Yoshitaka Zushi Movies
- 2000
After being raped by her stepfather, teenaged Yuki (Saki Kamiryo) takes shelter in a remote mental hospital. In the course of her stay, she meets a host of fellow patients whose stories tend to be as troubling as her own. Included amongst them are schizophrenic Kuro; Hidemaru, a stately student of calligraphy; the gentle Chuya, a would-be playwright; and Shohachi, who is retarded. Tragically, Yuki also makes the acquaintance of Shigemune, a hulking drug addict who causes the girl to suffer yet another rape. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi
- Starring:
- Yoshitaka Zushi
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, Rovi
- Starring:
- Akira Terao, Martin Scorsese, (more)
- 1989
- R
The obsession of a man for a married woman leads to tragedy in this romantic melodrama. Juan Pablo Castel (Peter Weller) is an artist who sees a woman admiring one of his paintings at an art exhibit. When he goes to introduce himself, she quickly disappears. Castel follows her through the streets of the city and loses her twice before his successful meeting. He becomes obsessed with the beautiful Maria (Jane Seymour), who Castel learns is married to an older intellectual. Castel is not able to put the woman out of his mind, and his obsession proves fatal as the story unfolds in flashbacks. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
Dodes'ka-Den (aka Dodesukaden) was Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa's first project since Red Beard (1965), and his first ever in color. Kurosawa focuses this time on Tokyo slum life. We watch as a variety of unfortunates debase themselves to survive, yet, somehow, emerge with more innate dignity than the so-called "better" people. While it seems inconceivable that Dodes'ka-Den would fail at the box office, fail it did upon its original release. The Japanese distributors hastily pared down the film's 244 minutes to 140 (unfortunately destroying the original negative in the process), but this version also came a cropper. It was the negative reaction to Dodes'ka-Den, which allegedly prompted Kurosawa to attempt suicide. Happily, he survived to reclaim his industry stature with 1976's Dersu Uzala. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Yoshitaka Zushi, Kin Sugai, (more)
In 1820, young Noboru Yasumoto (Yuzo Kayama) completes his medical education in Nagasaki and returns to his native Edo hoping both to marry the daughter of a wealthy man and to achieve affluence himself through his medical practice. He happens to visit the famed Koishikawa clinic for the indigent, which is run by the autocratic Dr. Kyojo Niide (Toshiro Mifune), better known as Red Beard. To his intense displeasure, he soon finds himself assigned to the clinic for his internship. At first, the young intern is arrogant and rebellious, intent on displaying his knowledge of medical innovations and contemptuous of the older doctor for spending his life among the poor. But as time passes, he gains an intimate knowledge of the kind of suffering that is endemic to the impoverished, and at length, becomes an acolyte of this seemingly dictatorial physician, who heals his patients with gentleness and humility as much as with his medical skill. ~ Michael Costello, Rovi
- Starring:
- Toshiro Mifune, Yuzo Kayama, (more)
