Kon Ichikawa

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 »

An intellectual couple in a staid and tedious marriage are surprised when the wife’s niece, who has run away from home, turns up unexpectedly to stay with them. Their mundane lives are sent into disarray by the emotional and energetic Ako.Read More »

Synopsis:
Although five years have passed since the reported death of roving gambler Kogarashi Monjiro, the rumors of his survival has struck fear into the heart of Gorozo, the biggest boss in the Joshu area. Having been rescued from drowning by a woodsman, Monjiro had given up the sword to lead a straight life cutting down trees in the Owari clan’s home territory. His newly found life unravels when his benefactor asks him to return to his former lifestyle and retrieve his son from the grasps of Gorozo’s yakuza family before tragedy can befall him. As Monjiro, superstar Nakamura Atsuo gives the performance of a lifetime as he reprises his signature role.Read More »

Introduction
A dark satire of a contemporary Japan still exhausted from the aftermath of war, hunger, poverty and unemployment.And just as its people are recovering, there is a threat during these Cold War years of renewed militarism and rearm…Read More »

Eccentric film about female reporter fired for writing about police corruption. To make money she hides while a weekly magazine offers a prize for her discovery. A bank embezzler and his underlings take advantage of her disappearance to pin the theft on her, as well as the murder of the weak link in their gang. Meanwhile, the cop she got fired is now a private detective and he gets involved in the investigation. Another example of Ichikawa’s mixing of farcical genre filmmaking with perspicacious visual design. Comic highlights include an intentions of murder scene in which each shot reveals the gap in knowledge between potential perpetrator and victim, and the role of unseen objects in accidentally protecting the latter from the former. Another cynical film that finds in cinema a model for the superficial image society of 1950s Japan.Read More »

Weary of their lot, ten women – all mistresses of the same philandering businessman – join forces to wreak revenge upon him. A comedy of reversed expectations, gleefully upending traditional onscreen representations of gender (the women here act and talk like men, while the men are weak, confused or ineffectual), it’s shot in an exaggerated noir-ish manner – complete with multiple flashbacks and highly stylised visuals – that serves highlight the artificiality of its conceit.Read More »

There is little to nothing written in English about this film, and in fact of the entire Cinemateque Ontario Ichikawa Kon tome the only mention of Goodbye, Hello was in the extensive filmography. This was one of the films Ichikawa made for Daiei that he co-wrote with his wife Wado Natto, the pair being one of world cinema’s great husband and wife collaborations. Ichikawa worked with the cinematographer for Goodbye, Hello, Kobayashi Setsuo, on some of his best looking films: Ten Dark Women, Fires on the Plain, and An Actor’s Revenge. Actress Kyo Machiko was certainly a familiar face in Ichikawa’s films, starring in Odd Obsession and The Pit. Judging by cast and crew alone, this looks like prime Ichikawa, and I personally find this period of his filmmaking (late 50s, early 60s) the most interesting.Read More »