Japanese Cinema
Japanese cinema flourished early on and silent films were being made right through the 1930s. Most were accompanied by a 'benshi' or live narrator telling the story as well as live music. Very little survives from this era however; the 1923 earthquake, the bombings of WW2 and the country's high humidity destroyed many of these historical works. Of those that survive, the early works of Kenji Mizoguchi are highly regarded and he went on to make the classic 'The Life of Oharu' in 1952. Of course no discussion on Japanese cinema is possible without mention of their best known son, Akira Kurosawa. With a career spanning 60 years Kurosawa's ground-breaking films (e.g. 'Seven Samurai', 'Kagemusha', 'Ran') influenced film makers around the world. Most recently Japanese cinema hero 'Beat' Takeshi Kitano revitalised the Yakuza genre; and young mavericks like Takashi Miike ('Audition', 'Ichi the Killer) and Hideo Nakata ('Ring', 'Dark Water') have breathed new life into the horror flick, their films often (and promptly!) remade by US production houses.
For Japanime, use the animation link to the left.
Pictured: Kurosawa teamed once more with the incomparable Toshiro Mifune for 'Seven Samurai'
Azumi 2: Death or Love (2005)
6.4/10
Director: Shusuke Kaneko
Starring: Aya Ueto, Yuma Ishigaki, Chiaki Kuriyama, Shun Oguri, Kazuki Kitamura
Continuing the adventures of diminutive sword-slinging assassin Azumi (Aya Ueto), now on the run with her fellow killer Nagara (Yuma Ishigaki) and bei... Read more
Ballad of Narayama (1958)
8/10
Director: Keisuke Kinoshita
Starring: Kinuyo Tanaka, Teiji Takahashi, Yuko Mochizuki, Danko Ichikawa, Keiko Ogasawara
Based on the novel by Shichiro Fukazawa, and recounting an ancient Japanese custom whereby, in times of hardship, the young inhabitants of a remote vi... Read more
Ballad of Narayama (1983)
7.9/10
Director: Shohei Imamura
Starring: Ken Ogata, Sumiko Sakamoto
In a small 19th-century Japanese village, residents who reach the age of 70 are banished to the top of Mt. Narayama to die so that they don't become a... Read more
Barefoot Gen / Barefoot Gen 2 (1983)
Director: Kazuo Oga
The powerful and tragic autobiographical story of manga artist Keiji Nakazawa, just six years old when an atomic bomb was dropped on his hometown of H... Read more
Battle Heater (1990)
Director: Joji Iida
Starring: Pappara Kawai, Akira Emoto, Kaoru Okunuki
When the Kotatsu heater he finds on a rubbish dump turns out to be the host for a demonic entity, Furuchi has to find a way to return it to its rightf... Read more
Battle Royale (2000)
7.7/10
Director: Kinji Fukasaku
Starring: Takeshi Kitano, Tatsuya Fujiwara, Aki Maeda, Taro Yamamoto, Masanobu Ando, Kou S...
At the dawn of the new millennium, Japan is in a state of near-collapse. Unemployment is at an all-time high, and violence amongst the nation's youth... Read more
Battle Royale ( Blu-ray ) (2000)
7.7/10
Director: Kinji Fukasaku
Starring: Takeshi Kitano, Masanobu Ando, Tatsuya Fujiwara, Aki Maeda, Taro Yamamoto, Kou S...
At the dawn of the new millennium, Japan is in a state of near-collapse. Unemployment is at an all-time high, and violence amongst the nation's youth... Read more
Battle Royale II: Requiem (2003)
4.7/10
Director: Kinji Fukasaku, Kenta Fukasaku
Starring: Sonny Chiba, Masahiko Tsugawa, Yoshiko Mita, Takeshi Kitano, Aki Maeda
It's three years after the events of the original Battle Royale, and Shuya Nanahara is now an internationally-known terrorist determined to bring down... Read more
Beyond Outrage (2012)
6.8/10
Director: Takeshi Kitano
Starring: Takeshi Kitano, Toshiyuki Nishida, Fumiyo Kohinata, Ryo Kase, Yutaka Matsushige,...
Filmmaker Takeshi Kitano looks to go, well, beyond his yakuza war opus "Outrage" in this lead-laden follow-up. A manipulative police crackdown on orga... Read more
Big Man Japan (2007)
6.4/10
Director: Hitoshi Matsumoto
Starring: Hitoshi Matsumoto, Riki Takeuchi, Claudio Uassouf, Ryunosuke Kamiki, Itsuji Itao
Irresistably hilarious mockumentary about a sad-sack 40-something who is carrying on the family tradition of turning into a superhero, when the need a... Read more