Fujio Nagahama
2021Stray Dog
Akira Kurosawa
Toshirō Mifune, Takashi Shimura
A bad day gets worse for young detective Murakami when a pickpocket steals his gun on a hot, crowded bus. Desperate to right the wrong, he goes undercover, scavenging Tokyo’s sweltering streets for the stray dog whose desperation has led him to a life of crime. With each step, cop and criminal’s lives become more intertwined and the investigation becomes an examination of Murakami’s own dark side.
Stray Dog
あゝ野麦峠
Satsuo Yamamoto
Shinobu Ōtake, Mieko Harada
The story of the silk industry and the young girls who worked as silk spinners in the early 1900s in Japan. The silk mills were located in Okaya which lies just beyond the Nomugi Pass. The women and girls worked in a hot, humid atmosphere without rest, and endured those conditions and sexual harassment to earn money for their poor families. Across the ocean, it was the great depression in America.
Nomugi Pass
白い野獣
Mikio Naruse
Mitsuko Miura, Sō Yamamura
The critical establishment was clearly not prepared to accept a woman's prison film featuring former prostitutes recovering from venereal diseases, unwanted pregnancies, and estranged lovers. With its cat fights, hysterical tantrums, film noir lighting, and dramatic music, White Beast is indicative of the new influences of the Hollywood psychological thriller on Naruse. Caged (John Cromwell, 1950) initiated a cycle of women's prison movies in the United States that may or may not have been shown in Japan, but the stylistics of White Beast draw on the same paranoid woman's films and film noir conventions that preceded the American cycle.
White Beast
Akatsuki no tsuiseki
Kon Ichikawa
Ryō Ikebe, Jun Tazaki
This little seen early work by Ichikawa was produced during the director's Shintoho period (1947-51). Written by Kaneto Shindô and featuring Ryô Ikebe as a young policeman it is part crime drama, part social study. Definitely not an undiscovered masterpiece, but still a must for Ichikawa buffs.
Pursuit At Dawn
鴎よ、きらめく海を見たか めぐり逢い
Kenji Yoshida
Ken Tanaka, Yoko Takahashi
Fujishita Kumi is an ordinary office lady. Longing to escape her poor fishing village for a life in the city, she came to Tokyo. One day while alone in the office, she's spotted rolling up her pantyhose by the window cleaner Kurata Katsuo. This was to be their first encounter. Completely enchanted by Kumi, Katsuo does everything he can to get close to her. Katsuo is a man with a terrible past. With the death of his coal miner father, his family was broken up and he was forced to follow in his father's footsteps laboring away in the mud. In spite of this, Katsuo still has dreams. He dreams of living in Resiporuko, a utopian fantasyland that exists only in his imagination. When Katsuo and Kumi finally meet they find themselves unable to communicate. Katsuo spends all his time talking about Resiporuko with a starry look in his eyes, while Kumi dreams of living the high life in the city. One day when the two travel to the seashore, they discover a wounded seagull.
Oh Seagull, Have You Seen the Sparkling Ocean? An Encounter
