Yoshiko Miyazaki Movies

A charismatic high school girl with a decidedly rainy day approach to friendship finds just how important connections can be when she is diagnosed with a terminal illness and relegated to a lonely hospital bed. Rina comes from a dysfunctional family and only contacts her friends in times of need. Her father is completely self-absorbed, and her mother is overprotective to a fault. One day, after discovering that she has a terminal illness, the girl who once viewed her friendships as disposable is forced to sit in her sterile surroundings with nary a friendly soul in sight: Her family is too wrapped up in their own affairs to drop in for a visit, and her friends all realize that she never cared too much for them in the first place. Much to Rina's relief, a concerned classmate named Maki eventually appears claiming that she and Rina were good friends back in grade school. When Maki tries to re-connect with her old friend and Rina realizes that she doesn't even remember the friendly girl, it soon becomes apparent just how flawed the philosophy of this fiercely independent teen truly is. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Shortly before his death in 1998, Akira Kurosawa completed a screenplay entitled Ame Agaru, based on a short story by Shugoro Yamamoto. Kurosawa passed on before he could bring this story to the screen, but one of his assistants, Takashi Koizumi, has directed a film adapted from the script, following as closely as possible the style of the master. Ihei Misawa (Akira Terao) is a ronin, a samurai without a master, whose skills with a sword make him a valuable employee but whose brutal honesty and lack of social graces prevent him from staying with one master for too long. One night, Ihei impulsively offers to buy food and drink for the guests at a hotel; he doesn't have the money to pay, and to raise cash he concocts a scheme to take on anyone brave enough to fight him for a prize. Ihei's fighting skills impress Lord Shigeaki (Shiro Mifune), who offers him a position as fencing master in his court. Ihei gratefully accepts, but when Shigeaki challenges him to a fight, Ihei beats the Lord decisively. Ihea is certain that he's managed to throw another opportunity away when a band of mercenaries attacks him, and his skills as a swordsman are put to the ultimate test. This traditionally styled samurai story harkens back to Kurosawa's best-known works, and features Shiro Mifune, the son of Toshiro Mifune, one of Kurosawa's favorite actors, in a key role. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Ran is Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa's reinterpretation of William Shakespeare's King Lear. The Lear counterpart is an elderly 16th-century warlord (Tatsuya Nakadai), who announces that he's about to divide his kingdom equally among his three sons. In his dotage, he falls prey to the false flattery of his treacherous sons (Akira Terao and Jinpachi Nezu), while banishing his youngest son (Daisuke Ryu), the only member of the family who loves him enough to tell him the unvarnished truth. Thanks to his foolish pride, his domain collapses under its own weight as the sons battle each other over total control. Kurosawa's first film in five years, Ran had been in the planning stages for twice that long; Kurosawa had storyboarded the project with a series of vivid color paintings that have since been published in book form in England. The battle scenes are staged with such brutal vigor that it's hard to imagine that the director was 75 years old at the time. This 160-minute historical epic won several international awards, but it was not a hit in Japan, and it would be five more years before Kurosawa would be able to finance another picture. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide