Kei Kumai

Quote:
O-Shin is a young brothel worker who, one night, helps a young samurai escape from his pursuers. Against the warnings of her fellow workers, particularly Kikuno and the brothel’s owner, O-Shin falls in love with the samurai.Read More »

Quote:
LEAD: EARLY in ”The Sea and Poison,” the harrowing Japanese movie now at Film Forum 1, a surgical team performs a lung operation on a young woman. It is probably the most graphic view that most of its audience will ever have had of the scalpel and forceps doing their work, and you may find yourself joining the young intern Suguro, who confesses, ”Today in the operating room, I had to close my eyes.

EARLY in ”The Sea and Poison,” the harrowing Japanese movie now at Film Forum 1, a surgical team performs a lung operation on a young woman. It is probably the most graphic view that most of its audience will ever have had of the scalpel and forceps doing their work, and you may find yourself joining the young intern Suguro, who confesses, ”Today in the operating room, I had to close my eyes.”Read More »

Synopsis:
The president of the Japanese National Railways is found dead during a period in which train service is plagued by numerous layoffs, strikes and shutdowns. The government says that the president was murdered; the police claim it was a suicide. A quizzical reporter follows the case for years, but the basic question remains unanswered: was the victim killed by members of the burgeoning Communist movement in Japan, or was the death stage-managed by the authorities in hopes of discrediting the Communists?Read More »

Quote:
It is the story of a young man and a young woman who, despite suffering and tragedy, find their way to each other. Kumai tells the story with such sensitivity and intelligence and emotion to move everyone to the very depths of his soul. The music by Teizo Matsumura is perfect.Read More »

Ogin-sama (1978) Synopsis:
Sen Rikyu is a ceremonial tea master who advises warlord Hideyoshi in sixteenth-century feudal Japan. His daughter, the beautiful Lady Ogin, has an unrequited love for Lord Ukon, who has angered Hideyoshi by becoming a Christian convert. Ogin’s father Rikyu also displeases Hideyoshi by opposing the warlord’s plan to invade China and Korea. When the animalistic Hideyoshi is rejected by Ogin, he threatens her and her father with arrest and worse.

Ogin, a very beautiful young woman, comes to the attention of Hideyoshi, the unifier of 16th century Japan. Her love for another causes her to reject him and precipitates tragedy.Read More »

Quote:
For those unfamiliar with its deep meaning, the Japanese tea ceremony appears to be a long, incredibly boring, basically uneventful ritual process. In contrast, for many of its practitioners it offers the key to understanding how to live life in a meaningful manner, and is in itself a refreshment for the spirit. The tea master Rikyu was a key figure in the evolution of the ceremony, and his teaching lineage continues to the present day. In 1591, as a result of a difference of opinion with the ruling warlord of Japan, Hideyoshi Toyotomi (Shinsuke Ashida), tea ceremony grand master Rikyu (Toshiro Mifune) was forced to commit suicide. Read More »

Uni to Dokuyaku (1987)
July 22, 1987
FILM: ‘SEA AND POISON,’ FROM JAPAN
By Walter Goodman
Published: July 22, 1987

LEAD: EARLY in ”The Sea and Poison,” the harrowing Japanese movie now at Film Forum 1, a surgical team performs a lung operation on a young woman. It is probably the most graphic view that most of its audience will ever have had of the scalpel and forceps doing their work, and you may find yourself joining the young intern Suguro, who confesses, ”Today in the operating room, I had to close my eyes.

EARLY in ”The Sea and Poison,” the harrowing Japanese movie now at Film Forum 1, a surgical team performs a lung operation on a young woman. It is probably the most graphic view that most of its audience will ever have had of the scalpel and forceps doing their work, and you may find yourself joining the young intern Suguro, who confesses, ”Today in the operating room, I had to close my eyes.”Read More »