In 18th century Edo, mother Okatsu presides over her family of 5 children, grown-up but living at home. As Okatsu manages the household finances and resolves minor quarrels, her family is given a daily sense of her patient, benevolent outlook.Read More »
A Japanese girl and a French boy make strides in overcoming the cultural barriers that prevent them from fully expressing the love they have for one another.Read More »
A Japanese girl and a French boy make strides in overcoming the cultural barriers that prevent them from fully expressing the love they have for one another.Read More »
Katsumi is a university student who has no respect for his hardworking parents, his professors, or even his friends. He helps one friend obtain a loan to finance a dance, by humiliating his father at the bank where he works. He drugs and rapes Akiko, one of the girls in his class. She becomes infatuated with him, even though he remains aloof. He enjoys goading a rival gang in the pool hall. Finally, when facing the gang, he goes too far in trying to prove his courage. Written by Will GilbertRead More »
Ichikawa’s 1956 adaptation of Nihonbashi was the first to take the work of Kyoka Izumi— until then regarded as a writer of common tragic melodramas—and re-evaluate it as a sanbi-ha work of decadence, aestheticism, and intrigue. Ichikawa’s film presents the tragic plot of the young geisha who is unable to enact her love for a man publicly in any way other than a histrionic story of torment, a heart-rending tale of lovers being crushed by fate. Instead Ichikawa shows the contest of wills that transpires as two geisha, Oko (Chikage Awashima) and Kiyoha (Fujiko Yamamoto) fight for the top spot in Nihonbashi, the pinnacle ot the Tokyo geisha world. Nihonbashi is an elegant, if steely, exposition of manners. The young doctor, Shinzo Katsuragi (Ryuji Shinagawa), is the object of affection for both women, but appears to be more the choice reward for the plotting and thieving of these two early modern superwomen, than a lover they swoon over.Read More »
PLOT: A young man struggles to come to terms with his true identity in a remote caste-based village in early 20th century Japan.Read More »
青春とは、怪談である！芦川いづみの記念すべき「日活入社第一回作品」。獅子文六の評判小説を才匠市川崑が描く青春波乱のメロドラマ。バレリーナの千春と、徹底的な合理主義者で幼馴染の慎一。いずれは結婚を考えている二人の前に、船越トミという女が現われた。Read More »
A 1984 Japanese film directed by Kon Ichikawa. It is based upon a same titled novel by Chiyo Uno.Read More »
Review from clydefro.com
I wasn’t sufficiently acquainted with Kon Ichikawa’s work (and, truthfully, I’m still not), but the entire tone of his relatively obscure I Am a Cat caught me somewhat by surprise. I’d loved Ichikawa’s Fires on the Plain, a deeply and darkly humorous look at the ridiculousness of war played against that looming seriousness that’s always prevalent in those kind of films. I was then ready for some kind of Japanese incarnation of Harry and Tonto. That’s really not what I got, though. I Am a Cat is definitely steeped in comic undertones, with Tatsuya Nakadai almost parodying himself, but it’s absolutely far removed from Harry and Tonto. Instead, we’re left with some odd tribute to Nakadai’s eternally grumpy protagonist and the stray cat who’s his only true confidante.Read More »