Japanese

  • Kôji Shiraishi – Aishiteru! AKA Safe Word (2022)

    Kôji Shiraishi2021-2030DramaJapan
    Aishiteru! (2022)
    Aishiteru! (2022)

    Misa is an underground idol and being filmed closely for a documentary. One day, an owner of BDSM club “H” perceives Misa’s potential and headhunts her as a dominatrix. Misa is confused at first, but when she meets the top dominatrix Kanon, she learns sexual pleasure she never knew. She then decides to pursue a career of both idols and BDSM.Read More »

  • Wim Wenders – Perfect Days (2023) (HD)

    Wim Wenders2021-2030DramaJapan
    Perfect Days (2023)
    Perfect Days (2023)

    Hirayama lives a life of blissful contentment, spending his days balancing his job as a caretaker of Tokyo’s public toilets with his passion for music, literature, and photography. His structured routine is slowly interrupted by unexpected encounters that force him to reconnect with his past.Read More »

  • Masaki Iwana – Vermilion Souls (2007)

    2001-2010ArthouseDramaJapanMasaki Iwana
    Vermilion Souls (2007)
    Vermilion Souls (2007)

    Set in Tokyo seven years after the end of WWII, this surreal story revolves around the dreams and realities of a young boy who strays into a strange mansion while out chasing fliers dropped by a small aeroplane. Confined inside are four adults suffering from an incurable disease (‘porphyria’, which the author avoids specifying by name in the screenplay) which prevents them from having exposure to the sun.Read More »

  • Tadashi Imai – Bushidô zankoku monogatari AKA Cruel Tales Of Bushido (1963)

    Tadashi Imai1961-1970AsianDramaJapan
    Bushidô zankoku monogatari (1963)
    Bushidô zankoku monogatari (1963)

    PLOT:
    The attempted suicide of his fiancée prompts a Japanese salary-man to read his family chronicles and look back at the life of his ancestors. They were samurai, the military nobility caste who carried out acts of violence at the behest of feudal lords, but suffered even more so under their cruelty, often forced into ritual suicide (seppuku). The women were under constant threat of kidnapping and rape, and the men subjected to arbitrary disfigurement and homosexual slavery … In a radical departure from the usual romanticisation of the samurai, director Tadashi Imai – using period sets and sometimes graphic images – made a film fundamentally critical of medieval Japan’s feudal system and the inhumane samurai code called bushido. In addition, the final two of the eight episodes in the film draw parallels between that and kamikaze pilots of World War II, as well as Japan’s modern achievement-oriented society. Bushido zankoku monogatari was awarded the Golden Bear at the 1963 Berlin International Film Festival.Read More »

  • Noboru Nakamura – Natsuko no Boken AKA Natsuko’s Adventure in Hokkaido (1953)

    Noboru Nakamura1951-1960AdventureClassicsJapan
    Natsuko no Boken (1953)
    Natsuko no Boken (1953)

    Quote:
    After World War II, Fuji Photo Film Co. Ltd. developed and launched colour film stocks, with which the first Japanese natural colour features Carmen Comes Home (1951) and Natsuko’s Adventure in Hokkaido were produced by Shochiku; the latter has seldom been presented as its existing print is an incomplete one. Adapted from an early serial fiction by Yukio Mishima, it is a melodrama with women as subjects—a genre Nakamura was best at, with excellent representation of Mishima’s persevering characters. Born to a prestigious family, Natsuko is not impressed by any one of her suitors. Determined to spend her life serving god, she sets off to a convent in Hakodate, Hokkaido and meets along the way a young bear-hunter with whom she begins an adventure. A few scenes are missing in this print, one of which near the end is without a soundtrack; lines in the original script are inserted in these scenes to make up for these defects, which do not discount the film’s status as a valuable film capturing Hakodate in its glorious and vibrant colours.Read More »

  • Shûsuke Kaneko – Yuri no Amaoto AKA When the Rain Falls (2022)

    2021-2030DramaEroticaJapanQueer Cinema(s)Shûsuke Kaneko
    Yuri no Amaoto (2022)
    Yuri no Amaoto (2022)

    “A film, which, despite a plot where almost all protagonists have sex with each other, is quite grounded in reality…” ~ Asian Movie Pulse

    Synopsis:
    Hazuki clips her nails every time it rains. She caressed ‘her’ with these fingers back then. Hazuki, an editor of a publishing company now, is attracted by Shiori, the head of planning. On a day when the two women soaked wet in the rain, they enter an motel for shelter and take a shower. There Hazuki sees the image of her lost “girlfriend” in Shiori and eventually they reach out to each other.Read More »

  • Christer Holmgren – Swêden poruno: Yokujô shotaiken AKA Desire First Sex Experience (1971)

    1971-1980Christer HolmgrenEroticaJapan
    Swêden poruno Yokujô shotaiken (1971)
    Swêden poruno Yokujô shotaiken (1971)

    Nothing less than a phenomenal, astonishing and pioneering film. This spectacle of an angry, ego-driven youth tormented by his own emotional impotence, low self-esteem and resentment towards his parents.Read More »

  • Sôkichi Tomimoto – Kajitsu no nai mori AKA Forest of No Escape (1965)

    1961-1970AsianDramaJapanSôkichi Tomimoto
    Kajitsu no nai mori (1965)
    Kajitsu no nai mori (1965)

    Adaptation of Seicho Matsumoto’s novel of the same name.Read More »

  • Kon Ichikawa – Shokei no heya AKA Punishment Room (1956) (HD)

    Kon Ichikawa1951-1960AsianDramaJapan
    Shokei no heya (1956)
    Shokei no heya (1956)

    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 »

Back to top button