There’s been an epic find for serious film buffs this week. A nearly-finished 1929 film called “Tokkan Kozo,” or “A Straightforward Boy,” by the hugely-influential Japanese filmmaker Yasujirō Ozu has been uncovered. A representative of the Toy Film Museum in Kyoto and professor at the Osaka University of Arts, Yoneo Ota, announced the news at a September 6th conference.
Read More: 5 Essential Films By Yasujirō Ozu
“A Straightforward Boy” was gifted along with a collection of other films to the Toy Film Museum from the estate of a film fan. The found comedy is a shorter version of the 38 minute original movie, which remains lost, like many Japanese films shot before WWII. The museum is working to restore the film before it is screened later at the Kyoto International Film and Art Festival.
“A Straightforward Boy” depicts an abducted young boy who turns out too troublesome for his captor. The...
Read More: 5 Essential Films By Yasujirō Ozu
“A Straightforward Boy” was gifted along with a collection of other films to the Toy Film Museum from the estate of a film fan. The found comedy is a shorter version of the 38 minute original movie, which remains lost, like many Japanese films shot before WWII. The museum is working to restore the film before it is screened later at the Kyoto International Film and Art Festival.
“A Straightforward Boy” depicts an abducted young boy who turns out too troublesome for his captor. The...
- 09/09/2016
- por Annakeara Stinson
- Indiewire
1996 came the all time classic from Japan "Shall We Dance?" That was inspired by the classic dance scene from the 50s movie "Anna and the King" but also gave inspiration to the Richard Ghere movie with the same title. Story: Shohei Sugiyama (Koji Yakusho) is an successful account, married with beautiful Masako Sugiyama (Hideko Hara) and has a beautiful daughter Chikage Sugiyama (played by Ayano Nakamura). Despite a good home and a nice family, Shohei is still unhappy, he has no hobbies, and often prefer to be lonley. One day he see another lonely woman staring outside her window. Who is she? And why do all the people who visit her look happy and dancing? One of them is his boss Tomio Aoki...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
- 06/09/2016
- Screen Anarchy
Last week in this column I mentioned that I’m dedicating the month of June to watching and reviewing a few Eclipse Series titles focused on themes of marriage, being that this is a traditional month, in Western societies anyway, for those vows to be exchanged. We’re more than halfway through the month though and I still have two more films beside this week’s selection to cover before the month is up, plus a new Eclipse collection due for release next week that I want to watch and comment on before it’s overtaken by other hot new Criterion products, so I gotta get a move on. I guess that’s what happens when one is busy living the life of a married guy, rather than just writing about other people’s marriages. The first entry in this series was 1932′s One Hour With You, a lighthearted romp featuring the famous Lubitsch touch.
- 18/06/2011
- por David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
Film review: 'Shall We Dance?'
"Gotta sing, gotta dance" -- but not if you're a middle-aged Japanese businessman in a country that frowns on public contact with the opposite sex.
Winner of the equivalent of 13 Oscars in Japan, "Shall We Dance?" is a limber gem, a kind and inspirational depiction of the personal blossoming of a repressed, nondescript middle-manager whose clandestine ballroom dance lessons bring him great release and awaken him to the joys of life.
Similar in tone and theme to Vittorio De Sica's classic "A Brief Vacation", in which a female Italian factory worker opens up and thrives during a stint away from her repressive family life, this Miramax release is a delightful tonic for a summer overladen with cardboard characters. To boot, it's refreshing to see a sympathetic and insightful depiction of a middle-aged businessman, usually the object of ridicule these days.
Reportedly, the success of the film has started a ballroom dance craze in Japan, where "business golf" is one of the few enjoyments afforded the workaholic "salary man," namely the millions of worker-bee, white-collar men who ride the trains every day into the big cities from their hutchlike houses and toil in lock-step regularity.
In this remarkable character study, Koji Yakusho stars as Shohei, a burned-out businessman who, on an otherwise dispirited train ride home, captures a glimpse of a graceful dancer in an upstairs window. It is the silhouette of a beautiful instructor, Mai (Tamiyo Kusakari), and the vision becomes an obsession. Soon he finds himself getting off the train, entering the school and signing up for ballroom dance instruction despite the fact he can hardly afford it.
Like a bashful schoolboy, Shohei begins his lessons but not, to his quiet regret, with the beautiful instructress who inspired him to come there in the first place.
Not surprisingly, Shohei is a stiff and tentative dancer, a manifestation of his repressed nature and his socially ingrained tendency not to open up and express himself.
Indeed, it's with small steps, some of them crisscrossed and in the wrong direction, that Shohei begins his personal awakening as emblematized by his growing personal confidence with his dancing and himself.
Wonderfully comic and spry, "Shall We Dance?" is a glowing portrait of people coming out of their shell and, through dance, connecting not only with others but with themselves.
Flavored with idiosyncratic personal textures and widened by its cultural and social insights, "Shall We Dance?" is a masterfully told, universal story, written and directed by Masayuki Suo with grace, verve and delicacy.
The lead players are wonderful, particularly Yakusho as the repressed businessman who comes to find himself and Kusakari as the elusive instructress.
Technical credits are similarly polished and well-heeled, particularly cinematographer Naoki Kayano's illuminating scopings of the oppressive structures of modern-day Japanese life. The film is continually lifted by the zesty cuts of editors Kiyoshi Yoneyama and Jun'ichi Kikuchi.
SHALL WE DANCE?
Miramax Films
Producers Masayuki Suo,
Shoji Masui, Yuji Ogata
Screenwriter-director Masayuki Suo
Executive producers Hiroyuki Kato,
Seiji Urushido, Shigeru Ohno,
Kazuhiro Igarashi, Tetsuya Ikeda
Director of photography Naoki Kayano
Lighting director Tatsuya Osada
Production designer Kyoko Heya
Sound mixer-editor Kiyoshi Yoneyama
Editor Jun'ichi Kikuchi
Music Yoshikazu Suo
"Shall We Dance?" performed by Taeko Ohnuki
Color/stereo
Cast:
Shohei Sugiyama Koji Yakusho
Mai Kishikawa Tamiyo Kusakari
Tomio Aoki Naoto Takenaka
Toyoko Takahashi Eriko Watanabe
Toru Miwa Akira Emoto
Tokichi Hattori Yu Tokui
Masahiro Tanaka Hiromasa Taguchi
Running time -- 118 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
Winner of the equivalent of 13 Oscars in Japan, "Shall We Dance?" is a limber gem, a kind and inspirational depiction of the personal blossoming of a repressed, nondescript middle-manager whose clandestine ballroom dance lessons bring him great release and awaken him to the joys of life.
Similar in tone and theme to Vittorio De Sica's classic "A Brief Vacation", in which a female Italian factory worker opens up and thrives during a stint away from her repressive family life, this Miramax release is a delightful tonic for a summer overladen with cardboard characters. To boot, it's refreshing to see a sympathetic and insightful depiction of a middle-aged businessman, usually the object of ridicule these days.
Reportedly, the success of the film has started a ballroom dance craze in Japan, where "business golf" is one of the few enjoyments afforded the workaholic "salary man," namely the millions of worker-bee, white-collar men who ride the trains every day into the big cities from their hutchlike houses and toil in lock-step regularity.
In this remarkable character study, Koji Yakusho stars as Shohei, a burned-out businessman who, on an otherwise dispirited train ride home, captures a glimpse of a graceful dancer in an upstairs window. It is the silhouette of a beautiful instructor, Mai (Tamiyo Kusakari), and the vision becomes an obsession. Soon he finds himself getting off the train, entering the school and signing up for ballroom dance instruction despite the fact he can hardly afford it.
Like a bashful schoolboy, Shohei begins his lessons but not, to his quiet regret, with the beautiful instructress who inspired him to come there in the first place.
Not surprisingly, Shohei is a stiff and tentative dancer, a manifestation of his repressed nature and his socially ingrained tendency not to open up and express himself.
Indeed, it's with small steps, some of them crisscrossed and in the wrong direction, that Shohei begins his personal awakening as emblematized by his growing personal confidence with his dancing and himself.
Wonderfully comic and spry, "Shall We Dance?" is a glowing portrait of people coming out of their shell and, through dance, connecting not only with others but with themselves.
Flavored with idiosyncratic personal textures and widened by its cultural and social insights, "Shall We Dance?" is a masterfully told, universal story, written and directed by Masayuki Suo with grace, verve and delicacy.
The lead players are wonderful, particularly Yakusho as the repressed businessman who comes to find himself and Kusakari as the elusive instructress.
Technical credits are similarly polished and well-heeled, particularly cinematographer Naoki Kayano's illuminating scopings of the oppressive structures of modern-day Japanese life. The film is continually lifted by the zesty cuts of editors Kiyoshi Yoneyama and Jun'ichi Kikuchi.
SHALL WE DANCE?
Miramax Films
Producers Masayuki Suo,
Shoji Masui, Yuji Ogata
Screenwriter-director Masayuki Suo
Executive producers Hiroyuki Kato,
Seiji Urushido, Shigeru Ohno,
Kazuhiro Igarashi, Tetsuya Ikeda
Director of photography Naoki Kayano
Lighting director Tatsuya Osada
Production designer Kyoko Heya
Sound mixer-editor Kiyoshi Yoneyama
Editor Jun'ichi Kikuchi
Music Yoshikazu Suo
"Shall We Dance?" performed by Taeko Ohnuki
Color/stereo
Cast:
Shohei Sugiyama Koji Yakusho
Mai Kishikawa Tamiyo Kusakari
Tomio Aoki Naoto Takenaka
Toyoko Takahashi Eriko Watanabe
Toru Miwa Akira Emoto
Tokichi Hattori Yu Tokui
Masahiro Tanaka Hiromasa Taguchi
Running time -- 118 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
- 10/07/1997
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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