Japan

  • Sadao Nakajima – Poruno no joô: Nippon sex ryokô aka The Pornstar Travels Around Japan (1973)

    1971-1980EroticaExploitationJapanSadao Nakajima

    Quote:
    A voice from IMDB My continuing quest to see every film that Sweden’s stunningly beautiful Christina Lindberg ever made has brought me here to this extremely rare film… The plot: Christina, on arriving in Japan, acquaints a Japanese man at the airport who looks like a sap. He takes her to his apartment where he brutally rapes her and keeps her hostage and bound in chains. Christina’s alluring beauty eventually enchants the rapist and he is soon consulting his ‘How to Stimulate a Woman’ sex book in an effort to please her… Of course, our girl exploits this weakness and manages to escape. She then finds her way to a nightclub and to cut a long story short is ganged-banged by some odd-looking characters. Christina is not having a lot of luck is she, poor girl! Read More »

  • Shinsuke Ogawa – Nippon-koku Furuyashiki-mura aka A Japanese Village (1982)

    Documentary1981-1990JapanShinsuke Ogawa

    Synopsis:
    This is Ogawa Productions’ first major film from their Yamagata period. They had already started photography on Magino Village-A Tale but they were drawn to this village deep in the high country above Magino when a particularly cold bout of weather threatened crops. Inevitably, their attention strayed from the impact of weather and geography on the harvest to the “life history” of Furuyashiki Village. On the one hand, Ogawa returns to his roots by playing with the conventions of the science film. At the same time, he discovers a local, peripheral space in which to think about the nation and the state of village Japan. From this “distant perspective” in the very heart of the Japanese mountains, Ogawa discovers a village still dealing with the trauma of global warfare and struggling for survival as their children flee for the cities.Read More »

  • Masayuki Suo – Fanshî dansu AKA Fancy Dance (1989)

    1981-1990ComedyJapanMasayuki Suo

    Quote:
    Yohei, a punk rocker, has to become a Buddhist monk in order to inherit a mountain temple. Yohei though initially rebelling against the tough monastic discipline learns to adjust. Then his girlfriend shows up, enticing him to return to his rock ‘n’ roll roots.Read More »

  • Keisuke Yoshida – Himeanôru (2016)

    2011-2020CrimeJapanKeisuke YoshidaThriller

    Quote:
    Okada works part-time at a cleaning company. Recently he has been feeling frustrated about his go-nowhere life. One day co-worker Mr. Ando asks Okada to help him in his quest to win the love of Yuka, a waitress at a nearby restaurant. Reluctantly Okada agrees and, by chance, meets high school classmate Shoichi Morita when at the restaurant.Read More »

  • Sabu AKA Hiroyuki Tanaka – Dangan ranna aka Dangan Runner (1996)

    1991-2000AsianCultJapanSABU

    review:
    Yassuda is on the run. In truth, he should be in his car, with money that was to have
    been robbed from a bank, with a gun bought from Yakuza. He could have come off
    well had he not forgotten the mask! Now he is on the run with a pursuer hot on his
    trail.Read More »

  • Gen Sekiguchi – Survive Style 5+ (2004)

    2001-2010AsianComedyGen SekiguchiJapan

    A man continually trying and failing to get his wife to stay dead; a self-absorbed ad agency creative director who comes up with one unworkable inane idea after another; a British hitman who only wants to know everyone’s function in life; and an unfortunate office worker and father whose brain is left scrambled after a stage hypnotist is murdered in mid-performance. Starting off as unrelated plot lines, they intertwine with each other as they continue on their respective ways.Read More »

  • Jun’ya Satô – Kuruwa sodachi AKA Red Light District Upbringing (1964)

    1961-1970AsianDramaJapanJunya Sato

    Tamiko has been with a geisha house since she was little. Torn between staying in the only world that she knows but also loathes, and a normal life on the outside, Tomiko becomes more and more desperate. Times are also changing, it isn’t easy to keeps the books balanced and there is a new law under debate that may end this way of life for good.Read More »

  • Mikio Naruse – Nasanunaka AKA No Blood Relation (1932)

    Drama1931-1940JapanMikio Naruse

    Quote:
    In No Blood Relation, a gripping early example of Mikio Naruse’s cinematic boldness, featuring a screenplay by Ozu’s famed collaborator Kogo Noda, an actress returns to Tokyo after a successful stint in Hollywood to reclaim—with the help of her gangster brother—the daughter she abandoned years before.Read More »

  • Nobuhiko Ôbayashi – Pekin no suika AKA Beijing Watermelon (1989)

    1981-1990AsianDramaJapanNobuhiko Obayashi

    Contemporary Japanese Film by Mark Schilling (1999):

    Topicality is tricky. Sylvester Stallone’s one-man war in Afghanistan in Rambo III might have suited the Evil Empire mentality of the early 1980s, but in 1988, with Russian troops rapidly withdrawing from the country, it was ludicrous. Rambo was battling a Cold War ghost.

    Beijing Watermelon, which tells the story of a Chiba vegetable seller’s encounter with Chinese students, was also overtaken by events. Filming scheduled for Beijing had to be canceled because of the tragedy at Tienanmen Square. But instead of plugging away as though nothing had happened, director Nobuhiko Obayashi seized the opportunity to comment on that tragedy and make one of the most original, moving films in recent memory.Read More »

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