Jun Hamamura Movies
When has-been baseball player Jack Elliot (Tom Selleck) is signed by a Japanese team, he is initially reluctant to take the game seriously. Elliot is very successful, though, as he teaches the team about American chutzpah, and they remind him of the value of respect. He must fight his way out from under a slump to show that he deserves the title. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Selleck, Ken Takakura, (more)
- 1987
Princess From the Moon (Taketori Monogatari) is based on an ancient Japanese legend. Toshiro Mifune plays a 9th century bamboo cutter who comes across a curious glass capsule, housing a tiny baby girl who holds a crystal ball in her hand. Once released, the infant instantly becomes a five-year-old; the astonished Mifune, whose own child has recently died, decides to adopt the girl. It isn't very long before the child becomes a beautiful adult (Yasuko Sawaguchi), whose blue eyes--a decided rarity in Japan--attract every man within hailing distance. Mifune hopes to hide his daughter away from predatory males, but the girl is constantly courted by eligible bachelors. By and by, the crystal ball begins to emit a strange sound, alerting the girl that she must return to the Moon, whence she came and where she will reign as princess. See Princess From the Moon only if you have an open mind and open heart. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Toshiro Mifune, Ayako Wakao, (more)
- 1983
The Makioka Sisters will probably best be appreciated by those with an intimate knowledge of 20th century Japanese culture. The film, set just before World War II, chronicles the experiences of four upper-class Osaka sisters, two of them married. We see the shifting political and social scene through their eyes, with director Kon Ichikawa (who adapted the film from Junichiro Tanikazi's novel) conveying the proper sense of confusion and distraction. At times the film is a little too confused and distracted, thus total audience attention is not only necessary, but mandatory. Makioka Sisters, sometimes listed as Makica Sisters, has also been released under the title Fine Snow. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Keiko Kishi, Yoshiko Sakuma, (more)
- 1978
This unsentimental Japanese tragedy chronicles the lonely life and quiet death of a blind Geisha girl whose desire for sexual freedom causes her to become an outcast. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shima Iwashita, Yoshio Harada, (more)
- 1969
This humanistic drama is set on Okin-shima, a remote island off southwestern Japan. Here civilization has yet to intrude, and when a nurse comes to live there, the people are suspicious. Eventually they come to accept her. When the locals mysteriously begin falling ill, she calls in a handsome doctor who discovers the disease is caused by a parasite and ends up falling for the nurse. He proposes to her; she accepts, but just as they make ready to leave, the nurse suddenly changes her mind because she knows that her real destiny is to continue working on Okino-shima. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1968
- PG
In this film, director Shohei Imamura collides traditional Japanese myth with Japan's current modernized incarnation. The result is a surreal biting commentary on Japanese society. A family living alone on an isolated island begins developing unique cultural norms concerning sexual behavior. The family father views incest as acceptable and practical behavior. He is simultaneously a father and grandfather to his boy who is involved with one of his sisters. Another sister is mentally retarded and addicted to sexual pleasure. A stranger comes to the island with the hopes of building a sugar refinery there. He is soon seduced by the retarded sister. He also begins to rather like their customs. In the end, the other brother and sister are morally chastised for their love. As punishment, the brother must dig a giant hole to bury a large boulder brought in by a tsunami. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kanjuro Arashi, Rentaro Mikuni, (more)
This is the 13th feature in the popular film series about the blind, sword-slashing masseur Zatoichi. He enters a town controlled by an evil gang and decides to free the people from the mob's ruthless criminal activities. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shintaro Katsu, Shigeru Amachi, (more)
One of the most fearsome of the Japanese monsters to hit the screen in the early 60's makes his debut in sci-fi thriller. As tensions between America and the Soviet Union rise to a fever pitch, U.S. troops shoot down a Russian bomber which is flying low in an Arctoc region. The bomber crashes, and its payload of hydrogen bombs explode upon impact. The blast releases and awakens Gamera, a gigantic fire-breathing turtle which had been frozen under the ice since prehistoric times. The newly revived monster makes his way to Tokyo, Japan, where he begins to lay waste to the city. As emminent scientist Dr. Hidaka (Eiji Funakoshi) searches for a way to defeat the monster, a young boy named Yoshiro (Yoshiro Unchida) develops an unlikely friendship with Gamera. For the film's American release, additional scenes were added featuring U.S. actors Brian Donlevy and Albert Dekker. The spelling of the monster's name was also changed; he's Gammera with two M's in this movie, but just Gamera in the sequels which followed. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Albert Dekker, Brian Donlevy, (more)
A seemingly simple assignment sends a warrior for hire into a labyrinth of danger and intrigue in this intelligent and expressive action vehicle from filmmaker Masahiro Shinoda. In Japan in the year 1614, Sasuke Sarutobi (Koji Takahashi) is a retainer of the Sanada Clan who has grown weary of the constant warfare that has become a fact of life in his country. Tatewaki Koriyami (Eiji Okada) is a lieutenant with the Tokugawa Clan who has fled his commanders and thrown his alliances behind a rival clan, and Sarutobi is ordered to discover his whereabouts. However, as Sarutobi sets out in search of his quarry, two people he meets en route -- a charming but amoral thug and a beautiful woman -- both wind up dead shortly after he establishes friendship with them, making it clear to the samurai that someone is out to get him. As a strange and deadly assassin follows Sarutobi's trail, he finds himself drawn deeper into a web of dangerous alliances and bitter conflicts, with the warrior meeting almost no one he can trust short of a beautiful dancer also hoping to escape the violence around her. Sarutobi was loosely adapted from a novel by Japanese author Koji Nakada. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Koji Takahashi, Mutsuhiro Toura, (more)
- 1964
In this Yakuza spoof, Hapyaku (Shintaru Katsu), a put-upon taxi driver, wrecks his cab chasing down a hit-and-run driver and demolishes a restaurant in the process of defending the honor of a waitress. He soon finds himself being recruited against his will into a sinister criminal gang who are trying to take down the crime boss for whom they are supposed to be working. Frustrated and broke, he agrees to go join them. The gang claims to have hired him for his integrity, but eventually their complicated and violent plan begins to work on his conscience. The repeated appearance of the waitress at inopportune moments only serves to make him even more suspicious of the whole scheme. ~ Tom Vick, All Movie Guide
In this renowned and classic Japanese film directed by Kon Ichikawa, the great Kabuki onnagata Kasuo Hasegawa celebrates his 300th film appearance in a role designed especially for him. One of the classic theater styles of Japan, Kabuki does not use women in female roles. Highly trained male actors, called "onnagata," perform in them, and are often more convincing as women than many women might be. In the story, set in 1836, Yukinojo (Kasuo Hasegawa) is an onnagata, travelling to Edo in feminine disguise. On his journey, he recognizes three ruthless merchants who ruined his father's business, driving him to suicide. Pledged to revenge his father's death, he follows them, and with the help of a mysterious bandit martial artist named Yamitaro (also Hasegawa), fulfills his pledge, even though this means the destruction of one of the merchant's innocent daughters, who has fallen in love with him. Actor Hasegawa performed these same roles in a 1935 film version of this same story, directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa, who consulted on this film. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kazuo Hasegawa, Fujiko Yamamoto, (more)
- 1963
This Japanese horror movie is set in ancient times and chronicles the exploits of a wandering monk who finds himself lost in a mysterious forest. He ends up finding a house owned by a beautiful woman and her husband, a dwarf. She seduces all men who come near and turns them into beasts. The monk is her newest target, but then she finds herself really falling for him and he is spared. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1960
The epidemic of juvenile delinquency in the mean streets of a Tokyo slum is depicted in this sordid story of sex and violence. The group is dwindled by suicide, murder, gang warfare and accidents as they engage in arson and gunplay. Plagued by drug and alcohol problems, the members of the gang head down the dead-end street to oblivion, despair and certain death. The film attempts at the beginning to give some semblance of a stance on morality before the depraved characters begin the inevitable downward spiral. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Masahiko Tsugawa
- 1960
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, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yasuke Kawazu, Miyuki Kuwano, (more)
- 1959
Several cinematic variations on Junichiro Tanizaki's novel about jealousy, voyeurism, and sexual arousal began with this award-winning drama by director Kon Ichikawa. Kenji Kenmochi (Ganjiro Nakamura) is the older and increasingly impotent husband of young Ikuko (Machiko Kyo). He is desperate to regain his virility and when injections fail to do the trick, he discovers by spying on his daughter and her lover that jealousy will arouse him. Determined to succeed, he connives to bring his wife and his daughter's lover together -- so he can become jealous and sexually virile again. Unfortunately for Kenji, his plan has tragic consequences. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Machiko Kyo, Ganjiro Nakamura, (more)
- 1958
The Temptress features Yumeji Tsukioka as the title character. Unhappily married to an unpleasant dwarf, Tsukioka gives her body freely to other men. But there's a curious side effect: all of the Temptress' lovers are metamorphosed into animals. Only the man she truly loves will be spared this fate; unfortunately, Tsukioka is destined to die a horrible death should she ever genuinely fall in love. Masterfully directed by Eisuke Takazawa, The Temptress was one of the more memorable entries in the Museum of Modern Art's 1958 Japanese Film Festival.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yumeji Tsukioka
Set against the final days of World War II, The Burmese Harp portrays the experiences of a group of exhausted, war-scarred Japanese soldiers as they prepare to return to Japan. The film focuses on Shoji Yasui, a soldier known to his comrades for his harp playing, who fails to convince a resistant company to surrender and is presumed dead when a battle destroys their hillside encampment. To rejoin his fellow soldiers, Shoji steals the robes of a Buddhist monk and begins to make his way across the countryside. But along the way, he becomes fixated on the hundreds of abandoned, unburied war casualties and begins to assume the duties of his costume and tend to the bodies. Meanwhile, Shoji's friends mount a search for him, eventually noticing the monk to whom he bears an uncanny resemblance. Director Kon Ichikawa's film was adapted by frequent collaborator (and wife) Nato Wada) from a book by Michio Takeyama designed to introduce children to the fundamental principles of Buddhism.
~ Keith Phipps, All Movie Guide
~ Keith Phipps, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shoji Yasui, Rentaro Mikuni, (more)
