- 妻は告白する (A Wife Confesses)
6/12/25 (Thurs)
Masumura Yasuzo’s 1961 courtroom drama is one of 20 collaborations with his muse Wakao Ayako. Continue reading
The Mad Fox (恋や恋やすな恋)
- 恋や恋やすな恋 (The Mad Fox)
6/6/25 (Fri), home, 7:15-9:00p
Uchida’s 1962 surrealistic film is based on the popular Bunraku and Kabuki classic commonly known as Kuzunoha. The entire movie is as shape shifting as the foxes within it, moving from semi-realistic to otherworldly to a Kabuki stage. Continue reading
Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance (子連れ狼)
- 子連れ狼 (Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance)
6/5/25 (Thurs)
Misumi Kenji’s 1972 cult flick, the first in what proved a six-film series, is exploitation chambara in the worst way. Continue reading
Bloody Spear at Mt. Fuji (血槍富士)
- 血槍富士 (Bloody Spear at Mt. Fuji)
6/3/25 (Tues)
Uchida Tomu’s 1955 film was his comeback after a 13-year absence from Japanese film. He had reportedly raised suspicions in the movie world for his long stay in China and reported enthusiasm for the Mao regime (despite his active support for the Japanese military during the war – his convictions don’t seem very deep). But he had some big hitters behind him, including explicit support in the opening credits from superstar directors Ozu Yasujiro, Shimizu Hiroshi, and Ito Daisuke (the poster also throws in Mizoguchi Kenji). He supposedly promised to behave in crafting this film, and the content is largely innocuous on the surface. It is based on a popular silent film, Dochu Hiki (now lost), by his mentor Inoue Kintaro. The two leads in that film were happily given roles in the remake: Tsukigata Ryunosuke in a great turn as the suspected thief and Watanabe Atsushi as an official in the comic tea party scene.
Chikamatsu’s Love in Osaka (浪花の恋の物語)
- 浪花の恋の物語 (Chikamatsu’s Love in Osaka)
5/27/25 (Tues)
Uchida Tomu’s 1959 film, based loosely on playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s 18th-century puppet classic Courier from Hell (冥途の飛脚 ). The English title is misleading: it is not a love affair involving Chikamatsu, but a play devised by Chikamatsu about a doomed love affair in Osaka. (The Japanese title is a more straightforward The Story of a Naniwa Love Affair, using the old name for the city.) As with the similarly title-challenged The Chikamatsu Story, the marketers seem to think that the Chikamatsu name is going to be an attraction for foreigners, who in fact are unlikely to have heard the name at all. The film needs better marketers.
The Substance
- The Substance
5/24/25 (Sat)
Writer/director Coralie Fargeat lets herself get carried away in what starts out as a clever conceit but fizzles out from a lack of either courage or imagination. Continue reading
Fallen Blossoms (花ちりぬ)
- 花ちりぬ (Fallen Blossoms)
5/23/25 (Fri)
I learned of Ishida Tamizo’s little known 1938 film through a Japanese film blog and was intrigued enough to check it out. The only names I knew in the credits were future director Ichikawa Kon, who served here as one of the assistant directors, and co-writer Morimoto Kaoru, best known for the much-revived stage drama Life of a Woman. (Some sources claim that Morimoto adapted this film from a stage version, but I can’t confirm that anywhere.)
A unique feature of this film is that the entire cast is female, though male voices can be heard from time to time, and the action takes place wholly within the confines of a geisha house in Gion. The time is specified as a roughly 24-hour period from the evening of July 17, 1864, which we now know is just before an anti-government assault by rebel forces known to history as the Kinmon Gate Incident. The rebels suffered a disastrous defeat against the Shogun’s elite Shinsengumi forces with significant loss of life.
But the geisha don’t know that yet. Continue reading
RRR
- RRR
4/12/25 (Sat)
This Telugu-language film was a massive hit in Japan on its initial run in autumn 2022, quickly becoming the largest-grossing Indian film ever released in the country. It had the distinction of inspiring a stage version by the inimitable all-female Takarazuka troupe, which seems odd under the group’s star system given that the film has two male leads of equal importance. But there was no way to find out since those tickets were impossible to get. Still, it piqued my interest in the film, so I was keen to catch it when it returned for a second run. The theater was impressively full for an old flick. RRR, though never explained in the film, was apparently intended only as a working title using the initials of the producer and two main actors. The producer evidently came to like it and found words that fit, rendered in English as “Rise Roar Revolt”.
The Stepford Wives (2004)
- The Stepford Wives (2004)
3/30/25 (Sun)
I had thought this was a horror story and was surprised to see Paul Rudnick listed as the writer. I discovered that this was a significantly reconceived remake by Frank Oz done in a more lighthearted tone. A comic approach is not a bad idea in theory given the social satire in the story. Shame about the reality.
Frontline (フロントライン)
- フロントライン (Frontline)
6/14/25 (Sat)
This film grabbed my interest immediately when I learned it was about the ill-fated Diamond Princess cruise ship. This was the ship that docked in Yokohama Harbor in February 2020 when a Hong Kong man was found suffering from an unknown coronavirus, which soon spread rapidly through the ship and ignited worldwide panic. I was fixated with the incident at the time and remember having arguments with foreign friends who bashed Japan for keeping all passengers and crew quarantined on the ship rather than bring them into the country for treatment. While we felt sorry for the 3,700 victims, no one here was keen on allowing those infected with or exposed to an unknown communicative disease to come into the country and put 120 million at risk. As a result, the quarantine, for better or worse, made the ship a virtual Petri dish among people of varying age, racial and ethnic groups, giving us a good picture of how the virus behaved. In the end, no more than 14 people (if that many) died from the virus, 2% of confirmed cases, all of whom other than the initial Hong Kong victim were in their 70s and 80s. That suggested that the virus, which was already known as Covid, wasn’t nearly as deadly as feared. An objective accounting of that fact could have changed the entire trajectory of the global crisis. But the hysteria, amplified by the media, took its own course.
Encores! 2026: Two Steps Back, One Step Forward
Encores! is taking two steps back, one step forward with the announcement of its 2026 season. The series suffered a previous attempt to go “relevant” in 2022 with “productions where artists reclaim work for our time through their own personal lens”, choosing two mediocre black-themed shows. The poor reception of those productions prompted a return in the following years to its original goal of presenting great theater.
Next year’s three offerings under new artistic director Jenny Gersten will be an all-black version of the much revived La Cage Aux Folles (1983), the haunted musical comedy High Spirits (1964), and George Wolfe’s short-lived The Wild Party (2000). (Separately, City Center will also present a gala revival of the off Broadway musical Bat Boy (1992).) Gerston notes that “all have narratives about understanding and respecting our differences” and stresses their importance “at a time when it’s so easy for us to get lost in our own echo chambers”. In particular, she says the black La Cage will “center voices that are also marginalized because of their background”.
They Shot the Piano Player (Despararon al Pianista)
- Despararon al Pianista (They Shot the Piano Player)
4/20/25 (Sun)
A highly inventive documentary of 2023 about the strange disappearance of a seminal figure in the creation of bossa nova in the 1970s during a tour in Buenos Aires. The unique feature is that the film is animated: that doesn’t mean monsters or magic or talking animals or such, but a rendering of reality in animated style, as if they filmed the movie first and drew on top of it. On top of that, it is entirely hand-drawn and vividly colored, giving it a distinctive look and feel.
Fernando Trueba, who wrote the film and co-directed with Javier Mariscal (their animated Chico Y Rita was a hit some years ago), had become intrigued in the story decades earlier. He was taken by the playing of pianist Tenório Jr, a key figure in the early days of bossa nova, but discovered to his surprise that the musician had only made a single record as band leader. He learned that the 24-year-old musician suddenly vanished one night after leaving his hotel in Buenos Aires when his mistress sent him out to get a sandwich. Disappearances were not unheard of in Argentina during the years of military rule, but Tenório was an apolitical musician and a foreigner at that. No trace of the musician ever emerged, and his fate remained unknown. Trueba made it his mission to get to the bottom of it. Continue reading
sekenbanashi 