Kaneto Shindô Films, Best To Worst
I still feel Shindô is terribly overlooked. I believe I have seen more of his films than any other Japanese filmmaker. This list only includes movies he DIRECTED. There are still many out there unavailable to English speakers, and there seems to be no movement to release anything obscure. This list contains the 22 I have seen, from best to worst.
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22 titles
- DirectorKaneto ShindôStarsTaiji TonoyamaNobuko OtowaKei SatôThe ship Kaijin Maru is left adrift after losing all means of navigation in a storm. The four people on the ship are becoming increasingly desperate as food and water run out.aka 'Ningen'
- DirectorKaneto ShindôStarsNobuko OtowaAnriNoboru MatsuhashiThe relationship between a rich young student and his lower class friend changes when they start to live both at a guest house. Both will be attracted towards Iko, the beautiful daughter of their landlady.aka 'Kokoro'
- DirectorKaneto ShindôStarsNobuko OtowaKyôko KishidaEitarô OzawaA morally-suspect and self-serving retainer rashly baits her high-ranking employer, a regional governor, with a salacious story of a former acquaintance and catastrophe ensues.
- DirectorKaneto ShindôStarsNobuko OtowaSanae TakasugiTaiji TonoyamaTime; a few years after the surrender of Japan in the Second World War. The country is in ruins, economy devastated, and the vulnerable masses deprived of work; let alone the basic amenities of life. A new order, led by voratius opportunists is in the make where the weak are easy prey to the hydraheaded mountebanks. Betrayed and exploited by their employer, a group of five trainee insurance brokers face the challenge of commuting suicide, or taking the path of felony. They choose the latter and decide to rub a money truck to ease the suffering and pain of their family members.aka 'Wolf'
- DirectorKaneto ShindôStarsNobuko OtowaJitsuko YoshimuraKei SatôTwo women kill samurai and sell their belongings for a living. While one of them is having an affair with their neighbor, the other woman meets a mysterious samurai wearing a bizarre mask.
- DirectorKaneto ShindôStarsKichiemon NakamuraNobuko OtowaKei SatôTwo women are raped and killed by samurai soldiers. Soon they reappear as vengeful ghosts who seduce and brutally murder the passing samurai.
- DirectorKaneto ShindôStarsNobuko OtowaTokuko WatanabeJiro KawarazakiThe story tells of the adoration of Sasuke for his mistress, the blind Shamisen teacher Shunkin, who treats him imperiously and subjects him to cruel beatings.aka 'Sanka'
- DirectorKaneto ShindôStarsNobuko OtowaSumiko HidakaIsuzu YamadaShusei Tokuda's starkly realistic novel about a poor girl pressed into becoming a geisha was forcefully adapted by Kaneto Shindo (Onibaba). When Ginko (Nobuko Otowa, Shindo's wife) falls in love with one of her clients, she is handily rebuffed by the young man's wealthy family, and left to wander from geisha house to geisha house.aka 'Miniature'
- DirectorKaneto ShindôStarsMasahiko TsugawaYuki SumidaKazuyo AsariThe film tells the story of Japanese writer Kafu Nagai (1879-1959), a man about sixty with a huge reputation of seducer who falls madly in love for a young geisha named Oyuki. Meticulous and smartly dressed, Nagai patiently wrote in his diary his thoughts during many years. A melancholy reflection on the passage of time and a brilliant interpretive exercise.
- DirectorKaneto ShindôStarsAkira EmotoDaijirô HaradaMansaku IkeuchiA mother and daughter living alone in a small village in deep Japan manage to get out of poverty seducing men, who offer their sexual services and then poisoned with a drink similar to sake.
- DirectorKaneto ShindôStarsNobuko OtowaHaruko SugimuraHomizu ArataniTamiko is a divorced mother with a seriously ill son, struggling to save him and give both a sense of their existence. She lives with her mother and brother, but will marry a man older than her. The dramatic shadow of Hiroshima bombs is always hovering over the fate of the characters.
- DirectorKaneto ShindôStarsEtsushi ToyokawaShinobu ÔtakeNaomasa MusakaToward the end of World War II, middle-aged soldier Keita is entrusted with a postcard from a comrade who is sure he will die in battle. After the war ends, Keita visits his comrade's wife Yuko and bears witness to the tragic life she has led. This year's Oscar entry from Japan finds SHINDO in top form and his 49th and reportedly last film as fresh and poignant as ever.
- DirectorKaneto ShindôStarsRyûzô HayashiNobuko OtowaMitsuko BaishôAfter 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.
- DirectorKaneto ShindôStarsDaijirô HaradaNobuko OtowaKeiko ToriiAfter leaving high school, Michio Yamada (Norio Nagayama in the real life incidents) becomes involved in the shudan shushoku, a post-war Japanese government work program which involves taking almost an entire high school graduating class from the countryside to Tokyo to work for a fruit company. Some terrible things happened to his family in the past and that explains why Michio came later to have perpetrated so many killings.
- DirectorKaneto ShindôStarsNobuko OtowaTaiji TonoyamaRokkô TouraBased on a true story, an elderly woman resiliently spends nine months attempting to retrieve her husband's dead body, fighting government bureaucracy and indifference all along the way.
- DirectorKaneto ShindôStarsRanko AkagiKamatari FujiwaraBokuzen HidariPostwar Tokyo. Pin (Jukichi Uno) and Toku (Taiji Tonoyama) live in the squatter area of Kappanuma. Pin and Toku are avid gamblers. They take in Tsuru (Nobuko Otowa), a slightly demented woman who has run away from a geisha house.
- DirectorKaneto ShindôStarsNobuko OtowaTaiji TonoyamaShinji TanakaA family of four are the sole inhabitants of a small island where they struggle each day to irrigate their crops.
- DirectorKaneto ShindôStarsJûkichi UnoNobuko OtowaHarold ConwayThe story of a Japanese fishing boat whose crew were accidental victims of fallout from the Bikini hydrogen bomb tests.
- DirectorKaneto ShindôStarsKen OgataToshiyuki NishidaYûko TanakaThe famous woodblock artist Hokusai (1760-1849), a widower in need of a steady income, lives with his daughter Oei in the house of his friend Bakin.
- DirectorKaneto ShindôStarsKeiju KobayashiNobuko OtowaIchirô ZaitsuHaru, an aging scriptwriter, has isolated himself somewhere in the woods of Nagano to work on his first novel. As the last surviving member of his kin, he intends to chronicle the family he grew up in.
- DirectorKaneto ShindôStarsKô NishimuraNobuko OtowaTsutomu KaribaThe men who surround and torment the young protagonist (demanding teacher, owner of the company that rapes his own daughter, despotic and uncompromising father) are opposed to women (victims of men) as embodiment of salvation.
- DirectorKaneto ShindôStarsNobuko OtowaHideo KanzeMeg FlowerWhen her husband leaves her for a younger woman, a woman plots revenge against him.