Shiro Sano Movies

In a stark depiction of the dissatisfaction that followed the demise of 60's idealism, United Red Army follows the story of the titular leftwing Japanese terrorist group that came together in 1972 as two pre-existing groups merged. Interspersed with large amounts of archival footage and employing a semi-pseudo-documentary style, the film visits upon the key historical figures and events that led to the United Red Army eventually purging much of its membership, leading five student radicalists to hole up in the Asano mountain lodge in Nagano Prefecture in a standoff against the police. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide

In this Japanese horror anthology that sets out to prove that fact is infinitely more terrifying than fiction, Ju-on director Takashi Shimizu and Ring 0 director Norio Tsuruta team with thirteen of the hottest up-and-coming directors in Japan to push the boundaries of modern horror. With fifteen, five-minute stories designed specifically to rattle the psyche and quicken the pulse, Tales of Terror from Tokyo offers a shocking look at the future of cinematic terror. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Based on a manga series, this science fiction-adventure is set in a near future in which Japan is governed by a monarchy who use a highly trained band of samurai-style assassins known as the House of Takemikazuchi to suppress a fierce band of rebels. Yuki (Yumiko Shaku), a lethal young female member of the group, discovers that her mother was betrayed and murdered by the their leader, and swears vengeance. After being wounded in battle, she takes refuge in a remote gas station run by Takashi (Hideaki Ito), a young man who is actually a member of the underground rebel army. Despite their mutual mistrust, he nurses her back to health and they form a bond as she seeks to continue her mission of vengeance and he tries to convince her otherwise. ~ Tom Vick, All Movie Guide

Japan's favorite hard-boiled but bungling detective Maiku Hama (Masatoshi Nagase) returns for the third time in this disturbing crime drama. As the lurid tale begins, Hama-san is enjoying a rare good period in his life. With plenty of new clients he finally makes a decent wage. His new girlfriend Yuriko is mute and but for her being a Christian convert, offers him a lot of fun. But when he learns that a crazed killer has been poisoning women around the city and planting Hama's fingerprints on their corpses, the intrepid gumshoe must leave his cozy office behind the movie theater projection booth to clear his name. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

After a 14-year-absence, Teruo Ishii returned to the director's chair with this anthology film based on the works of manga artist Yoshiharu Tsuge. The main character in all four segments is a fledgling cartoonist named Tsube (Shiro Sano). In the first segment, Tsube encounters a dotty old man named Ri (Akio Yokoyama) after renting a tumble-down cottage in the country. The following day, Ri, his equally weird wife (Chika Nakagami), and his two squalid children move into his house. Soon the wife is stealing the cucumbers in his garden while the two kids devour all the food in the house. This leaves Tsube more bemused than angry. Later, while his wife is bathing in an oil drum, Ri decides to show his unwilling host how long she can hold her breath. When seconds stretch on into minutes, they pull her out of the water. At that exact moment, Tsube trips and falls face first onto her crotch. The second segment -- entitled "Akai Hana" -- opens with Tsube watching a boy trying to look up the skirt of a young lass selling tea. Instead of berating the kid, Tsube follows the lad to his favorite fishing spot. The river's edge is covered with beautiful red flowers. Later, they both spy the tea seller wading in the river with her skirt hiked up to her waist. To their surprise, the same red flowers pop out from between her legs. In the third segment, Tsube ventures to a town populated entirely by old, very wrinkled women. The owner of the candy shop tells him that he is the spitting image of the former master of the local Gensenkan Inn. The film flashes back to the story of the master, who looks remarkably like Tsube. When visiting said inn, he encounters the inn's mistress, a beautiful lass with an ugly facial tick, rendering her mute. Later while entering the public bath, he sees her naked while she prays before a candle-lit alter. He forces himself on her and eventually they couple in her room. The fourth and final section finds Tsuge, along with his literary friend (Mayo Kawasaki) and his friend's lover (Nana Okuda), trying and failing to run a magazine. When the magazine finally does fold, the writer returns to his wife in the country. Though Tsube has fallen for the girlfriend, she can't forget the writer. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Edogawa Rampo -- a pen name that is also a homonym in Japanese for Edgar Allen Poe -- amassed a major cult following after writing a series of short stories that masterly meld the erotic and the grotesque. Unlike previous films about of his work -- such as Noboru Tanaka's masterful Stroller in the Attic -- this piece is not so much an adaptation of his work than a dreamlike vision of his inner workings. Set during the 1930s, Rampo (Naoto Takenaka), after learning that his piece Osei Tojo was censored by the government, reads a newspaper article about an incident that bears freakish similarity to his suppressed story. The article details a murder investigation surrounding Sonoko (Michiko Hada), the wife of an antique dealer who was found suffocated in an large oblong chest. At the funeral, Rampo is immediately drawn to Sonoko, who exudes a certain femme fatal magnetism. She fires his creativity and soon he is banging out a sequel to his censored work. In his story, Osei becomes the lover of a debauched aristocrat (Mikijiro Hira) who likes to sexually humiliate the recent widow. Meanwhile, a straight-arrow detective, Kogoro Akechi (Masahiro Motoki), ventures to the count's estate to further investigate the murder. While writing this tale, he passionately pursues Osei in real life -- or at least what he thinks is real life. This film was famous in Japan for its turbulent production history. Producer Kazuyoshi Okuyama was displeased with original director Rintaro Mayuzumi's faithful, delicate version of the film and reshot 80 percent of the film, fashioning it into a flashier, bawdier affair. Both versions were released in Japan. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

In this rather experimental festival piece, Yoriko Doguchi plays a real estate agent who has been given some odd instructions by a client: he wants an inexpensive room which is quiet, and has a window with no views of Tokyo's many skyscrapers. The real estate agent travels all over Tokyo to find such a room (it turns out to be a really rare commodity). It also turns out that the real estate's client (Akaji Maro is an assassin, who needs something like the room he described in order to recover psychologically from the rigors of his latest assignment. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

After Commodore Perry forcibly opened Japan to trade in 1853, the Japanese responded as if they had been waiting for this event, and sent sons from prominent families to study abroad and learn how, for instance, a navy, an army, or an international trading company might be set up. European models were adopted for everything from education and shipbuilding to the organization of the military - even the nation's constitution. In this German/Japanese co-production, set in 1885, a young Japanese man has come to Germany for just that purpose. However, he gets involved with a dancer and neglects his studies. His mother (who is the person a Japanese boy must answer to) learns of this, and attempts suicide. He must now return home to Japan in some disgrace, and leave his now pregnant lady-love behind. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Inventive director Kaizo Hayashi has skillfully re-created the ambience of silent films of the 1910s and 1920s in this endearing story. All dialogue is not spoken, but captioned in subtitles. An actress called "The Princess" has been kidnapped and it is up to the heroic detective and his trusty, comic assistant to rescue this damsel in distress. Off they go, tracking down leads and sniffing out clues. The city never sleeps and somewhere out there is an older woman watching a silent-era film in which she starred -- no matter that the last reel seems to have been swallowed by time. The plot continues to thicken in this eye-catching and evocative film. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide