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3 Movies
Japanese
January 2023 | 0 views
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Giants and Toys
1958
As much a film of its moment as Sweet Smell of Success and just as lasting in its pertinence, this cruel satire is Masumura's masterpiece - although an excellent script (from a Ken Kaiko novel) and terrific cast deserve their share of the credit. Three confectionery companies are locked in cut-throat rivalry for a share of a market increasingly dominated by imported US candy. Goda (Takamatsu), a thrusting young exec with World Caramel, spots a young woman out shopping and decides to turn her into a celebrity who can star in his plan for a space age ad campaign. Kyoko Shima (Nozoe), averagely pretty and with exceptionally bad teeth, takes to the Pygmalion treatment like a duck to water and soon leaves behind her job with a failing taxi firm and her dysfunctional family. Goda's assistant Nishi (Kawaguchi), who dates a woman exec from a rival firm and proves a useless industrial spy, watches as both the girl and his boss succumb to mega-greed; the film's ending turns on whether or not Nishi will have the balls to go his own moral way or submit to the diktats of Japan Inc. nicely paced, wittily conceived and imaginatively designed, this is the best of all proto-new wave movies.Director Masumura here explores the non-ceasing battle between pursuit of profits and business ethics in Japan's increasingly cut-throat corporate world.
movies
A Taxing Woman
1987
Ryoko Itakura is a government tax agent who has just landed a big promotion. Her first assignment is to catch wheeler-dealer Hideki Gondo. She has a tough job, since in Japan tax evasion is an art and Gondo is, in effect, Rembrandt. Her job is complicated by a growing sympathy for the rogue and by political pressure to lay off.
movies
Minbo
1992
A grand old Japanese hotel is trying to get a prestigious contract as the site of a summit meeting of important foreign officials. Unfortunately, this hotel is quite popular with the Yakuza (Japanese gangsters) and is a favorite target of theirs for extortion. They employ a variety of schemes to con the hotel out of 'hush-money.' The hotel needs to rid itself of the Yakuza and finally begins to fight back by hiring Mahiru Inoue, a lawyer who is an expert at dealing with these criminals on their own terms. This film by Juzo Itami combines action with farce, as an all-out war ensues.
movies
The Crazy Family
1984
The Kobayashi family finally get the chance to move out of their tiny, cramped Tokyo apartment in favour of the suburban house of their dreams. But all is not well: the house is infested by termites and the family starts cracking up: Son Masaki is studying so obsessively for his exams that he's losing his mind; daughter Erika is oblivious of all but her forthcoming record company audition, grandfather Yasukuni starts getting World War II flashbacks and father Katsuhiko is so worried about his family's "sickness" that he thinks can only be cured by group suicide...
movies
The Funeral
1984
At the beginning of the film the father-in-law of the protagonist dies unexpectedly of a heart attack. The remainder of the film is episodic, moving from one incident to another over the course of the three-day funeral, which is held (as is customary) in the home. These incidents contrast old ways and new ways, young and old, ritual ceremony and true feelings, often comically, but sometimes with real poignancy.
movies
Getting Any?
1994
A slapstick comedy, about a goofy middle-aged man who is obsessed with the idea of having car sex. While pursuing his 'dream', he makes all the wrong moves possible, and ends up enrolling in a number of crazy escapades.
movies
Funeral Parade of Roses
1969
While dealing drugs on the side, Gonda operates the Genet, a gay bar in Tokyo where he has hired a stable of transvestites to service the customers. The madame or lead "girl" of the bar is Leda, an older, old fashioned geisha-styled transvestite with who Gonda lives and is in a relationship. Arguably, the most popular of the girls working at the bar now is Eddie, a younger, modern transvestite. Like Leda, Eddie lives openly as a woman. Eddie's troubled life includes her father having deserted the family when she was a child, and having had a difficult relationship with her mother following, she who mocked Eddie's ability to be the man the of the family. Gonda enters into a sexual relationship with Eddie, who he promises to make madame of the bar, replacing Leda in both facets of his life, with Eddie having threatened to quit otherwise. While Leda suspects what Gonda and Eddie are up to, Gonda tells Leda what she wants to hear, much as he tells Eddie what she wants to hear. As this triangle plays itself out, what actually happens is affected by a joint history between Gonda and Eddie of which they are unaware. This film teeters between fiction and non-fiction as a secondary story is Eddie's friendship with a group of counter-culturalists, including filmmaker Guevara, whose making of a movie mirrors the making of this film. That balance tips into non-fiction as the actual actors in this and Guevara's movie talk about issues covered in this film, such as drug use, and sexuality, especially transvestism as the transvestite characters are played by real life transvestites.
movies
The Ceremony
1971
Upon receiving a shocking telegram from his cousin, a man recounts his early life, as a member of a broad family full of dark secrets that slowly reveal themselves through the clan ceremonies.
movies
Pastoral: To Die in the Country
1974
A young boys' coming of age tale set in a strange, carnivalesque village becomes the recreation of a memory that the director has twenty years later.
movies
Heroic Purgatory
1970
Rikiya Shoda is an engineer working for the Atomic Agency in Japan after spending a few years studying at the MIT. He's working on a new project involving the creation of laser beams. One day, his wife Nanako, comes back home with a lost teenager called Ayu. A man, who pretends to be Ayu's father, come to get her back but Ayu keeps telling him that Rikiya and Nanako are her parents. With this girl entering their peaceful life, Rikiya suddenly begins to remember his youth, when he was a revolutionary.
movies
Pigs and Battleships
1961
In Yukosuka, many are able to benefit financially, legally and illegally, by the presence of the American naval base established after the war. Kinta, who is low level thug within the Himori yakuza, takes care of the yakuza's pig farm but provides some muscle in shaking down among others shopkeepers who cater and this benefit from the lucrative American military trade. Kinta is often asked to sacrifice himself for the yakuza, the promise being that the yakuza will ultimately recognize the sacrifice with bonuses and promotion within the organization. Kinta's girlfriend, Haruko, a barmaid, doesn't like his life and would prefer that they escape Yukosuka to Kawasaki where they could get jobs in her uncle's factory, something that Kinta continually resists in not wanting to be a "wage slave". Haruko is also continually pressured by her mother to prostitute herself, Mr. Gordon who is willing to pay top dollar to be his kept mistress. Kinta and Haruko's fates will be partly affected by the power struggle within the yakuza, Kinta's cohorts who may be willing to give him up for their own benefit, his boss, Tetsuji, who believes he is dying, and Himori who will do whatever necessary to retain control.
movies
The Pornographers
1966
Mr. Ogata lives a complicated life: he is a pornographer making two skin flicks per day and trying to stay beneath the radar screen of the local mob; he deeply loves his ailing wife Haru who's cursed by the restless spirit of her dead first husband; he also has a mistress, a step-son who wants to go to university, and a step-daughter entering adolescence. He lusts after his step-daughter, and when Haru finds out about those sexual advances, she asks him to marry the girl. Haru even signs over her business to him, and a crisis ensues when Ogata uses her nest egg to buy equipment so he and his pals can set up their own film processing lab. Surreal images and events weave their way into Ogata's life.
movies
Rikyu
1991
Late in the 1500s, an aging tea master teaches the way of tea to a headstrong Shogun. Through force of will and courageous fighting, Hideyoshi becomes Japan's most powerful warlord, unifying the country. Rikyu, through the tea ceremony and floral arrangements, tempers his lord, helping Hideyoshi focus on a single flower or be in a simple room where the shape of a cup is of most importance. But other forces fuel Hideyoshi's ambitions: the Portuguese bring a globe and guns, and he believes he can conquer Korea and China. When Rikyu raises doubts about invading China, Hideyoshi demands an apology, and Rikyu himself must find courage in the way of tea.
movies
Supermarket Woman
1996
Goro's supermarket is not doing well; the rival "Bargains Galore" threatens his business. A chance encounter with Hanako, an energetic woman he knew in grade school, results in big retail and life changes.
movies
Shinjuku dorobô nikki
1969
Story of a bookstore thief named Birdey who is led through various adventures in Tokyo's Shinjuku district by salesgirl Umeko.
movies
Naisu no mori: The First Contact
2005
An outrageous collection of surreal, short attention span non-sequiturs largely revolving around Guitar Brother, his randy older sibling, and the pair's portly Caucasian brother.
movies
A Thousand & One Nights
1969
Aldin, a poor traveling water seller rescues a beautiful slave woman named Miriam from a slave auction in Baghdad. They fall in love at first sight and have a tryst, but the evil sheriff arrests Aldin and takes Miriam for himself. After being tortured, Aldin eventually manages to escape only to find his beloved dying in childbirth. Aldin flees the city and has many more bizarre, dangerous and often tragic adventures including finding Ali Baba's cave of wonders where he meets a tomboy outlaw with a serious grudge against the sheriff, landing on a strange island full of beautiful horny naked women, escaping a gigantic man-eating monster and discovering a ship that's actually a wish-granting genie. Eventually, Aldin returns to Baghdad as a much older and bitter man with the intent of becoming the new king and marrying the princess, who may or may not be his illegitimate daughter. However, nothing goes as planned despite the intervention of two quizzical shapeshifting creatures.
movies
Eros + Massacre
1970
In the 1920s, the anarchist revolutionary Sakae Osugi is financially supported by his wife, journalist Itsuko Masaoka. He spends his time doing nothing but philosophizing about political systems and free love and visiting with his lovers Yasuko and the earlier feminist Noe Ito. He conveniently defends three principles for a relationship between a man and a woman: they should be financially independent (despite the fact that he is not); they should live in different places; and they should be free to have sex with other people. In 1969, twenty-year-old student, Eiko Sokuta is sexually active with various men. Her friend, Wada, is obsessed with fire and they usually play odd games using a camera while they read about Osugi and Ito.
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