Category Archives: Japan

Kabuki: Kumo no Ito (蜘蛛絲梓弦), Tale of Sanemori (実盛物語)

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  • Kabuki: 蜘蛛絲梓弦 (Kumo no Ito), 実盛物語 (Tale of Sanemori)

1/25/26 (Sun), Tokyo Kabukiza

Kabuki continues to boom following the unexpected success of the Kabuki-themed film Kokuho, still running at theaters after six months (it was just nominated for a minor Oscar this week). This month’s Kabuki program largely featured up-and-coming performers in prominent roles, which encouragingly drew a healthy crowd of young audiences. The first of the three shows, not listed here, was a light three-part dance piece celebrating the new year, basically an excuse to show off a large number of cast members.

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Pretty Woman (プリティ・ウーマン, musical)

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  • Pretty Woman (プリティ・ウーマン, musical)

1/23/26 (Fri), Tokyo

A Japanese-language version of the flop Broadway musical. This production appears meant as a showcase for the half-Spanish hunk Shirota Yu, who also translated the book and lyrics. The other main roles were double-cast despite an effective run of less than two weeks.

It was no better or worse than feared, basically a paint-by-numbers recreation of the movie with songs thrown on top, as with most of these film retreads. Continue reading →

Madame de Sade (サド侯爵夫人)

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  • サド侯爵夫人 (Madame de Sade)

1/18/26 (Sun), Tokyo

Mishima Yukio’s typically talky drama has its fans: it was selected by Japanese critics back in 1994 as the nation’s best play of the postwar era. (Mishima tied as best writer with the equally prolific Inoue Hisashi of Living With Father fame.) It was written in 1965, just five years before the author’s shocking seppuku – which I mention only because director Miyamoto Amon has decided to include this irrelevant fact as the first line in this production, spoken portentously by the actor who will play the servant (after he has stood facing us on the dark stage for several minutes of utter silence). A starry West End production some years back put critics to sleep, though a Swedish rendering by Ingmar Bergman, available on YouTube, is held in some esteem.

This production had two selling points. One, the six-woman show is played by an all-male cast, a technique that Japanese directors turn to occasionally. Second, the lead, Narimiya Hiroki, is making his comeback after abruptly quitting show business several years earlier over horrific media bullying regarding his private life. (As it happens, Higashide Masahiro, who plays the horny countess, is himself coming off an adultery scandal, which somehow feels appropriate for this piece.)

The author based the work on the historical fact that the Marquise de Sade waited devotedly for 12 years for her famously demented husband to be released from prison, only to refuse to see him ever again once he was finally out. The play examines this through the lives of six women, each representing a different side of French society (wifely devotion, social status, religion, etc). Continue reading →

Plan 75 (プラン75）

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  • Plan 75

12/27/25 (Sat)

Hayakawa Chie’s 2022 work, amazingly her first feature film, is a beautiful and understated rumination on an aging society, an acute issue in Japan. The government has crafted a sweet-sounding plan offering incentives for those 75 and older to, in effect, kill themselves. Those who sign up receive a ¥100,000 cash payment (rendered oddly as $1,000 in the subtitles) and can spend their final hours wining and dining in a lovely facility, where they will then be gassed to death. Cremation and other costs are completely covered as well. While the program is nominally voluntary, the attraction is strong for lonely old people with nowhere else to turn, and there is considerable pressure to ease the burden on society by slipping peacefully away rather than dragging on unproductively for decades more.

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Scam (でっちあげ)

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  • でっちあげ (Scam)

12/12/25 (Fri)

A Miike Takashi film of 2025. An elementary school teacher is accused by a mother of abusing her son. We first witness a home visit by the teacher, who spouts racist comments about the mixed-blood kid and disparages his classroom behavior in outrageous terms. The mother is incensed and complains to the principal, who insists that the teacher apologize just to get rid of her.

Then, in imitation of Koreeda’s far superior Monster, it replays the event in question from the teacher’s perspective. Continue reading →

Shoulderpads

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  • Shoulderpads

12/7/25 (Sun)

A spoofy retelling of the classic Night on the Galactic Railroad by children’s writer Miyazawa Kenji. The selling point here, as seen in the eye-catching poster, is the unusual costume design, nothing but a shoulder pad covering the performers’ neither regions. I’m always suspicious of shows relying on a gimmick, but it had strong reviews at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival (not necessarily in itself the best indicator of quality) and, even better, was only an hour long. Continue reading →

Noh: Sanemori (実盛)，Momijigari (紅葉狩)

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  • Noh: Sanemori (実盛)，Momijigari (紅葉狩)

11/2/25 (Sun)

Sanemori: I’ve seen the more expansive version of this Heike tale in both Bunraku and Kabuki, but Zeami’s Noh version is not done as often, being one of those shows that only a certain level of actor is allowed to play.

A monk in Shinohara notes that a certain man has been listening to his sermons every day. He approaches the man and realizes that he is the only one who can see him. The man tells him the story of Sanemori, a warrior who was killed in the Battle of Shinohara, then hints that he is in fact that very warrior before slipping off. He returns in full battle gear, wearing a rich brocaded kimono, and tells his story. He describes how he had special permission to use the kimono, usually available only to generals, because he wanted to return to the battle in his home province in splendor. The reciters relate further that after he was killed and decapitated, the enemy discovered when they washed his head that the black dye came off to show his naturally gray hair, revealing him to be an old man. He had dyed it to ensure that his enemy took him seriously, but this is taken as a sign of vanity, an attachment that he must discard in order to achieve salvation. Sanemori, “a decayed and withered branch,” asks the monk to pray for his soul.

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Gonza the Spearman (槍の権三)

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  • 槍の権三 (Gonza the Spearman)

10/31/25 (Fri)

The Tokyo Film Festival was screening three films this year in honor of Shinoda Masahiro following his recent death. Shinoda has his highs and lows, and the selection reflected both sides, the former in Pale Flower, an undisputed masterpiece, and the latter in the ridiculous Demon Pond. So I chose this adaptation of a classic Chikamatsu Monzaemon piece, which I’ve seen on stage in both Bunraku puppet drama and Kabuki. Shinoda’s last Monzaemon work, Double Suicide, felt like a way-too-purposeful attempt to look avant-garde and totally cool, so I went to this warily.

The play is beautifully written, but the tangled web of societal obligations makes it hard to take seriously at times. I almost wondered if Chikamatsu was making fun of that. Gonza is a spearman in the employ of a large clan. He is informally engaged to a woman, but Sai, the wife of a famed tea master, wants to marry him off to her daughter. A mixture of misunderstandings and evil intentions leads to accusations of adultery, and the codified structure of society proves impossible to overcome.

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Undercurrent (夜の河)

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  • 夜の河 (Undercurrent)

10/11/25 (Sat)

Yoshimura Kozaburo’s 1956 melodrama (also known more literally as Night River) is another of his Mizoguchi-type female-centric films exploring the plight of women in contemporary Japan. Yamamoto Fujiko is a Kyoto kimono designer working at her family shop. Her talent and perseverance have won her success in what is seen as a dying industry (back in 1956! – fortunately that proved untrue) in an increasingly Westernized society. She missed out on the normal marriage years due to the war and is now 30 and unwed, quite old for the time. She is resolved to be her own woman, not reliant on anyone, and rejects the efforts of her friends and family to match her up. A young painter is clearly in love with her, even basing his works on her, but to his despair, she takes no notice romantically.

During a stroll into town, she happens upon a man (Uehara Ken) wearing a tie with her design. Something about him attracts her, and they strike up a friendship. Continue reading →

Highest 2 Lowest

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  • Highest 2 Lowest

10/9/25 (Thurs)

I shouldn’t be commenting on this since I only watched a small part before giving up. I was excited to learn of this remake of the Kurosawa classic High & Low, directed by Spike Lee, starring Denzel Washington – how perfect is that? The moviemakers retain the basic plot of a businessman who must decide whether to save his employee’s kid at a devastating cost to himself, but shift the setting to a black music producer taunted by a struggling rap artist. I re-watched the original first with friends, then took in the remake.

All of us were stunned at how awful this was in just about every department. Continue reading →

Noh: Kocho, Tenko (胡蝶, 天鼓)

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  • NOH: 胡蝶, 天鼓 (Kocho, Tenko)

9/21/25 (Sun), Umewaka

Kocho: This winter piece is rather unseasonal in these still humid days, but it’s always a pleasure to watch. A butterfly laments to a monk that she has never seen a plum, which blossoms in the late winter, since butterflies don’t live that long. The monk recites a sutra for her, and the power of prayer allows her miraculously to enjoy the flower.

You’d have to look hard to find any profound theme in this, but it’s a light and lovely show. Continue reading →

Lullaby of the Earth (大地の子守歌)

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  • 大地の子守歌 (Lullaby of the Earth)

9/15/25 (Mon)

Masamura Yasuzo’s 1976 work was playing at a retrospective of powerful film performances by actresses, and a friend spoke so highly of Harada Mieko that it piqued my interest.

It is the 1930s. An orphaned 13-year-old girl has been raised by an old lady in the happy solitude of the mountains of Iyo (Ehime Prefecture). She returns one day to find the woman dead. Extremely strong-willed, she is determined to live her life dependent on no one. She initially rejects one man who tries to recruit her for steady work, but gives in when she learns that it is by the sea, which she’s always dreamed of seeing. She is taken to a remote island, where unsurprisingly she is put to work in a brothel, though, given her age, as an assistant to the girls and not a prostitute herself.

She is headstrong and not interested in making friends or being liked. She resists limits and labels: she insists on rowing the boat that takes the prostitutes out to sailors, usually a man’s job, and cuts her hair to look like a man. She resolutely refuses to be with clients even after she gets her first period – which she only comprehends after a kind lady on the outside explains – but gives in when she realizes that the money earned can buy her way out. After first forcing a young kid to have sex with her to get that out of the way, she plunges into that world as with everything and is soon the most popular whore in the house.

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