Yasuke Kawazu Movies

This Japanese melodrama chronicles the exploits of a geisha's beautiful daughter. The daughter is the geisha's pride and she spares nothing to insure that she has a bright future. But the hard-working young woman's dreams of becoming a dressmaker are shattered when her mother's newest lover forces himself upon her, and her mother kills him. The girl is devastated as her mother is sent to prison. She then becomes a nightclub hostess who plays cards with male patrons using her body as the prize. Fortunately, she is an exceptional card-player and doesn't have to sleep with too many. Then the club owner tells her he wants her for his mistress, but she rejects him and professes love for another. Upon the owner's death, her lover impregnates her so she can claim the child belongs to the late owner and will be entitled to his fortune. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this Japanese drama, a housewife falls in love with a female model and embarks upon a lesbian relationship. When she must share her new lover with a male lover, the housewife becomes confused. She must also deal with her husband. Eventually all four enter into a suicide pact, but of them, she is the only one to survive. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Sakiko Okamura (Michiko Saga) is a poor girl with an appetite for expensive things. She willingly allows herself to be debased and degraded to afford her taste of luxuries she desires. Sakiko eventually becomes a prostitute at a sex club where Sasaki (Minoru Chiaki) and Hyodo (Eitaro Shindo) teach her the ropes. Contains considerable nudity. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

A Soldier's Prayer (Ningen No Joken III) was the final entry in Japanese filmmaker Masaki Kobayashi's Human Condition trilogy. As in 1958's No Greater Love (see entry 23818) and 1961's The Road to Eternity (see entry 23819), the protagonist is the pacifistic Kaji, played by Tatsuya Nakadai. Strong-armed into the Japanese military during World War II, Kaji has reluctantly learned to kill on the battlefields. Upon his country's surrender, Kaji gives himself up to the Russian troops, hoping to receive better treatment than he had at the hands of his Japanese superiors. But his hopes are dashed once more, and he is subject to cruelty upon cruelty while imprisoned in a Manchurian POW camp. A Soldier's Prayer, like its predecessors, was based on the epic multipart novel by Jumpei Gomigawa. In sum total, the three Human Condition films run for nearly ten hours. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The second of Japanese director Masaki Kobayashi's Human Condition trilogy was titled The Road to Eternity (originally Zoku Ningen No Joken). Picking up where 1958's No Greater Love left off, this 1961 film finds the gentle, pacifistic Kaji (Tatsuya Nakadai) being sent to basic training camp in Manchuria in the waning days of World War II. Kaji struggles bravely to stick to his non-aggressive principals, only to be beaten and tortured for his troubles. Pushed to the edge, Kaji ends up killing a fellow soldier in the heat of battle. The film concludes with the surrender of Japan, but the story is open-ended enough to allow for a sequel: 1970's A Soldier's Prayer. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Nagisa Oshima's groundbreaking film opens with young, attractive Mako and her friend hitching a ride from an old man. After her friend leaves, the man tries to rape her, and she is saved only by the handsome Kiyoshi. Later, against the background of the tumultuous 1960 U.S./Japan Security Treaty demonstrations, Kiyoshi and Mako walk along a grungy seaside lumberyard while talking about sex. He attempts to kiss her, she slaps him, and he throws her in the water. She cries out that she can't swim. When she continues to refuse his advances, he steps on her fingers as she clings to a log. Kiyoshi then saves Mako from a trio of seedy pimps looking to impress her into working for them, but after rescuing her, he forces himself on her again. With this unlikely beginning, Kiyoshi and Mako form a passionate though doomed romance. Soon she stops going to school and moves into his flea-ridden dive of an apartment. Utterly disillusioned with all trappings of societal convention, the two get cash by blackmailing businessmen and by shaking down Kiyoshi's middle-aged sugarmama. Tension with this Bonnie and Clyde duo builds after Mako has an abortion in a run down clinic, performed by an alcoholic doctor. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi