A personal journal of film and documentary reviews, and reviews of anything else that intrigues me.
Reviews of Japanese-language films I find significant or interesting.
Kon Ichikawa, “Conflagration / Enjo” (1958) Based on the novel “The Temple of the Golden Pavilion” (itself based on an actual incident) by notorious Japanese writer…
Hiroshi Inagaki, “Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island” (1956) Inagaki’s third and last installment in the historical fiction drama series on the life and times of…
Hiroshi Inagaki, “Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple” (1955) Its predecessor in the Musashi Miyamoto trilogy might have won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film…
Hiroshi Inagaki, “Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto” (1954) One of the most famous people in Japanese culture is the swordsman and mystic Musashi Miyamoto, author of “Gorin…
Toshiya Fujita, “Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance / Shurayukihime: Urami Renga” (1974) At the end of the first eponymous film, main character Yuki (Meiko Kaji)…
Toshiya Fujita, “Lady Snowblood / Shurayukihime” (1973) Based on a manga and the inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” homage to old 1970s Asian martial arts…
Hayao Miyazaki, “The Wind Rises / Kaze tachinu” (2013) Miyazaki’s swansong film is a fictional biography of aeroplane designer and engineer Jiro Horikoshi, creator of the…
Yasujiro Ozu, “Floating Weeds” (1959) In the hands of a lesser director, the soap opera plot of this film would have become sensationalist drama, soon to…
Masaki Kobayashi, “Kwaidan” (1964) Often billed as a horror film, “Kwaidan” is in fact a quartet of fantasy stories of which three were based on traditional…
Shohei Imamura, “The Eel / Unagi” (1997) Japan’s boys in blue have an enviable record in obtaining a near 100% rate of criminal convictions and never…