Asian

  • Yûzô Kawashima – Tonkatsu taisho AKA The Pork Cutlet General (1952)

    Yûzô Kawashima1951-1960AsianComedyJapan

    Yusaku, whose nickname is “Tonkatsu Taisho” (General Pork Cutlet), is a popular young children’s doctor. Mayumi, a female doctor of another hospital, plans to expand her clinic with the advice of a lawyer named Oguro by destroying small houses. Oguro, however, plans to take advantage of Mayumi’s plan and build a cabaret instead.Read More »

  • Tôru Kawashima – Chi-n-pi-ra (1984)

    Tôru Kawashima1981-1990ActionAsianJapan

    Based on the script by the late Shoji Kaneko, director Toru Kawashima turned it into a buddy movie that has quite the cult following in Japan. The two already collaborated on the, in my opinion, excellent Ryuji a year earlier and shortly before Kaneko’s death.Read More »

  • Kajirô Yamamoto – Enoken no chakkiri kinta AKA Enoken’s Kinta the Pickpocket (1937)

    Kajirô Yamamoto1931-1940AsianComedyJapan

    A famous sound film comedy by Kajira Yamamoto, best known for being the mentor of Akira Kurosawa. This is actually considered a major classic of physical comedy in Japan and remains perhaps the most fondly remembered vehicle for the famous comedian Enoken, who was a major star during the pre-war period.

    Quote:
    A comedic tale told in four parts, this film follows the antics of the pickpocket Kinta as he is pursued by a low ranking deputy named Kurakichi. The two get into all manner of peccadilloes and encounter a range of peculiar characters as their game of cat and mouse moves across the countryside in the last days of the Tokugawa Shogunate. The title role is played by Enomoto Kenichi (known by his performance name Enoken), a star of screen and stage. Kinta the Pickpocket showcases his indefatigable energy and talent for physical comedy.Read More »

  • Taizô Fuyushima – Kagoya hangan AKA The Palanquin Carrier Magistrate (1935)

    1931-1940AsianClassicsJapanTaizô Fuyushima

    Two cowardly palanquin carriers know the culprit of a murder but are too scared to report it to the police. In the mean time, an innocent man is arrested as the murderer and chaos ensues.Read More »

  • Kajirô Yamamoto – Wagahai wa neko de aru AKA I am a Cat (1936)

    1931-1940AsianDramaJapanKajirô Yamamoto

    Quote:
    It’s the first film adaptation of Natsumi Soseki’s novel “I Am a Cat”, but I was a little disappointed when I saw it with high expectations, because it’s less than 90 minutes long and there’s no monologue about the cat, so it’s just me in the middle of the human drama. Before that, there are only a few scenes in which I appear.

    The world situation at the time of the Russo-Japanese War has been replaced by that of World War I (the attack on Qingdao is shown in a newspaper article. However, since it was filmed before the war, the scenery has a certain feel to it. This atmosphere is something you can’t get in a postwar film.Read More »

  • Hitoshi Obuchi – Hitogoroshi Aka Murderer (1976)

    1971-1980AsianDramaHitoshi ObuchiJapan

    A cowardly samurai is sent as an official executioner targeting the clan’s former sword instructor, a man whose sword and spear skills are second to none.Read More »

  • Kenji Misumi – Sakura no Daimon AKA Internal Sleuth (1973)

    Kenji Misumi1971-1980AsianCrimeJapan

    When 150 guns are lost from the Iwakuni base and two police officers are shot dead, a detective tries to find out the truth.

    Review by kagetsuhisoka:
    Kenji Misumi’s nihilistic cop movie has finally been subbed. This is an amazing (and in my opinion) superior companion piece to Shintaro Katsu’s The Big Boss, which I uploaded not long ago. dimax9 provided me with a copy of the movie. Subs were timed and commissioned by me (thanks TheCatacomb as always). chapaev patched the DVD.Read More »

  • Masahiro Shinoda – Akane-gumo AKA Clouds at Sunset (1967)

    Masahiro Shinoda1961-1970AsianJapan

    Quote:
    A Japanese soldier Tsutomu Yamazki deserts his position and travels to a small town on the Sea of Japan to start over in this melodrama from director Shinoda Masahiro. When a young maid falls for him, he talks her into sleeping with an older man for money. The woman is told by a Geisha Mayumi Ogawa that she gave up her virginity cheaply. The resort town begins to feel the influence of the modern world as the sabre-rattling that preceded World War II begins to change their lives forever. ~ Dan Pavlides, RoviRead More »

  • Hao Ning – Wu ren qu AKA No Man’s Land (2013)

    2011-2020AsianChinaCrimeHao Ning

    Being shelved for four years over censorship issues sounds like a death knell for any film, and yet in the case of Ning Hao’s No Man’s Land, it may actually have been a considerable boon : indeed, the four-years delay meant that the film came out after the comedy Lost In Thailand, which starred two of the leads of No Man’s Land (Xu Zheng and Huang Bo), and thus became positioned as their follow-up to what is still the all-time highest-grossing Chinese film in China. It did however lose its potential status as China’s very first modern-day set western – with Gao Qunshu’s Wind Blast having been released in the meantime – though in truth it is closer to a film noir than a western, with moody voice-over and a cynical outlook on human nature. It tells of an arrogant big city lawyer (Xu Zheng) who travels to the far west of China to plead the case of a falcon trafficker (Togbye), then tries to rush back to the city to close a book deal on that very case.Read More »

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