Taiji Tonoyama

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A mining town in Kyushu. Zenzo (Tennoyama Yasuji) is unemployed after the mountain collapses. If Dad becomes a coward, Mom will become a strong man. Fumiko (Otowa Nobuko) takes her daughter Kimiko (Yamagishi Eiko) to Kyoto and becomes a hostess at the “Salon Heian Mothership”. The two use various tactics to get money. Their target is Yamamoto Gonbei (Kanze Hideo), a large landowner in Rakusai with a 200-year tradition. Gonbei quickly becomes obsessed with Kimiko and starts giving her a lot of money. They even start thinking about getting married, but their dignified mother Ryu (Nakamura Ryoko) is against it, saying that it is outrageous to marry a mere hostess. At that time, Dad comes to consult with her because Fumiko is working and his unemployment insurance is about to be terminated.Read More »

Aspiring singer Wendy hops on a plane to Tokyo with dreams of making it big in the music business. She soon finds romance with Hiro, a rock ‘n’ roll musician who convinces her to become the lead singer in his band.Read More »

Kaneto Shindô’s 1974 film “My Way” is a throwback to films of his early career and is an exposure of the Japanese government’s mistreatment of the country’s migratory workers. Based on a true story, an elderly women resiliently spends nine months attempting to retrieve her husband’s dead body, fighting government bureaucracy and indifference all along the way.Read More »

A rarely seen but important 1965 work by Heinosuke Gosho.

Some remarks by Arthur Nolletti, in his book The Cinema of Gosho Heinosuke: Laughter Through Tears:

Gosho’s most critically acclaimed film of the 1960s… Ranked seventh in Kinema Jumpo’s “Best Ten” poll, it is rightly considered to be one of his most powerful works. Set on the Shimokita Peninsula in the northernmost area of Honshu, the film tells a stark and harrowing tale. Oshima Ayako (Yoshimura Jitsuko), a young woman in her teens, lives in a small, impoverished fishing village. Her father, Matsukichi (Yoshida Yoshio), is too ill to work. As a result, her mother, Kikuno (Sugai Kin), sells her to a nearby brothel. There she quickly is stripped of her innocence and illusions…Read More »