Category Cinema

Hishakaku and Kiratsune: A Tale of Two Yakuza (Jinsei gekijō: Hishakaku to Kiratsune, 人生劇場・飛車角と吉良常),1968

Head and shoulders shot of a young Japanese woman in traditional dress leaning against a wall, looking distraught

Other titles: A Tale of Two Yakuza (alternate English title); Theater of Life: Hishakaku and Kiratsune (literal English title) Production Company Toei (Tokyo) Scenarist Tanada Gorō Source Ozaki Shirō (novel) Producer Okawa Hiroshi Planning Shundo Hiroji, Okubo Tadayuki, Yoshida Tatsu…

Theater of Life: Youth Version [Fragment] (Jinsei gekijō – Seishun hen, 人生劇場・青春篇),1936

A young Japanese man in traditional clothing from the early 20th Century, sitting in a semi-darkened room, his head bowed in grief

Production Company Nikkatsu (Tamagawa) Scenarists Yagi Yasutarō (adaptation); Kameya Gentoku (screenplay) Source Ozaki Shirō (novel) Cinematographer Yokota Tatsuyuki Performers (Note: actors credited in the cast list but who don’t appear in the extant version are noted with an asterisk.) Kosugi…

Uchida the Sellout?

An old Japanese man wearing a cap, sitting outdoors on a chair and holding a cigarette in his hand

Photo above: Uchida Tomu directing a film, probably Swords of Death (Shinken shōbu, 1971) Note: As I’ve already done several times for this blog, I am interrupting my series of reviews of the films of Uchida Tomu to post my…

A Fugitive from the Past (Kiga Kaikyō;飢餓海峡), 1965

A middle-aged Japanese man with a mustache is looking towards the camera with a distressed expression

Other titles: The Hunger Straits, Straits of Hunger (literal English titles); Starvation Straits (alternative English title) Le détroit de la faim (literal French title); Szökevény a múltból [A Fugitive from the Past] (alternate Hungarian title) Production Company Toei (Tokyo) Scenarist…

The Outsiders (Mori to mizuumi no matsuri; 森と湖のまつり), 1958

A young Japanese man in modern clothes carrying a rifle crouches behind some shrubbery and looks into the distance, with a lake in the far distance behind him

Other titles: Festival of Lakes and Forests (literal English title) Production Company Tōei (Tokyo) Scenarist Uekusa Keinosuke Source Festival of Lakes and Forests (Mori to mizuumi no matsuri) [novel] by Takeda Taijun Producer Ōkawa Hiroshi Cinematographer Nishikawa Shōei Art Director…

Return to Heaven [Fragment] (Tengoku sono higaeri, 天国其日帰り), 1930

A 20th Century Japanese man in a bus driver's uniform looks up at somthing in a state of shock

Alternative titles: Heaven Day Return, Heaven Day Trip (literal English titles) Production Company Nikkatsu Uzumasa (Taiso) Scenarist Kobayashi Masashi Cinematographer Matsuzawa Matao Performers Tamura Kunio (Asahina Takuhachi, a bus driver); Sakuma Taeko (Kawai Kimiko); Mine Ginko (Kinoshita Akako); Miake Bontarō…

Crown of Life (Seimei no kanmuri, 生命の冠), 1936

Two modern Japanese women, a young girl and a middle-aged housewife, in traditional dress looking solemnly at someone beyond camera range

The Crown of Life (alternate English title) Production Company Nikkatsu Tamagawa (Chōfu) Scenarist Yagi Yasutarō Source Yamamoto Yūzō (play) Cinematographer Yokota Tatsuyuki Performers Oka Jōji (Arimura Kotarō); Takihana Hisako (Masako, his wife); Izome Shirō (Kinjirō, his younger brother); Hara Setsuko…

Hero of the Red-Light District (Yōtō monogatari: hana no Yoshiwara hyakunin-giri, 妖刀物語/花の吉原百人斬り), 1960

A facially disfigured Japanese man in feudal clothes looks at something with horror, while touching his face with his fingers

Killing in Yoshiwara; Yoshiwara: The Pleasure Quarter; Tale of Strange Swords (alternate English titles); Meurtre à Yoshiwara (alternate French title); Cursed Sword Story: Flower of Yoshiwara, Hundreds Killed (approximate literal English title) Production Company Toei (Kyoto) Scenarist Yoda Yoshikata Source…