Mitsuko Baisho Movies

In 1998, Japanese auteur Shohei Imamura announced his retirement with his wild and wooly war drama Kanzo Sensei. His announcement clearly proved to be premature, as exhibited by this bizarre romantic drama about the power of really good sex, based on a book by Henmi Yo. Koji Yakusho -- who starred in Imamura's Unagi along with virtually every Japanese indie film of note in the late '90s -- is Yosuke, a once successful marketing exec for an architecture film who is now out of work and separated from his wife. One of his few friends is Taro (Kazuo Kitamura), an aging bum living under a blue tarp with his collection of rare books. During one of his drunken rants, Taro tells Yosuke of a golden Buddha he stole from a temple in Kyoto and stashed in a ramshackle house adjacent to a red bridge on the rugged Noto peninsula. After Taro dies, Yosuke ventures to the hinterland to see if he can find the priceless statue, and he finds the house, which is inhabited by a senile confectionery maker (Imamura regular Mitsuko Baisho) and by her vivacious granddaughter Saeko (Misa Shimizu). Yosuke's first indication that Saeko is quite unlike the other girls is when he spies her stealing cheese from a local market. She later tells him that her body is a spring of water that wells up within her. The only means of relief is by doing something naughty -- like shoplifting -- or by engaging in a vigorous round of sex. Soon the two are enthusiastically exchanging fluids, so much so that water blasts from Saeko's nether regions like a fire hose. As the water flows to the nearby creek, fish cluster around to cavort in its special properties. Yosuke decides to stick around, landing a job as a fisherman, not only to service Saeko's special needs, but also to look for the Buddha. This film was screened at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival and at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Veteran filmmaker and perennial iconoclast Shohei Imamura directs this darkly comic tale about love, redemption, and a man's beloved pet eel. The film opens with Takuro Yamashita (Koji Yakusho), a seemingly normal salaryman, learning that his wife might be having an affair. When he catches the couple in flaganto delicto, he freaks out and brutally stabs them both to death. Eight years later, Yamashita is released on parole into the care of a Buddhist priest living in rural Chiba prefecture. Far away from his former life, yet still plagued with memories of his crime, Yamashita decides to start anew by opening a barbershop on a quiet road next to a canal. Though inward looking and self-conscious, he eventually befriends a bumptious but good-hearted day laborer, and a construction worker who's obsessed with UFOs. His most fateful encounter though is with a woman named Keiko (Misa Shimizu), who he discovers unconscious following a suicide attempt. Looking to put a few of her own demons to bed, Keiko decides to stay in this sleepy corner of Japan and help her savior with his barbershop. Initially against the idea -- she bears a striking resemblance to his dead spouse -- he eventually agrees and even grows to like having her around. This film won the Grand Prix at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Following up on his critically acclaimed, blood-splattered epic Ran, master director Akira Kurosawa looks inward with this collection of eight brightly colored dreams. The first section centers on a young boy (Mitsunori Izaki), who witnesses a forest wedding procession of fox spirits in spite of his mother's (Mitsuko Baisho) warning. The second section concerns the same lad who converses with peach-tree spirits after the trees have been cruelly cut down. This is followed by a party of mountain climbers struggling to make it back to base camp in the midst of a terrible blizzard. The fourth dream deals with a man (Akira Terao) -- a Kurosawa stand-in complete with the director's trademark floppy white hat -- who encounters ghosts of Japan's militaristic past in a forlorn tunnel. In the following dream, the same man ventures into a Van Gogh painting called The Crows and meets the artist himself (Martin Scorsese). The sixth and seventh dreams venture into nightmare territory -- one deals with a nuclear meltdown that threatens Japan while the other concerns post-nuclear mutants. In the final dream, Kurosawa meets a 103-year-old man (played by Ozu regular Chishu Ryu) in a utopian rural village. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

The award-winning director of such esteemed films as Black Rain and The Ballad of Narayama has chosen here to tell the decidedly dicey true tale of Iheiji Muraoka, also known as Zegen, the man who became the most powerful pimp in modern Japanese history, a man who could honestly regard himself as "The Boss of the South Seas." At the time, between the World Wars, Japan was involved in empire-building throughout East and Southeast Asia. After a brief career as a low-level military adventurer, Iheiji (Ken Ogata) decided to set up chains of brothels throughout Asia. As Japan's power in the region grew, so did his prosperity, as the man is quite literally surrounded by sex of all kinds, much of it shown onscreen. Interestingly enough, this engaging rogue was convinced that his entrepreneurship was not only personally rewarding, but was his way of doing his patriotic best to advance his country's global ambitions. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this original satire of a consumer family in a consumer society gone over the edge, the family in question moves into an upscale house and for a very short period, all seems to be blissful. They have more space, they have all the mechanical gadgets that make life "easier" -- what more could they want? -- emotional stability, for one thing. Bouncing between scenes reminiscent of horror films and samurai sagas, the family's situation becomes quite literally explosive as their manic antics mount. They retrench after the "explosion" -- and the meaning of the title becomes more evident: a "back-jet" is a jet that brakes on landing, sending thrust in the opposite direction. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this second, award-winning interpretation of a novel by Shichiro Fukazawa, director Shohei Imamura has inserted some scenes of violence and ritual sex that are shocking and were absent in the first, 1958 film. The story is set in the 19th century in a remote and severely impoverished mountain village in northern Japan. In this fictional society, once the elderly have reached the age of 70 they are brought up Mount Nara, where ancient gods reside, and left to die hopefully blessed by the deities -- this sacrifice will free up food for someone else in the village. Orin (Sumiko Sakamoto) is a 69-year-old grandmother living with one of her sons and three grandchildren and she prepares for her departure for an entire year. Among other activities (not always morally acceptable), she gets a new wife for her oldest son, and then shows the wife where the best place is for catching fish and how to take care of the family. At the top of the mountain, hundreds of skeletons and hungry black crows wait for the next arrivals as the resigned grandmother and one grieving son make the final ascent together, the woman strapped to her son's back. Director Imamura has trenchantly probed the nature of inhumanity and survival in a small, everyman's village. Narayama Bushi Ko won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1983. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Just as many American studio-era directors found acclaim abroad that was denied them in their home country, by 1980 Akira Kurosawa's reputation outside Japan exceeded his esteem at home. As uncompromising as ever, he found considerable difficulty securing backing for his ambitious projects. Unsure he would be able to film it, the director, an aspiring artist before he entered filmmaking, converted Kagemusha into a series of paintings, and it was partly on the basis of these that he won the financial support of longtime admirers Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas. Set in the 16th century, when powerful warlords competed for control of Japan, it offers an examination of the nature of political power and the slipperiness of identity. For some time, Shingen Takeda Tatsuya Nakadai has been able to stay removed from the heat of battle by using his brother Nobukado Tsutomu Yamazaki as a double. As the film opens, Nobukado offers another option, having discovered a condemned thief (also played by Tatsuya Nakadai) bearing an uncanny resemblance to the warlord. After he insists on witnessing the fall of an enemy in person, Shingen falls victim to a sniper's bullet, forcing his advisers to present the thief as the fallen warrior. At first awkward in his new position and plagued by dreams in which the spirit of his double confronts him, he slowly grows into the role even as his enemies begin to advance on his kingdom. The winner of the Palm D'Or at Cannes, Kagemusha: The Shadow Warrior has also been released as The Double. ~ Keith Phipps, All Movie Guide

After over 50 years of wandering up and down Japan, finally in the 1970s the rough-hewn blind shamisien player and folk-song collector named Chikuzan became a musical sensation. This biographical drama chronicles his wanderings and his life, with a particular focus on his humble beginnings as a peasant on a remote and arid island. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this adventure, set in Japan, a Shogun warrior sets off to save the daughter of a Russian count. She is being held captive by Shimada who took her to defend himself from the count who cheated him. The warrior battles Mikuni, another warrior who is trying to return an arms shipment to his Shogunate. They engage in a sword-wielding duel which the good Shogun warrior wins. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide