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'
Tokyo Zombie (2005)
6.1/10
Director: Sakichi Sato
Starring: Tadanobu Asano, Sho Aikawa, Erika Okuda, Arata Furuta, Hina Matsuoka
Tokyo's future is overshadowed by a looming mountain of garbage, a stinking blot on the landscape where everything from toasters to cars to corpses ar... Read more
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
Always - Sunset On Third Street (2005)
7.8/10
Director: Takashi Yamazaki
Starring: Maki Horikita, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Shinichi Tsutsumi, Koyuki , Hiroko Yakushimaru...
Beautifully recreating the post-war Tokyo landscape of the 1950s, this ensemble story is based on a popular manga and is an intimate look into the liv... Read more
Karas: Part 2 - The Revelation (2005)
7/10
Starring: Matthew Lillard, Jay Hernandez, Cree Summer
From legendary anime studio Tatsunoko Productions ('Speed Racer') comes the second installment in the 'Karas' story. Picking up exactly where the firs... Read more
Reincarnation (2005)
6.2/10
Director: Takashi Shimizu
Starring: Karina , Yuka , Shun Oguri, Kippei Shiina, Tetta Sugimoto, Taro Suwa
An actress starts having disturbing visions and visitations after accepting a role in a film about a real-life mass murderer who stalked Tokyo Univers... Read more
Samurai Commando: Mission 1549 (2005)
5.1/10
Director: Masaaki Tezuka
Starring: Yosuke Eguchi, Kyoka Suzuki, Takeshi Kaga
When a modern-day military unit is accidentally sent back to feudal Japan, history changes and the present begins to unravel in this re-telling of the... 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
Takeshis' (2005)
6.4/10
Director: Takeshi Kitano
Starring: Takeshi Kitano, Kotomi Kyono, Kayoko Kishimoto, Ren Osugi, Terajima Susumu, Tets...
Japanese film icon Beat Takeshi writes, directs, edits and stars as himself and his own doppelganger in this surreal, comic fantasy about a convenienc... Read more
Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (2005)
7.5/10
Director: Zhang Yimou
Starring: Ken Takakura, Nakai Kiichi, Shinobu Terajima, Jiamin Li
Ken Takakura gives a career-defining performance as an old Chinese fisherman who has been estranged from his son for many years. When he receives a c... Read more
Full Metal Alchemist The Movie: Conqueror of Shamballa (2005)
Director: Seiji Mizushima
The long-awaited and thrilling epilogue to the ground-breaking anime series. It's Munich 1923, two years since Ed made the ultimate sacrifice that se... Read more