Komaki Kurihara Movies
- 1991
The independent filmmaker Tadashi Imai raised a significant portion of the funds needed to make this movie by popular subscription. The story illuminates the Japanese view of World War II and its aftermath in ways which may be difficult for some outsiders to comprehend, for instance, by referring to Allied air raids on Tokyo as murder, and by downplaying some (but by no means all) of Japan's war crimes. In the story, a high-school girl in the 1980s has been given a school assignment to find out and report on her family's experience of the war. She has a paternal aunt who is voluntarily mute, and particularly hates to be reminded of the war, but her father eventually (and very reluctantly) tells her what her aunt's mutism is all about. It dates back to 1943, when the aunt was married to a pacifist who went to Hokkaido to protest Japanese ill treatment of Korean laborers and was killed. The aunt was pregnant at the time, and during an air raid on Tokyo, she gave birth to a daughter, who was lost in the confusion. These two traumatic events led to the aunt's silence. Soon after she finds out her aunt's story, her aunt dies. Not long after that, she tracks down the missing child, who was (in a karmically appropriate fashion) adopted by Koreans and was raised in Korea. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yuki Kudo, Hisashi Igawa, (more)
- 1982
The time is World War II on Okinawa, and a group of young teenage women who have been trained in nursing, especially as it relates to the emergencies and trauma sustained in combat, are working on the island to help the wounded. For non-Japanese audiences, their perky good cheer, their tendency to start singing at the drop of a hairpin, and their dedication to nurturing their dreams for the future may seem a little like Walt Disney doing Apocalypse Now. Cold-blooded Americans have their own agenda for the island, and the young women's optimistic lives may not last long in the face of an imminent invasion. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Komaki Kurihara, Yuko Kotegawa, (more)
- 1982
Tadashi Imai's remake of his own earlier Himeyuri no to, The Eternal Monument, is also known as Himeyuri Lily Tower. The film is set during the bloody American invasion of Okinawa during the waning days of World War II. With fine impartiality, Imai spares no one his disdain: we see incredible brutality on both the American and Japanese sides. Eternal Monument was a major commercial hit in Japan. The less enchanted critics griped that Tadashi Imai used a potent true-life story to indulge in his characteristic dramatic excesses and lapses in taste. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1980
An interesting turnaround given the emerging philosophies of learning at this time, Kosadate Gokko is about a wayward, willful young girl whose destructive tendencies are cured by being forced to join a traditional classroom. Shinkichi (Go Kato) and his wife Yoko (Komaki Kurihara) are a childless, normal couple who teach school in northern Japan. They convince a Tokyo acquaintance of theirs, the arrogant intellectual Takumi Hoshizawa (Yoshi Kato) to let them take care of his daughter Rika (Chio Ushiwara). It seems Rika has not learned anything living with her father. She has been raised on his liberal, free-wheeling ideas about education. So she moves in with her adoptive parents for awhile and sure enough, her transformation begins in this new environment. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Go Kato, Komaki Kurihara, (more)
- 1977
Set in 1901, this movie depicts the fate of two military training companies sent on war exercises to Mount Hakkoda in the northernmost part of the main island of Japan. They were preparing for maneuvers in the Russo-Japanese War, on the orders of Maj. General Tomoda, in terrain which they believed would be similar to those they would encounter during the war itself. They were asked to rendezvous somewhere on the mountain. The smaller group was headed by a man who scouted the local area and asked local people how best to survive the conditions they would encounter. This group also asked for local guides. They survived quite handily, but could not complete their mission because the larger group, which trusted their modern procedures and military training and spurned the locals' offers of guidance, was lost -- frozen, on the mountain. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shogo Shimada, Ken Takakura, (more)
- 1974
The very long but very worthwhile Sandakan No. 8 is set in mid-20th-century Japan. A crusading female journalist makes the acquaintance of an elderly woman who years earlier had been shipped against her will to Borneo. As a young girl, she had been sold into prostitution by her impoverished family. The friendship between the old woman and the young journalist is the heart of the story, and we use that word in its every sense. Nominated for an Academy Award, Sandakan No. 8 was a winner at the Berlin Film Festival and won many Japanese prizes. Originally released in the US without a rating, the film has since been classified "R". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Wolves is set in Japan in the 1920s. The disintegration of the ancient samurai traditions is paralleled with the rise of the Yakuza, Japan's equivalent of the Mafia. Three gangsters try to keep themselves from getting killed, not only by their higher-ups but by those who perceive them as a threat against the old ways. Evocatively photographed, Wolves allows Western audiences a glimpse of an oft-ignored chapter in Japanese history. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1971
This black-and-white crime drama takes place in a remote rural inn located on an island in a river. It is the headquarters for a smuggling gang and is protected by higher-ups in the government. Even with this protection, the police continue their efforts to put the gang away. Things begin to unravel for the gang as they try to raise money to buy out the prostitution contract of a woman one of them has fallen in love with. Told with lots of flashbacks detailing the life histories of those involved, this Japanese language film has English subtitles. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1970
In this Japanese epic, Japanese lords are fighting each other during the civil wars. A brave hero and his 3,000 gunners are recruited to assist. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
