Aspiring fashion model Midori (Atsumi Mari) finds herself caught between a dubious lover (Kawazu Yûsuke) and the yakuza. The sixth and final film in Daiei’s “Mollusk” series. Masumura co-authored the script with Ishimatsu Yoshihiro. The title — Shibire kurage — translates literally as Numbing Jellyfish. Read More »
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Yasuzo Masumura based his story on prize winning Edogawa Ranpo’s book [Hanayaka na shitai]. It’s a thriller about a Food Company’s boss being killed and the search for his murderer. Part of the movie is a trial movie. Read More »
Yumi is a young orphan girl. She studies in a sewing school paid by her mother’s hard work as a bar hostess. All their plans will be disrupted when the mother’s boyfriend will rape Yumi, virgin and innocent.
The film sometimes “helps itself” with some psychoanalytic clichés to move forward or gives substance to its tale (For ex., Yumi plays cards almost as a genetic gift). But there’s more truth in the simple portrait of the young girl Yumi and in many details of the Japanese way of life, society and way of laws (an ironic comparison of gambling and prostitution)… including a scene which captures with an amazing realism the violence of greed. Read More »