Synopsis:
Set in the last few years of the shogun’s rule, this period/ensemble movie depicts the lives of the young and the restless at a whorehouse. The protagonist is Saheiji, a resourceful, witty free spirit. It’s 1862, 6 years before the Shogun turned his political power over to the Emperor. Penniless Saheiji splashes out at a famous Shinagawa whorehouse. He’s forced to stay on at the whorehouse to repay his debt. At first Saheiji is regarded as an unwelcome guest who never leaves but it turns out he is not just a poor grifter. None of the whorehouse’s guests, hosts, servants and attending ladies are innocent but they are pragmatic schemers. Saheiji soon endears himself to them all and solves many whorehouse disputes with his wit. But it is slowly revealed that the seemingly perfect Saheiji is suffering from tuberculosis and his future is uncertain…Read More »
Yûzô Kawashima
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Yûzô Kawashima – Bakumatsu Taiyoden aka Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate AKA The Sun Legend of the End of the Tokugawa Era (1957)
1951-1960ClassicsDramaJapanYûzô Kawashima -
Yûzô Kawashima – Tonkatsu taisho AKA The Pork Cutlet General (1952)
Yûzô Kawashima1951-1960AsianComedyJapanYusaku, whose nickname is “Tonkatsu Taisho” (General Pork Cutlet), is a popular young children’s doctor. Mayumi, a female doctor of another hospital, plans to expand her clinic with the advice of a lawyer named Oguro by destroying small houses. Oguro, however, plans to take advantage of Mayumi’s plan and build a cabaret instead.Read More »
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Yûzô Kawashima – Gan no tera AKA The Temple of Wild Geese (1962)
Yûzô Kawashima1961-1970ArthouseDramaJapanSynopsis:
Satoko is a mistress by trade, or fate: when her master, the silkscreen artist of the Kohoan Temple in Kyoto, dies, she is given to the temple’s lascivious head priest Kikuchi. She is drawn to a melancholy young acolyte, Jinen, who has observed the profligacy of his cruel master and Satoko’s utter dependence on the man. Jinen is both fascinated and disturbed by Satoko’s interest in him; he is similarly caught between loathing of Kikuchi and of the dark circumstances of his birth and his own moral weakness. The story unfolds in a dreamlike manner, a flashback inspired by a now-infamous image on a silkscreen in the souvenir shop at the so-called Temple of the Wild Geese.Read More » -
Yûzô Kawashima & Mikio Naruse – Yoru no nagare AKA Evening Stream (1960)
Mikio Naruse1951-1960ArthouseDramaJapanYûzô KawashimaA woman and her daughter are in love with the same man, a chef at the restaurant that the mother manages. He is slightly crippled from frostbite in his years in Siberian labor camps and considers himself “already dead.”Read More »
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Yûzô Kawashima – Noren AKA The Shop Curtain (1958)
1951-1960ClassicsDramaJapanYûzô KawashimaYuzo Kawashima’s adaptation of Toyoko Yamasaki’s first novel.Read More »
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Yûzô Kawashima – Zoku ueru tamashii AKA Hungry Soul, Part II (1956)
Drama1951-1960AsianJapanYûzô KawashimaReiko, who tolerates abuse in her marriage to a man 23 years her senior, is friends with Mayumi, a beautiful widow. Reiko meets her husband’s business rival, a young, capable businessman, and falls for him. Meanwhile, Mayumi enters into a relationship with Shimotsuma, a friend of her late husband.Read More »
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Yûzô Kawashima – Ueru tamashii AKA Hungry Soul (1956)
1951-1960AsianDramaJapanYûzô KawashimaReiko, who tolerates abuse in her marriage to a man 23 years her senior, is friends with Mayumi, a beautiful widow. Reiko meets her husband’s business rival, a young, capable businessman, and falls for him. Meanwhile, Mayumi enters into a relationship with Shimotsuma, a friend of her late husband.Read More »
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Yûzô Kawashima – Waga machi AKA My Town (1956)
1951-1960AsianDramaJapanYûzô KawashimaIn 1906, after finishing a tough migrant job in the Philippines, Takichi has returned to Japan. He starts to work as a rickshaw driver, but his lover had died of an illness, leaving a baby girl, Hatsue. Hatsue grows up beautifully and falls in love with Shintaro. But Takichi objects to their relationship…Read More »
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Yûzô Kawashima – Onna wa nido umareru AKA Women Are Born Twice (1961) (HD)
1961-1970AsianComedyJapanYûzô KawashimaThe first of Kawashima’s Daiei Studio collaborations with Wakao centers on the life of a Tokyo geisha named Koen and her relationships with various men. Starting out with no singing or dancing talents, the young, free-spirited Koen is initially eager to please and happy to do what she is told. With time and experience, however, she gradually begins to notice a change in herself and questions what she wants out of life. Played with subtle shifts in emotion, Wakao’s delicate performance earned her the Kinema Junpo Award and Blue Ribbon Award for Best Actress.Read More »
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