Kaneto Shindo Movies

Celebrated Japanese filmmaker Kaneto Shindo, at 88, was the world's second-oldest working director when he made this biopic of character actor Taiji Tonoyama (Portugal's Manoel de Oliveira, age 91, held the distinction of being the oldest). Tonoyama, who acted in 250 films throughout his career -- many of which were directed by Shindo -- began working as an actor in the 1950s. His first lead role was in Shindo's The Island (1960), a dialogue-free film shot while Tonoyama was suffering from cirrhosis of the liver. Despite his prolific output, the actor was more widely recognized for his off-screen activities, which included womanizing and excessive drinking. Shindo's biopic opens with Tonoyama (played by Naoto Takenaka) flirting with the 17-year-old Kimie, with whom he would maintain a relationship for the rest of his life, despite his quasi-legal marriage to wife Asako. Over the course of the film, much attention is paid to the competition between the two women, and it becomes clear that their relationship was as compelling as their respective ties to Tonoyama. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

Veteran filmmaker Kaneto Shindo, who was 86 at the time of making this film, tackles the graying of Japan's population. The film opens with Yasukichi (Rentaro Mikuni), a retired chemist who lives with his middle-aged daughter, Tokuko (Shinobu Otake), drunkenly decrying the younger generation's poor treatment of the elderly in his favorite drink hole. When the bar's matron (Naoko Otani) admonishes him for being too loud, he continues to drink and rant until he wets himself and passes out on the floor. He wakes up in a hospital, cared for by the doctor (Akira Emoto) who found him out cold in front of the bar. Yasukichi's loutish behavior suddenly changes. His daughter, however, does not buy it for a second. His drunken tirades have pushed away Tokuko's siblings and driven her to the brink of mental illness. She tells the old man that if it were up to her, she would leave him at the hospital. The clinic is not, as the doctor points out, a nursing home, and Tokuko grudgingly lets him return. Yet Yasukichi knows that an old folks home is in his future. About the same time, he becomes obsessed with the legend of Obasuteyama village near Nagano, where the elderly are supposedly left to die in the mountains. Yasukichi soon starts to see the nursing home and Obasuteyama's notorious traditions as being roughly the same. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Noted filmmaker Kaneto Shindo directs this erotic drama adapted from the autobiographical book by renowned writer Nagai Kafu. Kafu, a noted rake and whoremonger, became one of Japan's more celebrated literary figures by documenting fleeting pleasures and subtle human interactions as he frequented Ginza cafes and Yoshiwara brothels. For this film, Shindo captures the essence of Kafu's work with an episodic structure detailing Kafu's search for his feminine ideal. One day, Kafu (played by Masahiko Tsugawa), while walking along the rain-slicked streets of Tokyo's red light district, happens upon Oyuki (Yuki Sumita), a geisha with a heart of gold. Strikingly beautiful, patrons flock to her in the house she shares with her madame (played by film legend Haruko Sugimura). Kafu too becomes beguiled by Oyuki's beauty, but as years pass and their relationship deepens, he realizes that indeed she is the woman he has been looking for. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

The Japanese actress and film director Kinuyo Tanaka had a career as significant to that country's movie industry as Lillian Gish's was in the U.S. -- it spanned the early days of silent movies and continued well into the 1970s. This biographical drama covers her career up to the point when she is working on The Life of Oharu (1952) with director Kenji Mizoguchi. In addition to reviewing the great actress's professional life, the movie provides a brief tutorial in the history of Japanese cinema. In real life, she continued to be a potent presence both in front of and behind the camera until her death in 1977, winning an award at the Berlin Film Festival for her acting work in Sandakan 8 ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Based on the experiences of director Kaneto Shindo's sister, this docudrama follows the life of a young Japanese woman given in marriage to a compatriot living in California, as repayment on a debt. When the woman arrives, she is desperately homesick, although her farmer-husband is kind and understanding. She endures, raises four children, and along with her family, faces the humiliation of forced incarceration in a Japanese internment camp in Arizona while the family simultaneously loses their property and has their assets frozen. After the war has ended, her son returns from his tour of duty in a Japanese-American unit that fought in Europe, and she does her best to survive continuing crises, such as the death of her husband in an accident and a family move to a new town. Her nostalgia for Japan does not disappear, and when her children marry mainstream, non-Japanese Americans, it is not an easy change for her to accept. Director Shindo has faithfully rendered the experience of this woman in context, yet his treatment is somewhat distant and stiff -- more formally Japanese than casually American in approach. Whether consciously taken or not, this approach may prevent viewers from getting emotionally involved in the heroine's many difficulties -- even with the excellent interpretations of the lead actors. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this Japanese melodrama, a young painter struggles in all things to remain true to his art and to his friends, a difficult task in a society where such a quest can lead to a truly disastrous individualism. In his case, in late 19th-century Japan, repression and death surround and follow him as his culture painfully adjusts to the changes sweeping through it. Because he has absorbed some Western ideas about artistic realism, he seeks situations where he can see the things he plans to paint, whether it be a naked woman, or a scene of hara-kiri. At one time, he was poised to become an official painter for the Imperial Court. However, his indignation at the authorities, for having chopped his rebellious friend to death, puts him in grave danger. Because of his associates and his known attitudes, he is likely to be subject to investigation about his past. His pariah mother kills herself to prevent the authorities from discovering damaging information about his birth. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This Japanese costume drama is set within a ruined Buddhist temple. A thief is living there with a domineering partner. His wife finds the two and interferes with their relationship. A priest wanders up to the temple. The thief tries to swipe the his golden Buddha. The priest puts a spell upon him. The man's partner knows the priest and leaves with him promising vengeance. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this Japanese drama, a housewife falls in love with a female model and embarks upon a lesbian relationship. When she must share her new lover with a male lover, the housewife becomes confused. She must also deal with her husband. Eventually all four enter into a suicide pact, but of them, she is the only one to survive. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide