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'
Tetsujin 28 (2005)
5.1/10
Director: Shin Togashi
Starring: Ayako Kawahara, Hiroshi Abe, Masato Ibu, Sosuke Ikematsu, Teruyuki Kagawa, Yu Ao...
A throwback to a time when families stuck together, and giant fighting robots didn't need any super-weapons, just their own two fists and a heart of g... Read more
Warning from Space (1956)
4.4/10
Director: Koji Shima
Translated into English, the title of this Japanese sci-fi endeavor is Unknown Satellite over Tokyo. The extraterrestrials on this occasion are weirdl... Read more
Mutant Girls Squad (2010)
5.8/10
Director: Yoshihiro Nishimura, Noboru Iguchi, Tak Sakaguchi
Starring: Naoto Takenaka, Yumi Sugimoto, Yuko Takayama, Suzuka Morita
Rin is a seemingly normal Japanese high school girl, but on her sixteenth birthday, everything in her life changes. After witnessing her mother's face... Read more
Parasyte: Part 1 (2014)
7/10
Director: Takashi Yamazaki
Tiny creatures called "Parasites" have arrived on Earth with the sole purpose of taking over human brains and preying on mankind. When one of them lat... Read more
A Silent Voice (Koe no katachi) (Blu-ray) (2016)
7.7/10
Director: Naoko Yamada
A deaf elementary school girl, Shoko Nishimiya, upon transferring, meets a boy named Shoya Ishida in her new class. Shoya, who is not deaf, leads the... Read more
Yakuza Deka 2: The Assassin (1970)
Director: Yukio Noda
Starring: Sonny Chiba, Ryohei Uchida, Fumio Watanabe, Osman Yusuf, Giant Baba
Sonny Chiba returns as undercover cop Hayata. This time he's after a marijuana syndicate, and he's going to have to go very undercover to net these g... Read more
Death Trance (2005)
5.9/10
Director: Yuji Shimomura
Starring: Tak Sakaguchi, Kentaro Seagal, Honoka Asada, Yoko Fujita
A genre-crossing, time-fusing, fantasy blockbuster from the action director of 'Versus' and starring Tak Sakaguchi as a nameless warrior who attacks a... Read more
Akira Kurosawa's Dreams (Blu-ray) (1990)
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Starring: Akira Terao, Mieko Harada, Mitsuko Baisho
Eight mesmerising tableaus explore the subconscious at various stages of an elderly mans life in this visually stunning work from the master Japanese... Read more
The Burmese Harp (Blu-ray) (1956)
8/10
Director: Kon Ichikawa
Starring: Shoji Yasui, Rentaro Mikuni, Naito Taketoshi
A moving anti-war drama about a wounded Japanese soldier in British custody during the last days of World War II. Sent out into the Burmese jungle to... Read more
Sister Street Fighter (1974)
6.3/10
Director: Kazuhiko Yamaguchi
Starring: Etsuko Shihomi, Sonny Chiba
Lee Long is a martial-arts champion who the police use as an undercover agent to infiltrate a drug ring responsible for importing heroin from Japan to... Read more