Toshirô Mifune

In the turn of the Twentieth Century, the rickshaw driver Matsugoro “Matsu” is a happy man and a troublemaker well-known by everyone in his village. One day, Matsu sees an injured boy, Toshio, and brings him home. His mother Yoshiko Yoshioka asks Matsuo to take the boy to the doctor and then her husband Capt. Kotaro Yoshioka asks her to reward Matsu. However the rickshaw man refuses the money and becomes a friend of the family. When Kotaro unexpectedly dies, Matsuo helps Yoshiko to raise her son. Soon he falls in love with her, but he does not dare to open his heart to Yoshiko since they belong to different social classes.Read More »

Synopsis:
Hiroshi Inagaki’s acclaimed Samurai Trilogy is based on the novel that has been called Japan’s Gone with the Wind. This sweeping saga of the legendary seventeenth-century samurai Musashi Miyamoto (powerfully portrayed by Toshiro Mifune) plays out against the turmoil of a devastating civil war. The Trilogy (whose first part won an Academy Award) follows Musashi’s odyssey from unruly youth to enlightened warrior. In the second and most violent installment, Duel at Ichijoji Temple, Musashi beats a samurai armed with a chain and sickle and is later set upon by eighty samurai disciples—orchestrated by the sinister Kojiro—while the two women who love him watch helplessly.Read More »

Synopsis:
Hiroshi Inagaki’s acclaimed Samurai Trilogy is based on the novel that has been called Japan’s Gone with the Wind. This sweeping saga of the legendary seventeenth-century samurai Musashi Miyamoto (powerfully portrayed by Toshiro Mifune) plays out against the turmoil of a devastating civil war. The Trilogy (whose first part won an Academy Award) follows Musashi’s odyssey from unruly youth to enlightened warrior. In the third installment, Duel at Ganryu Island, Musashi reunites tragically with the women who love him, and battles for samurai supremacy in a climactic confrontation with his lifelong nemesis.Read More »

A vivid, visceral Macbeth adaptation, Throne of Blood, directed by Akira Kurosawa, sets Shakespeare’s definitive tale of ambition and duplicity in a ghostly, fog-enshrouded landscape in feudal Japan. As a hardened warrior who rises savagely to power, Toshiro Mifune gives a remarkable, animalistic performance, as does Isuzu Yamada as his ruthless wife. Throne of Blood fuses classical Western tragedy with formal elements taken from Noh theater to create an unforgettable cinematic experience.Read More »

Following the Second World War, the lives of various people in a poverty-stricken area of Tokyo are entertwined. Pachinko parlor girls, shoeshine boys, a maker of replica jewelry, and a streetcorner artist all struggle to make their livings and to find happiness in difficult surroundings.Read More »

In 1870, a gang robs a train and steals a ceremonial Japanese sword meant as a gift for the U.S. President, prompting a manhunt to retrieve it.Read More »

Synopsis:
February 17 to March 3, 1860, inside Edo castle. A group of assassins wait by Sakurada Gate to kill the lord of the House of Ii, a powerful man in the Tokugawa government, which has ruled Japan for 300 years. They suspect a traitor in their midst, and their suspicions fall on Niiro, an impoverished ronin who dreams of samurai status, and Kurihara, an aristocratic samurai who befriends Niiro. Niiro longs to identify his father, knowing he is a high-ranking official who will disclose himself only if Niiro achieves samurai status. With American ships in Japan’s harbors, cynicism among the assassins, and change in the air, Niiro resolves to reach ends that may prove ephemeral.Read More »

The old Japanese folktale of the Bamboo Cutter is here reinterpreted to make Kaguya an alien visitor. Sticking fairly closely to the original 9th century tale of a bamboo cutter finding a mysterious baby girl, this film puts a modern spin onto it by turning the beautiful visitor from the moon into an alien entity lost from a crashed spaceship.Read More »

Plot
The film’s setting is a town in Oaxaca during the festival of its patron saint, for which the church appoints a layman as mayordomo or steward, an honor that in effect is gained by being able to organize and cover the high costs of most of the saint’s local festivities. The post is however very coveted by the locals as it is socially prestigious.Read More »