Ken’ichi Hagiwara

Akira, a Japanese expat working in Amsterdam, falls in love with a Japanese woman at Schiphol Airport who he thinks is his high school love.Read More »

The story of Takeha, a free-spirited genius poet who lived through Taisho Romanticism, and the women who gave themselves over to his ambitions.Read More »

A version of the famous kabuki play Yotsuya Kaidan from 1981.Read More »

Synopsis:
Akira Kurosawa’s lauded feudal epic presents the tale of a petty thief (Tatsuya Nakadai) who is recruited to impersonate Shingen (also Nakadai), an aging warlord, in order to avoid attacks by competing clans. When Shingen dies, his generals reluctantly agree to have the impostor take over as the powerful ruler. He soon begins to appreciate life as Shingen, but his commitment to the role is tested when he must lead his troops into battle against the forces of a rival warlord.Read More »

Quote:
Capone Cries a Lot (カポネ大いに泣く, Kapone ōi ni naku?, aka Capone’s Flood of Tears) is a 1985 Japanese comedy film directed by Seijun Suzuki. It stars Kenichi Hagiwara as a naniwa-bushi singer who travels with his wife to the United States in hopes of achieving fame and fortune.Read More »

Quote:
“Bitterness of Youth (1974) was Kumashiro’s first non-roman poruno (<– wrong), based on a novel with a family resemblance to Dreiser’s “An American Tragedy “and set in a milieu of imploded student radicalism: A callow law student impregnates the classmate he is tutoring, then dumps her for his wealthy cousin. The most extraordinary scene has the antihero and his ex revisit the ski resort where they began their affair—carrying on in the snow in a long, behavioral sequence that recapitulates their relationship as they roll struggling and screaming downhill toward a raging river.”Read More »

Quote:
A hard working salaryman takes off five days from his busy job and sets off with his wife and two children to visit his parents in his hometown for the 1991 new year holidays. He decides that they will go by car to save on expenses. Unfortunately, the long drive from Tokyo to his hometown becomes a much longer journey than expected due to traffic, sickness and other misfortunes…Read More »

Just as many American studio-era directors found acclaim abroad that was denied them in their home country, by 1980 Akira Kurosawa’s reputation outside Japan exceeded his esteem at home. As uncompromising as ever, he found considerable difficulty securing backing for his ambitious projects. Unsure he would be able to film it, the director, an aspiring artist before he entered filmmaking, converted Kagemusha into a series of paintings, and it was partly on the basis of these that he won the financial support of longtime admirers Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas. Set in the 16th century, when powerful warlords competed for control of Japan, it offers an examination of the nature of political power and the slipperiness of identity. Read More »