Yuichi Saito Movies

In Paul Schrader's unusual biopic, Ken Ogata stars as Yukio Mishima, perhaps the most celebrated Japanese novelist of the last five decades. The film begins with Mishima's youth, then moves forward in episodic fashion to his 1970 suicide, symbolically committed at a military site. Originally titled Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, the film is neatly divided into a quartet of acts, and the screenplay does not flinch in its depiction of Mishima's hyperactive sex life. Among the many neat directorial touches is the decision to offer the narrative in black-and-white, while depicting scenes from Mishima's novels in vibrant color. Written off as self-indulgent by those impatient with Schrader's fragmentary technique, Mishima was produced in Japan by Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, an offshoot of Coppola's involvement with Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Taro (Yuichi Saito) and his mother Kazue (Fumie Kashiyama) are afraid of remaining in the city of Tokyo at the end of World War II, and so the mother decides that they should go to stay with grandmother Masae (Hiromi Nakahara) until things settle down. Two of her sisters, Miyo (Aiko Mimasu) and Futae (Meiko Kaji) decide on the same option. When Taro arrives at the grandmother's house, she forbids him to go near a particular barn because it is haunted, she says. In fact, the barn is the hideaway for little Emi (Kyasarin/ Catherine), the racially mixed daughter of Aunt Fusae and an American. Emi's existence is suspected by the locals and the police, but they cannot get past the militant grandmother to investigate any further. Then one day Taro comes upon his aunt and Emi bathing, and is taken aback at first, though he cannot help but make friends with his newfound cousin. He is her only chance to get out of the barn and play for awhile, but that innocent activity is certainly dangerous as the war -- and the villagers -- are never far away. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide