In the overwhelming plethora of yakuza movies that were produced from the Japanese movie industry, we have seen movies that portray the gangsters as heroic, as losers, or as they actually are, in a rather realistically dramatic fashion that has become more prevalent during the latest years. It is very rare, however, to watch a film of the category where the protagonist is a rather cunning coward, who spends all his energy trying to avoid becoming part of the action. This is exactly what happens in “Like a Rolling Stone” however, a film that also moves into drama/erotic paths and managed to win a plethora of local awards, mostly for the direction and the main protagonist, Eiji Okuda.
Tanaka is a yakuza whose main function is to collect protection money for his boss. Considering himself second in command, as soon as he is released from prison as the story begins,...
Tanaka is a yakuza whose main function is to collect protection money for his boss. Considering himself second in command, as soon as he is released from prison as the story begins,...
- 4/17/2024
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Director and screenwriter Haruhiko Arai worked as an assistant director for Wakamatsu Productions before making his screenwriting debut with Shinjuku, Messy District: I'll Be There (1977), directed by Chusei Sone. He established his reputation in Japan and worldwide with works such as W's Tragedy (1984), Flakes of Snow (1985), and Someday (2011). For the latter Haruhiko received the Screenplay of the Year Award by the Japan Academy Film Prize. Body and Soul (1997) was his directorial debut. A Spoiling Rain (2023), IFFR 2024 selection, is his fourth feature film.
On the occasion of “A Spoiling Rain” screening at IFFR, we speak with him about the changes he have seen in the industry through the years, love and sex, adapting the particular novel, the casting and the current situation of the Japanese film industry.
translation by Shione Kunimori
My name is Haruhiko Arai. It has been 27 years since I was at the IFFR last time. 27 years ago, I...
On the occasion of “A Spoiling Rain” screening at IFFR, we speak with him about the changes he have seen in the industry through the years, love and sex, adapting the particular novel, the casting and the current situation of the Japanese film industry.
translation by Shione Kunimori
My name is Haruhiko Arai. It has been 27 years since I was at the IFFR last time. 27 years ago, I...
- 2/11/2024
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Japanese Avant-garde and Experimental Film Festival announces full programme for Jaeff 2021: Bodies in advance of ticket sales on 22 July. Jaeff 2021: Bodies will be held at The Barbican from 16-19th September, and online from 20th-30th September.
Jaeff 2021: Bodies explores how we interact with other beings, spaces around us, and how expressions of the unutterable become vital means of communication and connection.
This third edition of the Japanese Avant-garde and Experimental Film Festival considers the body and sensation, and features work from directors Kon Ichikawa, Toshio Matsumoto, Susumu Hani, Chiaki Nagano, Takahiko Iimura, Tatsumi Kumashiro, Shuji Terayama and more.
In a time where words, facts and logic are increasingly ineffectual, powerless and absurd, this year’s programme attempts to make sense of the nonsensical. Finding that sometimes, the most powerful form of expression is often what we feel, rather than what we can say, write, or even think.
Jaeff 2021: Bodies explores how we interact with other beings, spaces around us, and how expressions of the unutterable become vital means of communication and connection.
This third edition of the Japanese Avant-garde and Experimental Film Festival considers the body and sensation, and features work from directors Kon Ichikawa, Toshio Matsumoto, Susumu Hani, Chiaki Nagano, Takahiko Iimura, Tatsumi Kumashiro, Shuji Terayama and more.
In a time where words, facts and logic are increasingly ineffectual, powerless and absurd, this year’s programme attempts to make sense of the nonsensical. Finding that sometimes, the most powerful form of expression is often what we feel, rather than what we can say, write, or even think.
- 7/19/2021
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
Japanese Avant-garde and Experimental Film Festival are very excited to announce their full programme for Jaeff 2021: Bodies. Curated alongside the delayed 2020 Olympics, this year’s festival aims to explore the human body – in motion, at rest, in agony and in ecstasy.
Tickets go on sale to Barbican Members on 21 July, and to the general public on the 22nd. Stay tuned to our socials for further info (and links!).
Jaeff look forward to seeing you this Autumn!
Thursday 16/9
18:00 – Nanami: The Inferno of First Love + A.I. Mama
Friday 17/9
18:00 Portrait of Mr O + Anma + Rose Color Dance + In Passing
20:30 – Lovers are Wet
Saturday 18/9
Navel and a Bomb
17:50 – Boxer + Transparent, the world is.
Sunday 19/9
11:00 – Japan’s Cinematic Body (Panel Discussion)
13:20 Nippon Express Carries the Olympics to Tokyo + Tokyo Story
16:00 – Tokyo Olympiad...
Tickets go on sale to Barbican Members on 21 July, and to the general public on the 22nd. Stay tuned to our socials for further info (and links!).
Jaeff look forward to seeing you this Autumn!
Thursday 16/9
18:00 – Nanami: The Inferno of First Love + A.I. Mama
Friday 17/9
18:00 Portrait of Mr O + Anma + Rose Color Dance + In Passing
20:30 – Lovers are Wet
Saturday 18/9
Navel and a Bomb
17:50 – Boxer + Transparent, the world is.
Sunday 19/9
11:00 – Japan’s Cinematic Body (Panel Discussion)
13:20 Nippon Express Carries the Olympics to Tokyo + Tokyo Story
16:00 – Tokyo Olympiad...
- 7/18/2021
- by Rhythm Zaveri
- AsianMoviePulse
“The Woman with Red Hair” is probably the most acclaimed work of the late Tatsumi Kumashiro, one of the most celebrated directors within the pinku genre whose pink films even made it repeatedly to the Kinema Junpo’s Best 10 of the year. This particular one was number 4 that year, and was also nominated for four awards (although it did not win any) from the Japanese Academy, including Best Director, Best Screenplay for Haruhiko Arai, Best Sound for Fumio Hashimoto and Best Actress for Junko Muyashita, who actually won the accolade from the Hochi Film Awards.
The film focuses on the friendship between two construction workers, Kozo and Takao, with the first one being a specialist worker and thus much cherished and somewhat higher up the chain, and the second a simpleton who idolizes him for the most part. The story begins when the boss’s daughter, Kazuko (played by Ako...
The film focuses on the friendship between two construction workers, Kozo and Takao, with the first one being a specialist worker and thus much cherished and somewhat higher up the chain, and the second a simpleton who idolizes him for the most part. The story begins when the boss’s daughter, Kazuko (played by Ako...
- 3/29/2021
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Yutaka Ikejima was born on March 30, 1948. He studied Literature at Waseda University. He first entered the entertainment business in the late 1970s as an actor with Shuji Terayama’s theatrical group Tenjō Sajiki. His film debut was in the 1981 Genji Nakamura pink film Semi Documentary: Housewife Prostitution Team aka Document Porno: Married Woman Prostitution Techniques. In contrast to his stage career, in his screen work, Ikejima has stayed in the erotic genres.Between 1981 and 1988 he appeared in over 500 softcore pink films, working for such directors as Hisayasu Satō, Yōjirō Takita and Ryūichi Hiroki. Ikejima appeared in Satō’s gay-themed “Temptation of the Mask” (1987), a film significant for joining three of the “Four Devils” or “Four Heavenly Kings of Pink” in one work. Though most-awarded and recognized as a director, Ikejima has continued acting to the present day.
He began his directorial career in 1988, at first working mainly in AVs (adult...
He began his directorial career in 1988, at first working mainly in AVs (adult...
- 5/12/2020
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
translation by Lukasz Mankowski
Shinji Imaoka was born in Osaka in 1965. He attended Yokohama City University, but dropped out in 1990 in order to pursue a film career.He entered the film industry as an assistant director at pink film pioneer Satoru Kobayashi’s Shishi Productions.There he worked principally under Hisayasu Satō, and also with such directors as Takahisa Zeze and Mototsugu Watanabe.In December 1994 he worked as assistant director to the esteemed Nikkatsu Roman Porno director Tatsumi Kumashiro on his last film, Immoral: Indecent Relations Imaoka’s directorial debut film was Sex Party of the Beasts: Come Together. In 2000, the Tokyo Athénée Français gave Imaoka a career retrospective tribute which broke the institution’s record for attendance. Other notable titles include “Lunchbox” and “Underwater Love”. “Reiko and the Dolphin” is his latest movie
On the occasion of “Reiko and the Dolphin” screening at Osaka Asian Film Festival, we speak...
Shinji Imaoka was born in Osaka in 1965. He attended Yokohama City University, but dropped out in 1990 in order to pursue a film career.He entered the film industry as an assistant director at pink film pioneer Satoru Kobayashi’s Shishi Productions.There he worked principally under Hisayasu Satō, and also with such directors as Takahisa Zeze and Mototsugu Watanabe.In December 1994 he worked as assistant director to the esteemed Nikkatsu Roman Porno director Tatsumi Kumashiro on his last film, Immoral: Indecent Relations Imaoka’s directorial debut film was Sex Party of the Beasts: Come Together. In 2000, the Tokyo Athénée Français gave Imaoka a career retrospective tribute which broke the institution’s record for attendance. Other notable titles include “Lunchbox” and “Underwater Love”. “Reiko and the Dolphin” is his latest movie
On the occasion of “Reiko and the Dolphin” screening at Osaka Asian Film Festival, we speak...
- 3/23/2020
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Akihiko Shiota's Wet Woman in the Wind (2016), which is receiving an exclusive global online premiere on Mubi, is showing from November 24 - December 24, 2017 as a Special Discovery.Much like Hollywood, the Japanese film industry goes to the well as often as possible once it hits a lucky strike. Such was the case with the so-called Roman Porno films of the 1970s, an infamous genre of sexploitation primarily identified with Japan’s oldest major studio, Nikkatsu. Financial trouble necessitated a popular, inexpensive product, and these softcore numbers were just the ticket. This may have been the studio where Kenji Mizoguchi and Shohei Imamura made films early in their careers, but by 1971 the Roman Porno factory was in full swing, producing quick, cheap, titillating product for an audience hungry for female toplessness and a great deal of convulsive thrusting.
- 11/23/2017
- MUBI
We at Mubi think that celebrating the films of 2011 should be a celebration of film viewing in 2011. Since all film and video is "old" one way or another, we present Out of a Past, a small (re-) collection of some of our favorite retrospective viewings from 2011.
This year I ordered my favorite new experiences with old movies by the date when I saw them, rather than by the year when they were made. (The diary format reveals a large midyear viewing gap due to my own film shoot.) I chose rather arbitrarily, leaning toward works I haven't already called attention to; and I let myself run the list up to six films instead of five.
February 8, in the French Institute/Alliance Française's Cinéma des femmes series: La dérive (Paula Delsol, 1964)
It seems that contemporary critics found Delsol's debut feature less than technically competent, but that opinion is baffling today: the film meanders artfully,...
This year I ordered my favorite new experiences with old movies by the date when I saw them, rather than by the year when they were made. (The diary format reveals a large midyear viewing gap due to my own film shoot.) I chose rather arbitrarily, leaning toward works I haven't already called attention to; and I let myself run the list up to six films instead of five.
February 8, in the French Institute/Alliance Française's Cinéma des femmes series: La dérive (Paula Delsol, 1964)
It seems that contemporary critics found Delsol's debut feature less than technically competent, but that opinion is baffling today: the film meanders artfully,...
- 1/24/2012
- MUBI
Velvet Bullets and Steel Kisses: Celebrating the Nikkatsu Centennial was a sidebar at this year's New York Film Festival that Dan Sallitt, writing a couple of weeks ago, found "so exciting that it threatens to overshadow the main slate: a retrospective of the Japanese studio Nikkatsu, whose opportunistic shifts of focus always seemed to open doors for some of Japan's most creative filmmakers. Compare film magazine Kinema Junpo's 1999 and 2009 lists of all-time greatest Japanese films to the Lincoln Center series schedule, and count the overlaps." Last year in the Notebook, Dan reviewed one of the 37 films in the series, Tomu Uchida's Earth (1939).
"The sidebar is peppered with nearly impossible to see rediscoveries," notes Steve Dollar at GreenCine Daily: "early silent films like 1927's A Diary of Chuji's Travels and harshly realistic World War II dramas like Mud and Soldiers. Shot on location in China in 1939, the latter film blends...
"The sidebar is peppered with nearly impossible to see rediscoveries," notes Steve Dollar at GreenCine Daily: "early silent films like 1927's A Diary of Chuji's Travels and harshly realistic World War II dramas like Mud and Soldiers. Shot on location in China in 1939, the latter film blends...
- 10/16/2011
- MUBI
Kino is adding three Tatsumi Kumashiro films to their DVD catalog on March 23, 2010. These titles join Kino's previous release of two other Kumashiro titles on DVD (Woman with Red Hair and The World of Geisha).
Kumashiro, who is most known for films like Woman Hell:Woods Are Wet and Wet Lips, had diverse career before latching on to Nikkatsu Studios at the inception of roman poruno. Titles in this new Kimstim series, all of which are from Nikkautsu, include: Yakuza Justice: Erotic Code of Honor (1972) Twisted Path of Love (1973), and Sayuri Ichijo: Following Desire (1973).
Detailed synopses provided by Kino are featured below.
Yakuza Justice: Erotic Code of Honor
Monk Seigen grew up as a lonely child. Chaste and frustrated, he boldly steps out of his shell when he rescues Misako, the daughter of an area yakuza boss who was being abused by some local thugs. The two soon find themselves...
Kumashiro, who is most known for films like Woman Hell:Woods Are Wet and Wet Lips, had diverse career before latching on to Nikkatsu Studios at the inception of roman poruno. Titles in this new Kimstim series, all of which are from Nikkautsu, include: Yakuza Justice: Erotic Code of Honor (1972) Twisted Path of Love (1973), and Sayuri Ichijo: Following Desire (1973).
Detailed synopses provided by Kino are featured below.
Yakuza Justice: Erotic Code of Honor
Monk Seigen grew up as a lonely child. Chaste and frustrated, he boldly steps out of his shell when he rescues Misako, the daughter of an area yakuza boss who was being abused by some local thugs. The two soon find themselves...
- 3/24/2010
- Screen Anarchy
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