Tag: cinema

July 12, 2021 · 2 comments

By Jonathan Clements. Struggling to make ends meet, Tsuneo is scrimping together all his spare cash to fund the trip of a lifetime – a graduate posting in Mexico where he can indulge his love of diving. He is so set on this aim that he doesn’t realise that his co-worker Mai is carrying a […]

July 5, 2021 · 0 comments

By Tom Wilmot. By the mid-1970s, the decline of the Japanese studio system had led to the rise of pinku eiga, low-budget soft porn movies that were targeted at a male theatre-going audience. However, this transition towards films dominated by eroticism had already begun almost a decade earlier for auteur filmmaker Yasuzo Masumura. The director had continued […]

June 20, 2021 · 0 comments

By Tom Wilmot. As three caramel companies, World, Giant and Apollo duel for market share, fresh-faced World employee Nishi (Hiroshi Kawaguchi) assists his ambitious boss, Goda (Hideo Takamatsu) in making a star out of the rotten-toothed tomboy Kyoko (Hitomi Nozoe), who is to be the face of their space-themed campaign. As each company’s marketing drive […]

May 15, 2021 · 0 comments

By Jeremy Clarke. With a title that seems to proclaim, “look at me, I’ve arrived”, Daiei’s The Invisible Man Appears (1949) is a Japanese manifesto, a statement that they can match American movies. Eiji Tsuburaya‘s effects are as good as anything in Universal’s The Invisible Man (1933) and were almost certainly produced at a fraction […]

May 3, 2021 · 0 comments

By Tom Wilmot. Of the thousands of films released every year, few are subjected to a high level of controversy, critical acclaim, or commercial success, let alone all three. Yet with Battle Royale, director Kinji Fukasaku was dealt a full house. Even those unfamiliar with Japanese cinema are sure to have at least heard of […]