Shirô Shimomoto

  • Banmei Takahashi – Doa AKA Door (1988)

    Banmei Takahashi1981-1990HorrorJapanMystery
    Doa (1988)
    Doa (1988)

    Tokyo housewife Yasuko Honda (Keiko Takahashi, the director’s wife) has a workaholic husband named Saturo (Shirô Shimomoto) who has been called away for out-of-town duty for a few days, so she is home alone with her elementary-school–age son Takuto (Takuto Yonezu). Already fed up with the frequent intrusions of door-to-door salesmen, because of whom she keeps her door locked and latched, she is highly frustrated when salesman Yamakawa (Daijirô Tsutsumi) slips his hand through her chained door to offer a brochure. She slams the door on his hand, instantly making an enemy of the man, who becomes bent on revenge.Read More »

  • Banmei Takahashi – Doa AKA Door (1988)

    1981-1990Banmei TakahashiHorrorJapanThriller

    A young housewife is not having a good day. Her husband is never home, the rent is late, her kid has caught the flu, and now – someone’s at her door. It’s a salesman, trying to pawn off some stupid thing or other. There’s no time to deal with it. Just tell him to go to hell, to peddle his goods someplace else. And then, when he doesn’t listen, she slams the door in his face. Or more accurately, on his hand. And this guy is pissed. The psycho salesman decides to teach her a lesson. He starts making phone threats. Soon the sick bastard has mustered enough guts to break into her apartment. He savagely torments mommy and child until the woman finally turns the tables… -Thomas Weisser, “Japanese Cinema: Essential Handbook”Read More »

  • Kiyoshi Kurosawa – Hebi no michi AKA Serpent’s Path (1998)

    1991-2000AsianJapanKiyoshi KurosawaThriller

    Midnight Eye review:
    Serpent’s Path and its companion piece Eyes of the Spider (Kumo No Hitomi) both start from the same premise: a man taking revenge for the murder of a child. Kurosawa used this premise as the jumping-off point for the two films rather than their definition, resulting in a pair of works which are not so much occupied with revenge, but with the mental processes of human beings in situations that have placed them outside everyday life.Read More »

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