A Tribute to the World's Greatest Unknown Moviemaker
A Tribute to the World's Greatest Unknown Moviemaker
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…
Other titles: The Great Bodhisattva Pass: Part I (1957), The Great Bodhisattva Pass: Second Part (Dai ni bu, 第二部) (1958) The Great Bodhisattva Pass: Final Version (Kanketsu Hen, 完結篇) (1959) (literal English titles); Swords in the Moonlight, Souls in the…
Photo above: Zhang Ziyi and Odagiri Joe in the 2005 Japanese musical Princess Raccoon (Operetta tanuki goten), the final film directed by Suzuki Seijun (1923-2017). Note: As I’ve already done several times in this blog, I am interrupting my series…
Other titles: Miyamoto Musashi VI, Death Match; Swords of Doom; Battle of Life or Death; Serious Game (alternative English titles); Duel with Real Swords, Real Sword Fight (literal English titles); Duel à mort [Duel to the Death] (alternate French title);…
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…
Other titles: The Scaffold, They Are Buried Alive (alternate English titles) Production Company Tōei (Tokyo) Scenarists Hashimoto Shinobu and Uchida Tomu Source Kikushima Ryūzō (book) and television film Dotanba (1956) Cinematographer Fujii Shizuka Art Director Mori Mikio Music Kosugi Taiichirō…
Alternate Titles: Wine, Women and Spear (literal title); The Drunken Spearman; A Man’s Ambition Production Company Toei Kyoto Scenarist Ide Masato Source Kaionji Chōgorō (story) Cinematographer Washio Motoya Art Director Suzuki Takatoshi Music Kosugi Taiichirō Editing Miyamoto Shintarō Performers Ōtomo…
Alternative titles: In My Hole (alternate English title); Chacun dans sa coquille [Each in his shell] (alternate French title); Önhibámból [Through my own fault] (alternate Hungarian title) Production Company Nikkatsu Scenarist Yagi Yasutarō Source Ishikawa Tatsuzō (novel) Producer Iwai Kaneo…
The Girl in the Book It all began, like most encounters with Japanese Cinema in the West, with Donald Richie. Many years ago, probably in the 1980s, I bought a coffee-table book by Mr. Richie – the great American popularizer…
