Category Japanese Cinema

The Horse Boy (Abarenbō kaidō; 暴れん坊街道), 1957)

Picture of a surprised-looking Japanese man, shown against a dark (night) background, wearing clothing from Japan's feudal era

Alternate Titles: Horse Boy; Hooligans’ Highway (literal English title); La Route des malandrins (literal French title) Production Company Toei (Kyoto) Scenarist Yoda Yoshikata Original Draft (uncredited) Hirata Kenzo (see Notes on the Production below) Sources The Night Song of Yosaku…

The 1925 Kanto Shipwreck Film Fragment, possibly titled Righteous Blood (Giketsu, 義血)

A night scene of a coastline, with a ship, slightly listing, in the background, and a rocky hill in the foreground, on which several people can be seen, silhouetted by a bonfire behind them.

Other possible titles: Honorable Blood, Kanto and the Sailor Ogawa, The Shipwreck of Kanto and the Sailor Ogawa, Special Service Ship Kanto and the Sailor Ogawa Production Company Kokkatsu Scenarist Unknown Cinematographer Tsuburaya Eiji Chief Assistant Director Igayama Masamitsu Performers…

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…

The Rowing King [Fragment] (Sōtei-ō, 漕艇王), 1927

Headshot of a young Japanese man in the 1920's, setting on an unseen boat in the river, with a bridge visible behind him.

Other titles: The King of Rowing, Rowing King (alternate English titles) Production Company Nikkatsu Scenarist Yano Yoshiaki Source Yano Yoshiaki (story) Cinematography Kiga Yasugō Performers Hirose Tsunemi (Mochizuki Eiichi, the Rowing King); Natsukawa Shizue (Mitsuko, the Rector’s niece); Kanbe Hikaru…