kowloon Assignment.Read More »

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