Yasuzô Masumura

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A melodrama adapted by Yamada Nobuo and Shigemori Takako from Sasazawa Saho’s novel The Lost Woman and directed by Yasuzô Masumura.

Mariko had planned a trip as a couple, but it was cancelled again due to her husband Tetsuya’s work schedule. Feeling dissatisfied with her life with her husband, Mariko goes to Izu by herself and decides to stay at the house of Katsue, who used to work at Mariko’s parents’ house. Mariko meets a young man named Shigeo there. She is puzzled by Shigeo’s willingness to reveal his thoughts and feelings, but Mariko soon finds herself attracted to his honesty. Read More »

Giants and Toys is a sharp and snappy corporate satire revolving around the ruthless machinations of a group of admen working in the confectionary industry.

As a new recruit to the marketing department of World Caramel, fresh-faced graduate Nishi (Hiroshi Kawaguchi) is eager to impress his ambitious and hard-nosed boss Goda (Black Test Car’s Hideo Takamatsu), even if it strains his relationships with his college friend Yokoyama (Koichi Fujiyama) and budding love interest Masami (Michiko Ono), who work at the rival companies of Giant and Apollo. With World’s lead over its competitors slipping badly, the two spot a chance to get back in the race in the shape of the pretty but unsophisticated 18-year-old, Kyoko (Hitomi Nozoe).Read More »

Synopsis:
In adapting Kawabata’s famous novel about the entangled relations between the son of a seductive tea-ceremony teacher and the women in his father’s life, Masumura subverts the literary genre so beloved of Japanese cinema. Kikuji (Mikijiro Hira) attends of a tea ceremony held by his late father’s one-time mistress, Chikako, and there embarks on an affair with the real love of his father’s life, Mrs. Ota. Mrs. Ota’s grief is palpable, but Kikuji’s motives are more mysterious-perhaps, like her, to know his father through the sexual experience. A complex transference is played out in such relationships, and through objects, such as tea cups, that are infused with human spirit. Masumura takes these suggested relationships to extremes in the film: Ayako Wakao plays Mrs. Ota with breathless despair, while Machiko Kyo’s Chikako, the gracious manipulator, is a veritable specter.Read More »

Synopsis:
Kei, a house servant, is kicked out after an altercation and is then adopted by a nearby family.
One of many adaptations of “Onna no isshō”, this time by Yasuzo Masumura as a starring vehicle for famed actress Machiko Kyo.Read More »

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The inventor of a ground-breaking glue, Sanada, becomes thanks to his discovery a high executive in his company. Because of this promotion, his world is changing completely : his wife behaves like never before, considering she’s now rich and has the right to do whatever she wants, even having an affair.Read More »

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The disturbing story of a physician who conducted the first operation with general anaesthetic, and the women in his life who are both so determined to win his love that they volunteer as subjects for his experimentsRead More »

Tied to a mountain between her brutalizing spouse and her secret lover, disaster strikes; the authorities accuse her of murder and prompt a confession.Read More »

Masumura’s 44th film capitalizes on the student unrest of the late sixties as background for a story about a ‘liberated’ woman. Cruelly nymphomaniac, Michi is described as an ‘independent child of the times’, with no family obligations, no taste for housekeeping, and no need of a man to support her. Her sex mania and Nobuyuki’s masochism become less than plausible, and the other characters are all too superficially delineated to be engaging.Read More »

A young delinquent wants to avenge his sister from a college student who abandoned her after leaving her pregnant. To do this, he decides to seduce the student’s sister to make him suffer the same fate.Read More »