- Japanese cinema retrospective: From mid-September 2005 to mid-January 2006, New York City’s Museum of Modern Art will be screening 53 Japanese movies, including works by Yasujiro Ozu, Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi, Nagisa Oshima, Kon Ichikawa, and Hiroshi Teshigahara.
MoMA’s extensive Japanese cinema retrospective will showcase works by Kurosawa, Ozu, Oshima, and others
This fall (and into next winter), New York City’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) will be presenting the series “Early Autumn: Masterworks of Japanese Cinema from the National Film Center, Tokyo,” comprising 53 classic Japanese films made between 1929 and 1970. The prints are a first-time-ever loan on the part of the Japanese National Museum of Modern Art’s National Film Center. (See full schedule further below.)
Among the directors represented in the series are Yasujiro Ozu (whose Early Autumn will be the opening night film), Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi, Kon Ichikawa, Keisuke Kinoshita, Teinosuke Kinugasa, Nagisa Oshima, Shohei Imamura, Ishirô Honda, Hiroshi Teshigahara, Mikio Naruse, Heinosuke Gosho, Koreyoshi Kurahara, Hiroshi Shimizu, and Sadao Yamanaka.
Among the featured stars are Machiko Kyo, Ken Takakura, Isuzu Yamada, Eiji Okada, frequent Ozu collaborator Setsuko Hara, and frequent Kurosawa collaborators Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura.
Only 3 ‘internationally famous’ titles
Notably, you won’t find in the series titles like Rashomon, Ugetsu, Seven Samurai, Ikiru, Tokyo Story, Godzilla, The Burmese Harp, or Yojimbo. In fact, one could say that only three “Early Autumn” titles have much (or any) international renown:
Yasujiro Ozu’s family saga Early Autumn (1961), a.k.a. The End of Summer, the director’s penultimate effort and one of Japanese cinema’s great classics. Ganjiro Nakamura and Ozu muse Setsuko Hara star.
Teinosuke Kinugasa’s samurai epic Gate of Hell (1953), winner of the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award and of the 1954 Cannes Film Festival’s Grand Prix (the top prize in those days). Machiko Kyo, whose credits include Rashomon, Ugetsu, and the U.S.-made hit The Teahouse of the August Moon, stars alongside busy actor Kazuo Hasegawa (more than 300 films in 35 years).
Hiroshi Teshigahara’s psychological thriller Woman in the Dunes (1964), which was shortlisted for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar the year of its release and for Best Director the following year. Teshigahara’s nod was particularly notable as a first for a Japanese filmmaker. (Akira Kurosawa would follow 21 years later with Ran.) In the cast: Eiji Okada (Hiroshima, Mon Amour) and, as the title character, Kyoko Kishida.
It must be noted that just three internationally well-known titles – or four, if you choose to include Keisuke Kinoshita’s 1958 version of The Ballad of Narayama – is not a bad thing at all. After all, “Early Autumn” will provide the opportunity for New Yorkers to become acquainted with “hidden” Japanese cinema gems and the talent who made them.
Every print screened in the “Early Autumn” series is in 35mm and has been newly struck from archival negatives, with new English-language subtitles created by the National Film Center.
Below is MoMA’s complete Japanese cinema schedule.
‘Early Autumn: Masterworks of Japanese Cinema from the National Film Center, Tokyo’ schedule
“Early Autumn: Masterworks of Japanese Cinema” schedule in chronological order. Please note that many titles will be screened more than once.
Early Autumn / The End of Summer / Kohayagawa ke no aki (1961)
Director: Yasujiro Ozu.
Cast: Ganjiro Nakamura, Setsuko Hara, Yôko Tsukasa.
The intimate epic of the Kohayagawa clan, a middle-class family whose fortunes are in decline due to the willful neglect of its patriarch. Filled with gentle humor and carefully observed vignettes of family life, Early Autumn is, as Donald Richie has observed, “one of Ozu’s most beautiful films, and one of his most disturbing.”
103m | Sept. 14, 6:00; Sept. 17, 2:00.Boy / Shonen (1969)
Director: Nagisa Oshima.
Cast: Tetsuo Abe, Fumio Watanabe, Akiko Koyama.
A poor family manages a meager living by extorting money from drivers after faking injuries in traffic accidents. One day, the ten-year-old son is caught at the scam, but loyalty to his family prevents him from admitting his guilt. Working from a script based on actual newspaper accounts, Oshima fashions a work of great emotional force and restrained empathy.
97m | Sept. 14, 8:30; Sept. 17, 4:30.Mr. Thank You / Arigato san (1936)
Direction & Screenplay: Hiroshi Shimizu.
Cast: Ken Uehara, Ryuji Ishiyama, Einosuke Naka.
A young bus driver, known as “Mr. Thank You” because of his politeness, regularly travels the Izu-Tokyo route. His experiences during one particular trip form the basis of this early Japanese “road movie.” Famous for making films on location and in contemporary settings, Shimizu stages almost all of the action in Mr. Thank You within the bus itself, creating an environment that is both protective and claustrophobic.
75m | Sept. 15, 6:00; Sept. 18, 2:30.Humanity and Paper Balloons / Ninjo kamifusen (1937)
Director: Sadao Yamanaka.
Cast: Chojuro Kawarazaki, Tsuruzo Nakamura, Kanemon Nakamura.
Set during the Tokugawa era, this is the story of a poor samurai who gets caught up in the ill-fated kidnapping of a rich merchant’s daughter. A master of cinematic form, Yamanaka had already created a substantial body of work by the time this film premiered—on the very day he was drafted into the army. He died in Manchuria the following year, at the age of twenty-nine.
86m | Sept. 15, 8:00; Sept. 18, 5:00.Judo Saga / Sugata Sanshiro (1943)
Direction & Screenplay: Akira Kurosawa.
Cast: Susumu Fujita, Denjirô Ôkôchi, Yukiko Todoroki.
Kurosawa’s directorial debut tells the story of a headstrong youth who comes to the city to apprentice with a jujitsu master; in the process, he learns satori, the calm acceptance of nature and its laws. An early yet accomplished work by a soon-to-be master, Judo Saga shows evidence of Kurosawa’s interest in a character that would dominate most of his films: the reckless, self-absorbed individual who must struggle to achieve compassion for others and inner illumination.
90m | Sept. 16, 6:00; Sept. 21, 8:00.Wild Geese / The Mistress / Gan (1953)
Director: Shirô Toyoda.
Cast: Hideko Takamine, Hiroshi Akutagawa, Jukichi Uno.
A young woman becomes the mistress of an unscrupulous pawnbroker so that she can support her sickly father. She falls in love with a young student who passes by her house every day, but he eventually leaves to study abroad. Set in the late Meiji period, the Tokyo of Gan is a world of thwarted hopes and ennobling duty.
104m | Sept. 16, 8:00; Oct. 10, 4:00.The Ballad of Narayama / Narayama bushiko (1958)
Direction & Screenplay: Keisuke Kinoshita.
Cast: Kinuyo Tanaka, Teiji Takahashi, Yûko Mochizuki.
According to legend, it was once customary for the young inhabitants of a remote Japanese village to escort those turning seventy years old to Mount Narayama to die, thus assuring the community’s continued economic stability. Orin, the matriarch of a small family, ties up the loose ends of her life and forces her reluctant son to take her on the final sad yet transcendent journey.
98m | Sept. 17, 6:30; Oct. 15, 2:00.The Rikisha Man / Muhomatsu no issho (1943)
Director: Hiroshi Inagaki.
Cast: Tsumasaburo Bando, Ryunosuke Tsukigata, Keiko Sonoi.
A poor rickshaw driver becomes the surrogate parent of a boy whose father, a soldier, has been killed in the line of duty. The driver gradually falls in love with the child’s widowed mother, but their class differences prevent him from pursuing his deepest desires. Inagaki filmed this story again in 1958, with Toshiro Mifune in the leading role, but this wartime version is the stronger, more affecting work.
79m | Sept. 17, 8:30; Sept. 21, 6:00.I’ll Buy You / Anata kaimasu (1956)
Director: Masaki Kobayashi.
Cast: Keiji Sada, Keiko Kishi, Minoru Oki.
Rival professional baseball teams compete for a high school athlete, driving a wedge between the young man, his family, and his girlfriend. An exposé of Japan’s corrupt baseball world, Kobayashi’s film also suggests that “sport is not always the purification ritual that many Japanese apparently believe” (Joseph Anderson and Donald Richie).
112m | Oct. 1, 2:00; Oct. 30, 5:00.Not Long After Leaving Shinegawa / Bakumatsu taiyo den (1957)
Director: Yuzo Kawashima.
Cast: Frankie Sakai, Sachiko Hidari, Yoko Minamida.
This light, comic film tells the story of Saheji, who is taken hostage by the owner of a brothel for nonpayment of debts. He soon becomes the brothel’s manager, successfully collecting on the debts of others, settling patron disputes, and generally working the situation to his advantage.
110m | Oct. 1, 4:30; Oct. 9, 5:30.Tears on the Lion’s Mane / Namida o shishi no tategami ni (1962)
Director: Masahiro Shinoda.
Cast: Takashi Fujiki, Tamotsu Hayakawa, Mariko Kaga.
A Yokohama dockworker accidentally kills a union organizer. He becomes even more despondent when he learns that the man was his girlfriend’s father and that his relationship with his boss is based on a lie. A portrait of the suppressed passions and disillusionment of youth.
92m | Oct. 1, 6:45; Oct. 12, 6:00.Ghost Story of Yotsuya / Tokaido Yotsuya kaidan (1959)
Director: Nobuo Nakagawa.
Cast: Shigeru Amachi, Katsuko Wakasugi, Shuntaro Emi.
A samurai in feudal-era Japan marries the daughter of an older samurai, after having killed the man and his servants. When he decides to poison his wife so that he can marry another, her grotesquely disfigured ghost drives him mad.
77m | Oct. 1, 8:45; Oct. 10, 8:30.A Story Written with Water / Mizu de kakareta monogatari (1965)
Director: Yoshishige Yoshida.
Cast: Mariko Okada, Yasunori Irikawa, Ruriko Asaoka.
A boy is raised by his widowed mother with the help of an important man in town with whom she is having a secret affair. The boy marries the man’s daughter, but upon learning of the affair both the marriage and his world fall apart.
120m | Oct. 2, 2:00; Oct. 28, 5:30.The Life and Opinions of Masseur Ichi / Zatoichi monogatari (1962)
Director: Kenji Misumi.
Cast: Shintaro Katsu, Shigeru Amachi, Masayo Banri.
A blind masseur turns legendary master swordsman, an Everyman with extraordinary fighting skills as well as a personal integrity reminiscent of the greatest heroes of the Western. This was the first in a highly successful series of films and television programs featuring the character Zatoichi.
96m | Oct. 2, 4:30; Oct. 21, 6:00.Irezumi (1966)
Director: Yasuzo Masumura.
Cast: Ayako Wakao, Akio Hasegawa, Manbu Yamamoto.
Exquisitely photographed by the great cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa, Irezumi tells the story of a rich man’s daughter sold into service as a geisha. Like the black widow spider tattooed on her back, she seduces a succession of partners and sends them to their deaths.
86m | Oct. 3, 6:00; Oct. 16, 5:30.A Certain Killer / Aru koroshiya (1967)
Director: Kazuo Mori.
Cast: Raizo Ichikawa, Yumiko Nogawa, Mikio Narita.
Employed as a cook in a restaurant, a man supplements his income by working as a contract killer. When he murders a Yakuza boss, he must go into hiding in a shabby suburb. A gritty morality tale that finds its emotional core in the lost dreams of the postwar generation.
82m | Oct. 3, 8:00; Oct. 29, 6:30.Sisters of the Gion / Gion no kyodai (1936)
Director: Kenji Mizoguchi.
Cast: Isuzu Yamada, Yoko Umemura, Benkei Shiganoya.
Two sisters work as geishas in the Gion district of Kyoto. The older one is bound to tradition and remains loyal to her bankrupt suitor, while the younger sister flits from man to man, exploiting the system in order to increase both of their earnings.
69m | Oct. 5, 6:00; Oct. 15, 4:30.Her Younger Brother / Ototo (1969)
Director: Kon Ichikawa.
Cast: Keiko Kishi, Hiroshi Kawaguchi, Kinuyo Tanaka.
In this tender melodrama, Ichikawa explores the unbridgeable pit of loneliness at the heart of familial love. A young woman, pressured by her severe and ailing stepmother, sacrifices herself to the needs of her profligate brother, developing an affection for him as he falls ill with tuberculosis.
98m | Oct. 5, 8:00; Oct. 8, 2:00.Where Chimneys Are Seen / Entotsu no mieru basho (1953)
Director: Heinosuke Gosho.
Cast: Kinuyo Tanaka, Ken Uehara, Hideko Takamine.
A childless married couple, living under the factory chimneys of an industrial section of Tokyo, finds a baby abandoned on their doorstep. Filled with exquisitely observed details of everyday life, this film sparked a revival of the shomin-geki genre, which explored lower middle-class life in postwar Japan.
108m | Oct. 6, 8:30; Oct. 9, 2:00.Ino and Mon / Ani imoto (1936)
Director: Sotoji Kimura.
Cast: Chieko Takehisa, Sadao Maruyama, Heihachiro Okawa.
Mon returns to her family after working as a maid in the city, and reveals that she is pregnant by her former employer’s son. Her brother Ino beats the boy up, further alienating Mon and disrupting the fragile ties that bind the family together. A subtle exploration of the stresses of working-class life in prewar Japan.
60m | Oct. 9, 4:15; Nov. 16, 8:30.The Moderns / Gendaijin (1952)
Director: Minoru Shibuya.
Cast: Ryo Ikebe, Isuzu Yamada, So Yamamura.
A naïve young man involved in a bribery scandal becomes deeply disillusioned by the corruption of modern life. Shibuya presents an indictment of postwar Japanese life and elicits powerful performances from his cast, especially the young Ryo Ikebe, whose work here as the idealistic protagonist won him wide acclaim.
111m | Oct. 12, 8:15; Oct. 27, 5:30.Monday Girl / Getsuyobi no yuka (1964)
Director: Ko Nakahira.
Cast: Mariko Kaga, Akira Nakao, Takeshi Kato.
Yuka is a “good-time girl” from Yokohama who is persuaded by her papa to sleep with a foreign business executive so that he can close an important deal. Nakahira presents a shrewdly observed portrait of a modern, sexually assertive woman—an unsettling character for a changing but still patriarchal society.
93m | Oct. 16, 1:30; Oct. 27, 8:00.Bad Boy / Furyo Shonen (1961)
Director: Susumu Hani.
Cast: Yukio Yamada, Hirokazu Yoshitake, Koichiro Yamazaki.
Hani’s first feature, set in a reformatory, tells the story of an eighteen-year-old boy arrested for the attempted robbery of a pearl shop. The director has written that this film “is about the spirit of totalitarianism, which is deeply rooted in modern Japanese behavior.”
89m | Oct. 16, 3:30; Oct. 29, 8:30.Attack of the Mushroom People / Matango (1963)
Director: Ishiro Honda.
Cast: Akira Kubo, Kumi Mizuno, Hiroshi Koizumi.
Best known in America as the director of Gojira (Godzilla, 1954), Honda was proficient in a variety of genres. In Matango, a holiday cruise ship carrying a group of pleasure seekers is blown off course and lands on a mysterious deserted island. What ensues is a cult classic of cinematic terror.
89m | Oct. 31, 6:00; Nov. 17, 8:30.I Hate But Love / Nikui anchikushi (1962)
Director: Koreyoshi Kurahara.
Cast: Yujiro Ishihara, Ruriko Asaoka, Hiroyuki Nagato.
A film and television star, Daisuke tires of his glamorous life and decides to embark on an adventure, transporting a jeep to a doctor in a small western village. His manager/lover Noriko follows after him, braving crowds and reporters along the way.
105m | Nov. 19, 6:30; Nov. 26, 4:30.Band of Assassins / Shinobi no mono (1962)
Director: Satsuo Yamamoto.
Cast: Raizo Ichikawa, Shiho Fujimura, Yunosuke Ito.
Beyond ninja warfare and adventure during the Sengoku (Warring States) era, a vivid drama about the power struggles within the ninja hierarchy and that violent world’s inhumanity.
104m | Nov. 20, 2:00; Nov. 26, 2:00.The Man Who Disappeared Yesterday / Kino kieta otoko (1941)
Director: Masahiro Makino.
Cast: Kazuo Hasegawa, Isuzu Yamada, Hideko Takamine.
An adaptation of W.S. Van Dyke’s film of The Thin Man (1934), this humorous murder mystery is said to have been filmed in only ten days by Makino, who directed over 250 films throughout his career.
89m | Nov. 23, 8:15.The Rise of Bandits / Sengoku gunto-den (1937)
Director: Eisuke Takizawa.
Cast: Chojuro Kawarazaki, Kan-emon Nakamura, Kunitaro Kawarazaki.
Based on a play by Schiller, this film tells the story of a warrior, unjustly branded a traitor by his feudal lord, who exacts revenge by becoming the gang leader of renegades.
101m | Nov. 25, 6:30.Stray Dog / Norainu (1949)
Director: Akira Kurosawa.
Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Awaji.
In Kurosawa’s dark and gritty film, detective Murakami travels Japan’s postwar urban underworld in search of his lost pistol.
122m | Nov. 25, 8:30; Nov. 28, 6:00.The Red Peony / Hibotan bakuto: Hanafuda shobu (1969)
Director: Tai Kato.
Cast: Junko Fuji, Tomisaburo Wakayama, Ken Takakura.
A ruthless female criminal of the Meiji era, portrayed by Junko Fuji, the only actress to attain iconic status within the period crime film genre.
98m | Nov. 26, 6:30.Rice / Kome (1957)
Director: Tadashi Imai.
Cast: Shinjiro Ebara, Masako Nakamura, Hitomi Nakahara.
A moving depiction of relationships in a rural Japanese fishing village.
118m | Nov. 26, 8:30.Life of a Striptease Lover / Kaburitsuki jinsei (1968)
Direction & Screenplay: Tatsumi Kumashiro.
Cast: Hatsue Tonooka, Shizu Niwa, Shuntaro Tamamura.
Yoko, the daughter of a stripper, follows her mother into the profession and attains popularity at a first-class theater in Nagoya. She marries a reporter and moves to Tokyo, becoming a porn actress. Even when her life spirals downward into violence, she clings to hopes of a better life.
94m | Nov. 27, 1:00; Nov. 28, 8:30.Early Films by Ozu, Saito, and Naruse
Fighting Friends, Japanese Style / Wasei kenka tomodachi (1929)
Director: Yasujiro Ozu.
Cast: Atsushi Watanabe, Hisao Yoshitani, Tomoko Naniwa.
Approx. 14m
A Straightforward Boy / Tokkan kozo (1929)
Director: Yasujiro Ozu.
Cast: Tatsuo Saito, Tomio Aoki, Takeshi Sakamoto.
Approx. 14m
A Buddhist Mass for Goemon Ishikawa / Ishikawa Goemon no hoji (1930)
Director: Torajiro Saito.
Cast: Atsushi Watanabe, Dekao Yokoo, Tomio Aoki.
Approx. 21m
Ode to a Salesman / Koshiben ganbare (1931)
Direction & Screenplay: Mikio Naruse.
Cast: Isamu Yamaguchi, Tomoko Naniwa, Seiichi Kato.
Approx. 38m
Like many silent Japanese films, these works were shortened into “digest” versions for the home market, conveying the basic plot without “extraneous” footage. The only surviving versions of these important early works.
Silent, with piano accompaniment by Ben Model.
Program approx. 87m | Nov. 27, 3:00; Nov. 30, 6:30.The Izu Dancer / Izu no odoriko (1933)
Director: Heinosuke Gosho.
Cast: Kinuyo Tanaka, Den Obinata, Tokuji Kobayashi.
A student falls in love with a traveling dancer, crossing class boundaries. Gosho directed Japan’s first full-length talking film in 1931. Silent, with piano accompaniment by Ben Model.
Approx. 124m | Nov. 27, 5:00; Nov. 30, 8:15.Contemporary Tales of Chivalry / Showa zankyo den (1965)
Director: Kiyoshi Saeki.
Cast: Ken Takakura, Ryo Ikebe, Hiroki Matsukata.
Depicting the standoff between rival yakuza groups in the markets of Asakusa, in downtown Tokyo, this film was an enormous success and led to the production of eight more films in the Showa zankyo den series between 1965 and 1972. Ken Takakura is virtually synonymous with yakuza films, regularly portraying characters of strength and honor won through suffering and pain.
90m | Dec. 10, 1:00.The Horse / Uma (1941)
Direction & Screenplay: Kajiro Yamamoto.
Cast: Hideko Takamine, Chieko Takehisa, Keita (Kamatari) Fujiwara.
This lyrical depiction of a year in the life of a Japanese agricultural village is also a heartwarming story about a horse, lovingly raised by a young girl, who comes to be sold to the military. Yamamoto prepared for this film by spending nearly a year researching Japan’s northeastern region, documenting the scenery and events of daily life in careful detail. Akira Kurosawa assisted in location shooting and editing.
128m | Dec. 10, 3:00.Woman in the Dunes / Suna no onna (1964)
Director: Hiroshi Teshigahara.
Cast: Eiji Okada, Kyoko Kishida, Koji Mitsui.
After a day collecting insects, a man finds rest in a hut set at the bottom of a sandy pit, where an attractive woman lives. The following morning, he is shocked to find the rope ladder has been removed and he is unable to escape. This, the original Japanese version, is twenty-five minutes longer than the international release.
147m | Dec. 10, 8:30.Where Spring Comes Late / Kazoku (1970)
Director: Yoji Yamada.
Cast: Chieko Baisho, Hisashi Ikawa, Chishu Ryu.
Set in 1970, the year of the Japan World Exposition in Osaka, which, along with the 1964 Olympics, signified Japan’s postwar economic recovery, Kazoku is a road movie that carefully depicts a poor, marginalized family making its way up the Japanese archipelago, from Kyushu to Hokkaido.
107m | Dec. 11, 2:00; Dec. 16, 6:30.The Island / Hadaka no shima (1960)
Direction & Screenplay: Kaneto Shindo.
Cast: Taiji Tonoyama, Nobuko Otowa, Shinji Tanaka.
A middle-aged couple and their two sons live on a small, isolated island in the Inland Ocean. The landscape is forbidding, but the family manages to survive by gathering wheat in the spring and yams in the summer. The Island is a representative work by Shindo (b. 1912), the oldest living member of Japan’s scriptwriting fraternity, who continues to work in his nineties.
96m | Dec. 11, 4:30; Dec. 12, 6:00.Gate of Hell / Jigokumon (1953)
Direction & Screenplay: Teinosuke Kinugasa.
Cast: Kazuo Hasegawa, Machiko Kyo, Isao Yamagata.
During the Heian period, warrior Morito falls in love with Kesa, a beautiful young woman he is charged with protecting. When he is offered his choice of reward for his services, Morito asks for Kesa’s hand, but discovers that she is already married. Unable to give her up, he kidnaps Kesa, who then takes her own life. In remorse, Morito becomes a monk.
88m | Dec. 12, 8:00; Dec. 17, 2:00.Flowers Have Fallen / Hana Chirinu (1938)
Director: Tamizo Ishida.
Cast: Ranko Hanai, Reiko Minakami, Rikie Sanjo.
It is July 1884, and the owner of a Kyoto restaurant resents the current political instability and its negative impact on her business, while her daughter is hopeful in the face of change. Many other women pass through the restaurant, each with their own sadness and worry. A rare female period film, in which men appear only as offscreen voices.
74m | Dec. 14, 6:00.Intentions of Murder / Akai satsui (1964)
Director: Shohei Imamura.
Cast: Masumi Harukawa, Ko Nishimura, Shigeru Tsuyuguchi.
Sadako is abused by her husband and mother-in-law, yet even after being raped by an intruder during her husband’s absence, and then being stalked in the aftermath, she worries about protecting her family life from collapse, discovering in herself a hidden emotional and psychological strength that ultimately reverses the household’s hierarchy.
150m | Dec. 15, 8:00; Dec. 17, 4:00.Spring Breeze / Fukeyo harukaze (1953)
Director: Senkichi Taniguchi.
Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Hisako Yamane, Fubuki Koshiji.
Mifune portrays Matsumura, a cab driver who values helping people over earning money. Among his many passengers: a group of poor country children who have never ridden in a cab before; a young runaway; a popular actress killing time until her next show; a couple celebrating their silver wedding anniversary; a carjacker; and a wife awaiting the return of her convict husband.
82m | Jan. 8, 5:00.Love under the Crucifix / Ogin sama (1962)
Director: Kinuyo Tanaka.
Cast: Ineko Arima, Tatsuya Nakadai, Keiko Kishi.
One of the rare Japanese films directed by a woman, Love under the Crucifix was made by one of the industry’s top actresses, Kinuyo Tanaka. It is also important for having been produced by Ninjin Kurabu, a company founded in 1954 by three actresses—Keiko Kishi, Yoshiko Kuga, and Ineko Arima—who wanted to play roles of their own choosing.
101m | Jan. 9, 6:00; Jan. 14, 2:00.The Born Fighter / Kenka erejii (1966)
Director: Seijun Suzuki.
Cast: Hideki Takahashi, Junko Asano, Yusuke Kawazu.
As society hurtles tragically toward war, a pure-hearted young student copes with his personal despair over lost love and abusive peers through an ever-increasing recourse to violence. Suzuki’s lyrical yet comic sensibilities, as evidenced in this film’s energetic fight scenes, imbue The Born Fighter with a compelling sympathy for all outsiders, both social and political.
86m | Jan. 9, 8:15; Jan. 14, 4:30.A Fugitive from the Past / Kiga kaikyo (1965)
Director: Tomu Uchida.
Cast: Rentaro Mikuni, Sachiko Hidari, Ken Takakura.
The epic story of a police detective’s ten-year search for the lone surviving member of a murderous gang of thieves. Uchida’s reputation as a filmmaker of dynamic and experimental narratives has risen steadily since his death in 1970, and A Fugitive from the Past, dealing with issues of guilt and innocence, is representative of his late work.
182m | Jan. 12, 7:00.A House in the Quarter / Gobancho yugiriro (1963)
Director: Tomotaka Tasaka.
Cast: Yoshiko Sakuma, Michiyo Kogure, Yatsuko Tanami.
Based on the true story of a monk who burned down the Kinkakuji Temple in 1950, this film interpolates the story of a young country girl who comes to Kyoto and is sold as a prostitute. A House in the Quarter depicts the tragedy of a pure and gentle romantic love torn apart by the chaotic pressures of postwar Japanese society.
137m | Jan. 13, 5:45.Wolf, Pig and Man / Okami to buta to ningen (1964)
Director: Kinji Fukasaku.
Cast: Ken Takakura, Kin-ya Kitaoji, Rentaro Mikuni.
The three Kuroki brothers grow up in the slums. The eldest robs his aged mother, joins a yakuza gang, and becomes its boss. The second son becomes a rich woman’s lover and lone thug. The youngest becomes a petty criminal after watching over their mother’s demise.
95m | Jan. 16, 6:00.A Human Bullet / Nikudan (1968)
Direction & Screenplay: Kihachi Okamoto.
Cast: Minori Terada, Naoko Otani, Chishu Ryu.
Okamoto directed many purely entertaining action movies, but occasionally his personal memories of war could be glimpsed within his work. In A Human Bullet, he sublimates those bitter memories with an eccentric cinematic style. A young soldier comes to terms with his inevitable death, receives leave for just one day, and goes into town, where he encounters a variety of people.
116m | Jan. 18, 5:30.
“Japanese Cinema Retrospective Goes Beyond Kurosawa” notes
Museum of Modern Art website.
Machiko Kyo Gate of Hell image: Daiei Film.
“MoMA’s Japanese Cinema Retrospective Goes Beyond Kurosawa” last modified in November 2025.