Machiko Kyo. Japanese star Machiko Kyo was seen in several of the most widely admired cinema classics of the 1950s, including Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, Kenji Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu, and Teinosuke Kinugasa’s…
Scariest Movies: Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’ with Janet Leigh, John Gavin and Vera Miles. Scariest movies ever made: The top 100 horror films according to the Chicago Film Critics I tend…
Nagisa Oshima: In the Realm of the Senses Iconoclastic Filmmaker dead at 80 Nagisa Oshima, best known as the director of the sexually charged 1976 psychological drama Ai No Corrida…
Black Rain. Animego’s DVD release of Shohei Imamura’s Black Rain includes as a bonus feature a selection of World War II-era anti-Japanese propaganda films. Sponsored by various U.S. government bureaucracies,…
Zhang Yimou on the set of A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop a.k.a. A Simple Noodle Story. Best known for his lush collaborations with Gong Li (Raise the…
Michiyo Aratama, Tatsuya Nakadai in The Human Condition Masaki Kobayashi’s The Human Condition, based on Jumpei Gomikawa’s novel, is probably as well known for its scope and scale as for…
House / Hausu by Nobuhiko Obayashi. Schedule and synopses from the American Cinematheque website. Wednesday, September 23 - 7:30 PM Japanese Cult Classics Double Feature: HOUSE (HAUSU), 1977, Janus Films,…
Spirited Away directed by Hayao Miyazaki. As part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ three-month celebration of anime, a screening of Hayao Miyazaki’s 2002 Oscar-winning animated feature…
Wedding Peach. ANIME! High Art - Pop Culture “ANIME! High Art - Pop Culture,” a multimedia exhibition spotlighting the art of Japanese animation, will have its American premiere at the…
Nagisa Oshima. “No other director of Oshima’s generation has made more vital, inventive and challenging films, or taken more risks. He is a giant in contemporary cinema.” - Tony Rayns…
Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s capably acted urban family drama Tokyo Sonata exposes the seemingly inexorable unraveling of Japan’s traditional social fabric.
Rashomon effect revisited: Toshiro Mifune and Machiko Kyo in Akira Kurosawa classic. Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 classic Rashomon, which officially introduced Japanese cinema to the world at large, will be the…
In addition to a screening of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will have another East Asian cinematic event in the upcoming weeks: an…
Akira Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well deserves to be as well known as Rashomon and Seven Samurai. Toshiro Mifune stars.
Released 9 years after atomic bombs were dropped on 2 Japanese cities, the 1954 classic Godzilla / Gojira features 1 of cinema’s greatest monsters.
Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 action classic Seven Samurai is one of those rare films that get better and better with each new viewing. Toshiro Mifune stars.
Seijun Suzuki’s challenging but noteworthy musical Princess Raccoon mixes various cinematic genres and styles. Zhang Ziyi and Joe Odagiri star.
This fall, New York City’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is presenting the film series “Early Autumn: Masterworks of Japanese Cinema from the National Film Center, Tokyo.” The series consists of fifty-three…
Toshiro Mifune (second from right) in Seven Samurai. The Academy had its John Hughes tribute on Sunday. Tonight, Turner Classic Movies is paying tribute to someone who may not be…
The Masseurs and a Woman. The usual 1930s Japanese film preoccupations with societal roles are explored in writer-director Hiroshi Shimizu’s moving Anma to onna / The Masseurs and a Woman…
Erotic sex stories: “Debauched Desires.” PRESS RELEASE Kino International and KimStim are proud to release the four-DVD set Debauched Desires: Four Erotic Masterpieces by Masaru Konuma. Directed by the master…
Set (and filmed) in pre-World War II Japan, Kenji Mizoguchi’s female-centered Sisters of the Gion is a fine ‘feminist’ melodrama. Isuzu Yamada stars.
Two-time Palme d’Or-winning filmmaker Shohei Imamura died in Tokyo on May 30. The 79-year-old Japanese filmmaker had been suffering from liver cancer. Born in Tokyo in 1926, Imamura entered a…