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'
Based on the novel by Ryotaro Shiba, this samurai classic from director Masahiro Shinoda begins in the waning years of the Tokugawa Shogunate. As Ame... Read more
Based loosley on true events, the great Toshiro Mifune plays a masterless samurai in 1860 as the rule of the shogun is coming to an end. A few disgru... Read more
'Mosura tai Gojira', probably the finest and best-loved by fans of the Godzilla series. Once again the tiny citizens of Tokyo tremble before the migh... Read more
Winner of the Special Jury Prize at Cannes, Masaki Kobayashi's 'Kwaidan' features four nightmarish tales adapted from Lafcadio Hearn's classic Japanes... Read more
An exotic and stylish tale of deceit and survival. A peasant mother and daughter lure soldiers away from their comrades and slay them for their armour... Read more
When teacher Junpei Niki misses his last bus home after a day out collecting insects on a remote stretch of coast, he is invited by a local villager t... Read more
Legendary Japanese actor Kazuo Hasegawa plays Yukinojo Nakamura, a kabuki actor who - like Hasegawa himself - was renowned for being an onnagata, or f... Read more
Director Kon Ichikawa's ('An Actor's Revenge', 'The Burmese Harp') incredible real-life tale of one man's epic journey across the Pacific Ocean is bas... Read more
Unique Japanese filmmaker Seijun Suzuki helms this audacious wild ride into the world of 1960s Japanese Yakuza. Police detective Jo Shishido winds up... Read more
In this Japanese adventure, a brave sailor (Toshiro Mifune) called Sinbad (in the English version) is shipwrecked in a strange part of the world and f... Read more