Misa Shimizu Movies

A man finds a new sense of himself in his old hometown in this drama from Japan. Tetsuro is a businessman from Tokyo who goes back to the coastal town where he grew up for the first time in years when he arrives to attend a memorial ceremony for his late grandmother. While he's back home, Tetsuro happens upon Yuki, who was his girlfriend in high school, and the two meet over cocktails to get reacquainted. Tetsuro and Yuki were both on their high school's yachting team, and after a few drinks he offers to join Yuki and some friends for a sailing trip that will circle the island of Hokkaido. The next morning, Tetsuro isn't so sure a return to sailing is such a good idea, but when his old friends come out of the woodwork to cheer him on, he finds himself warming to the task and it leads him to take a fresh look at his life in the city. Starring Ken Ishiguro, Misa Shimizu and Takako Uehara, Umikaze Ni Fukarete (aka Carried On A Sea Breeze) was directed by Toshiki Sato, best known to Japanese film fans for his noted "Pink Films" (softcore sex pictures), though he's also made thrillers and more serious dramas. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

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

Shusei has a problem. When he graduates from college, he has a fine job waiting for him. Family connections have made certain of that. However, in order to graduate, his thesis professor has to certify him. Since his professor, a former sumo wrestler, is the not-so-unofficial patron of the college's almost nonexistent sumo squad, and Shusei looks like someone who could do the squad some good, a tradeoff is arranged: Shusei will join the college sumo squad and work hard for it, and the professor will let him graduate on schedule. After a few more "volunteers" are rounded up, theirs is a real underdog team, full of skinny kids and out-of-shape heavyweights -- even an English rugby player. They are embarrassed even to compete, much less to train hard. However, the enthusiasm of the school's alumni shames the group into doing their best, which (as things in teen movies usually turn out) is more than good enough. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide