Tag: Belladonna of Sadness

April 27, 2021 · 0 comments

By Jonathan Clements. Stolen from her betrothed, raped by the lord of the manor and his men, medieval European peasant girl Jeanne loses her faith in God and turns to the Devil. Cast out by the baron’s jealous wife, she embraces witchcraft and leads a peasant rebellion. That, at least, is the basic plot of […]

June 23, 2017 · 0 comments

By Helen McCarthy. Belladonna of Sadness, the last film from Osamu Tezuka’s groundbreaking studio Mushi Pro, crashed and burned soon after the studio itself. It failed at the Japanese box office, and made little impression on the world outside Japan. French film journal Les Cahiers du Cinema recently hailed it as “the hidden treasure of […]

February 19, 2017 · 1 comment

Good afternoon everyone! It’s time for a rare Sunday edition of the Newswire. So, I’m going to get right the point. There’s A LOT to talk about this Newswire. We’ve got an update on Sword Art Online The Movie, release dates, announcements from late last week and more. So sit back, relax and read on below. […]

September 30, 2016 · 0 comments

By Jasper Sharp. Who would have thought that one of the talking-point animated releases of the year would be an obscure title made in Japan over 40 years ago? Hailed as “One of the great lost masterpieces of Japanese animation”, Belladonna of Sadness (also known as Tragedy of Belladonna) was originally released in 1973 as […]

April 1, 2016 · 0 comments

Andrew Osmond revisits a restored classic. In 1985, Akira Kurosawa released his last epic film, Ran (meaning “Chaos”). The Japanese-French co-production was inspired by Shakespeare’s King Lear but it transposed the tragedy to the lost Japan of many Kurosawa classics, of violent swordplay, doomed heroes and harsh morality. Such films – Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Throne […]