A young man’s pigeon selling scam eventually ruins his cross-class friendship with a wealthy young woman in Oshima’s biting sociopolitical drama
May 18, 2021 • Subscribe
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Nagisa Oshima (1932-2013)
After Shindo and Wakamatsu, Oshima...It's a great loss because he was one of the directors that introduced me to cinema with his stunni...
Dear Summer Sister (夏の妹, Nagisa Oshima, 1972)
A young woman travels to Okinawa in search of a boy who may or may not be her half-brother in an uncharacteristically breezy effort from Nagisa Oshima
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A beautiful boy becomes an existential threat to the fracturing integrity of the Shinengumi in Nagisa Oshima’s iconoclastic final film
The Angry Street (怒りの街, Mikio Naruse, 1950)
A sociopathic student takes revenge on a changing society by seducing wealthy women in Mikio Naruse’s brooding noir.
The Big Boss (暗黒街の顔役, Kihachi Okamoto, 1959)
A veteran yakuza falls foul of changing times trying to save his teen idol younger brother from the underworld in an early crime drama from Kihachi Okamoto
The Heart of Hiroshima (愛と死の記録, Koreyoshi Kurahara, 1966)
Sayuri Yoshinaga was the top female star at Nikkatsu in the mid-1960s. Together with her regular co-star Mitsuo Hamada, she starred in a series of hit youth romances…
Bonds of Love (愛のきずな, Takashi Tsuboshima, 1969)
Trapped in a loveless marriage and unsatisfying career, a salaryman’s attempt to escape through an affair proves more complicated than he bargained for in Takashi Tsuboshima’s noirish d…
Love Nonetheless (愛なのに, Hideo Jojo, 2022)
A lovelorn bookseller is drawn into a world of romantic confusion by a high school girl with a hopeless crush and and his own requited love in Jojo’s…
Beyond Love and Hate / 愛と憎しみの彼方へ / Ai to nikushimi no kanata e (1951)
Obscure Japanese Film #237Toshiro Mifune Abashiri Prison, Hokkaido. When six convicts escape one rainy night, kindly veteran screw Kubo (Takashi Shimura) is shocked to learn that one of the men was…
Bonds of Love / 愛のきずな / Ai no kizuna (1969)
Obscure Japanese Film #125 Mari Sono and Makoto Fujita Suzuki (Makoto Fujita) is a low-level manager at a travel agency who drives a mod...
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Obscure Japanese Film #242Izumi AshikawaTsutomu ShimomotoYumeji TsukiokaYuji Odaka Akiko (Izumi Ashikawa) is the only child of her father (Tsutomu Shimomoto) and mother (Yumeji Tsukioka) and is approaching marriageable age. She has…
Love and Murder of Sheep and Wolf 羊とオオカミの恋と殺人 (2020) Director: Kayoko Asakura
Love and Murder of Sheep and Wolf has a great concept about dating a hitwoman but a dull final result in its execution. Love and Murder of Sheep…
Sugar Street Studio (糖街製片廠, Sunny Lau, 2021)
A gang of plucky filmmakers right a historical wrong while running an “authentic” haunted house in Sunny Lau’s charmingly retro horror comedy
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A trio of teens begin to find new direction in their lives after coming together to organise a fireworks festival in Emiko Hiramatsu warmhearted local drama.
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Image of a Mother (母のおもかげ, Hiroshi Shimizu, 1959)
A little boy’s difficulties in accepting his new stepmother express an anxiety about the changing nature of the family in Hiroshi Shimizu’s familial melodrama.
This Love of Mine (我的愛, Chang Yi, 1986)
When an already anxious housewife discovers her husband’s affair, she becomes aware of the extent to which she is already trapped by the patriarchal social codes of the…
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Whirlpool of Flesh (おんなの渦と淵と流れ, Ko Nakahira, 1964)
A intellectual professor and his wounded wife find themselves trapped in a toxic marriage after returning from Manchuria in Ko Nakahira’s fatalistic drama
The Last Gunfight (暗黒街の対決, Kihachi Okamoto, 1960)
A maverick cop finds himself at the centre of a moribund gang war in Kihachi Okamoto’s anarchic western-inflected crime drama
Waga ai / わが愛 (‘My Love’, 1960)
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Where Love Goes 愛のゆくえ, from director Fuka Miyajima, is a rich story about love that takes a girl from Hokkaido to Tokyo and back, by way of magical realism.…
Kaze no aru michi / 風のある道 / (‘Windy Road’, 1959)
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A Bullet Hole Underground (地下街の弾痕, Kazuo Mori, 1949)
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Episode #54 – Night and Fog in Japan (日本の夜と霧)
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Four Hours of Terror (高度7000米 恐怖の四時間, Tsuneo Kobayashi, 1959)
A fugitive on the run for a murder hijacks a passenger plane in an attempt to get away in Tsuneo Kobayashi’s airborne thriller.
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