Kei Sato Movies

After a 13-year absence, partially due to a life-threatening stroke, master filmmaker Nagisa Oshima returns to the silver screen with this revisionist samurai epic. From his first major film, Cruel Story of Youth to his most notorious work Ai no Korrida, Oshima has coupled the political and the sexual in a manner that transgresses all social norms. In this film, Oshima explores homosexuality among the ranks of the much hallowed samurai. The film is set in Kyoto in 1865 during a critical moment of Japanese history--the country's 300-year-long self-imposed isolation was coming to an abrupt halt leading to the end of the Shogunate. In its place came a more internationally-minded government with the Emperor as its nominal head. Feeling both their traditions and their grip on power threatened, samurai militia sprang up throughout the country to fight this foreign encroachment. One such group, the Shinsengumi, is auditioning new recruits at the film's opening. Commander Kondo (Yoichi Sai) and Captain Hijikata (Takeshi Kitano, a renowned filmmaker in his own right) select the ruggedly handsome Tashiro (cult actor Tadanobu Asano) and Kano (Ryuhei Matsuda), an effeminate lad with long locks and a thirst for blood. Worried about the perceived slightness of the latter, Kondo and Hijikata order Kano to perform an execution, which he does with grim aplomb. The lad's androgynous beauty soon raises the general blood pressure of the militia. While Tashiro snuggles up with him nightly, Hijikata, who suspects that something other than manly appreciation is going on between the two neophytes, also seems unduly interested in the youth. This film was screened in competition at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

In the remote island of Honshu, far from the bright lights of Kyoto and Tokyo, the boys Yuzo and Chiyo are rivals in love, and are also rivals in their desire to become performers on the ancient Japanese instrument, the shamsien. Yuzo has had the luxury of lessons, Chiyo has had to learn in a more haphazard fashion. When Yuzo beats him in a musical competition, Chiyo apprentices himself to a blind master. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Nearly ten years after his last screen appearance (in 1975's Terror of Mechagodzilla), the Tokyo Terror stomps again -- albeit awkwardly -- in Toho Studios' highly publicized bid to reestablish the Green Guy's popularity in Japan and overseas. More a remake of the 1956 classic Godzilla, King of the Monsters than a continuation of the series, Godzilla 1985 represents an attempt to revamp the Big G with Star Wars movie technology and a more "serious" approach. Unfortunately, Toho's efforts may have gone astray, since the film resorts to exactly the same cheesy conventions that had endeared the series to bad-movie buffs around the world: flimsy cardboard buildings, inconsistencies in the monster's size from one scene to the next, and the same mock-profound commentary from Raymond Burr. The only notable additions consist of some interference from those evil superpowers, America and the Soviet Union, who both want to nuke Godzilla before he decides to direct his rage somewhere other than Japan. Though the film did manage to jump-start the franchise, spawning several high-tech sequels (continuing with Godzilla vs. Biollante and 1995's Godzilla vs. The Destroyer), its cheesiness spelled certain doom for the series in overseas markets, with minimal legitimate U.S. distribution until their arrival on video amid advance hype for Sony-TriStar's mega-budgeted 1998 version. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi

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, Rovi

Satori is the name of the demon in this Japanese film. Ironically, it's name sounds the same as the word used for enlightenment experiences in the Zen tradition. Even more ironically, the demon strikes at people who are in a state devoid of thought or feeling. This is ironic because many people mistakenly believe that such a state is the goal of Zen practice. In the story, a psychotherapist suffers from the onslaughts of the demon, and its influence spreads from him to a couple who grow increasingly uninhibited. The demon's influence spreads until it encompasses even the covert fascist organizations believed to exist in '70s Japan. This also is ironic because in Japan, Zen Buddhism is practiced only by a small, often aristocratic minority: some left-wing Japanese assume that many of its practitioners are fascists. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This well-known film by auteur director Nagisa Oshima offers a humorous and trenchant commentary on trends in Japanese society. Looking through the eyes of a younger son in a lesser branch of an important Japanese family, we see simultaneously the boy's history, the family's history and the history of Japan. This is done by showing important family ceremonies over the years: anniversaries, weddings, funerals, etc. Various factions in the family, which reflect the factions in Japanese society, struggle for superiority. Viewers of this film will find their enjoyment enriched if they have some knowledge of recent Japanese history . ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Zensaku (Makoto Fujita) is middle-aged patent consultant and inventor, living a sedate life as a married father of two grown children, decades after service in the army during the Second World War that left him physically maimed -- he is completely deaf in his left ear, and must wear a hearing aid in his right. He suddenly finds his existence turned upside down when his past and present collide amid two seemingly unrelated events. His restless son (Toshio Kurosawa), who is struggling to make the grades necessary for college, has fallen in love with a young woman who turns out to be the daughter of Suzuki (Kei Seto), a wealthy industrialist who was Zensaku's wartime commanding officer -- he is also the man responsible for Zensaku's deafness, the result of a beating he received for refusing to beat a helpless Allied prisoner. Equally troubling, his son has been drawn to the idea of enrolling in the Defense College, which will give him an education but also train him as a soldier -- Zensaku cannot face the possibility that his son would become part of the same Japanese military that maimed him and caused so much misery for the world (including Japan). At the same time, an encounter with an old flame from his youth forces Zensaku into a possible business deal with Suzuki, and a series of recriminations about his marriage. This leads to a confrontation with Suzuki in which the man claims to feel no guilt or sympathy for Zensaku -- indeed, Zensaku expresses little but contempt for Zensaku and his humanitarian impulses, or the latter's outrage that their possisble business deal may allow Suzuki to manufacture a flame-thrower that he plans to sell to the Americans for use in Vietnam. Zensaku must wrestle with these conflicts out of his past, and also with the renewed allure of his old flame, now suddenly available to him again -- if he is willing to walk away from his responsibilities as a husband and father. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

This sad tale, based on a true story of a Japanese-born Korean student who raped and killed two girls in 1958 and was then hanged in 1963 when he reached maturity, is turned by director Nagisa Oshima into a black farce reminiscent of the darkly satirical, anti-authoritarian films of Luis Buñuel. The film opens with the hanging of the criminal, but the noose fails to kill him. Instead he gets amnesia, and the executioners and officials reenact the crime, hoping to jog his memory and prove that he is guilty. Soon they begin to identify with their roles, and the line blurs between the crime and its reenactment. The film ends as a bitter indictment of Japanese nationalism, capital punishment, and Japanese institutional prejudice against Koreans. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

After students prankishly steal the clothes of two people swimming nude in the ocean, the swimmers return to land and wander around au naturel. They are assumed to be Korean illegal immigrants, and are chased and hounded. This comedy takes a rare look at Japanese racism. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Director Nagisa Oshima teams with comic-strip artist Shirato Sampei in this feature. Still pictures are used as some of Japan's more recognizable thespians provide the voices to tell the story. The ninja warriors use their powers to become invisible, walk on water, and climb castle walls. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

A young man returns to the island where he was held prisoner as a child in this action thriller from Japanese director Masahiro Shinoda. He was sent to the island as a boy so he could not reveal the identities of the military police who killed his family. For 20 years he has planned to seek revenge against the sadistic tormentor who tortured the island inhabitants. He meets the daughter of the torturer, and the young woman claims her father has changed his ways. The victim hunts down the old man and instead of killing him, he makes the man cut off one of his own fingers. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

The unstable social milieu of postwar Japan is brought into play in Violence at Noon. Two young women, whose lives are far from blissful, are raped by an equally disenfranchised assailant. Director Nagisa Oshima seems to argue that it is the horrid living conditions endured by the rapist and his victims, rather than the rape itself, that should be condemned. Oshima sustains audience interest with his lightning-paced editing, offering some 2000 separate shots in the space of 90 minutes. Violence at Noon begins simply, but ends in so complex a fashion that more questions are raised than can ever possibly be answered. The film's original Japanese title was Hakuchu no Torima. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi