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“Goyokin,” which translates to “Official God,” is perhaps Hideo Gosha's finest film. Written by Gosha and Kei Tasaka, many of the director's regular players, including Tatsuya Nakadai and Tetsuro Tamba, star here. Toshiro Mifune was initially cast as the character Samon Fujimaki. However, production difficulties resulted in him being replaced by Kinnosuke Nakamura. “Goyokin” was a critical and financial hit upon release and remains a highly regarded piece of Japanese cinema.

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In snowy feudal Japan, Sado Island is home to gold mines that provide riches offered to the Tokugawa clan via ship delivery, which can be jeopardized due to poor weather on the waters. Meanwhile, a reclusive samurai named Magobei Wakizaka wanders, clearly troubled by something. The ronin finds himself the target of an assassination attempt, which he survives. He learns this attack was orchestrated by his former clan master,...

The samurai special police force known as the Shinsengumi has been solidified as a significant part of Japanese history. The army of passionate warriors organized by the bakufu did everything in their power to try and protect the Tokugawa shogunate, as political conflict, bloodshed and war spread across Japan. Despite their controversial reputation, they remain popular in pop culture and entertainment. Various media would depict them, from anime to J-dramas to movies. One of the most popular feature films to adapt the true story of these violent warriors is Tadashi Sawashima’s “Shinsengumi: Assassins of Honor.”

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Director Tadashi Sawashima is primarily known for directing yakuza features. Still, he was no stranger to period pieces, so he is a fitting filmmaker to tell the story of the controversial bakufu swordsmen. Writing the screenplay is Kenro Matsuura and producing the...

Mikio Naruse solidified himself as one of Japan’s most admirable filmmakers. His work is known for the pessimistic yet raw outlook on life, showing that the world is not a perfect place while focusing on human vulnerability. Much like Kenji Mizoguchi, he frequently gave women a voice in his work, notably working with beloved actress Hideko Takamine throughout his career. In addition, Naruse would sometimes create premises for narratives that sound surreal on paper yet would be executed wonderfully on film. Look no further than his final masterpiece, “Scattered Clouds,” also known as “Two in the Shadow.”

Released in 1967, this would be Mikio Naruse’s final film, as he would later pass away in 1969 from cancer. His health was already declining when he made this movie, yet that didn’t keep him down when directing this tragic love story. Fittingly writing the screenplay is Nobuo Yamada,...

Masaki Kobayashi was a filmmaker who was never afraid to speak his mind on a matter. He was always open with his mindset, regularly criticizing systematic corruption and violation of human rights throughout the majority of his filmography. He didn’t often direct jidaigeki cinema, but when he did, the director generally delivered a stellar picture. His haunting masterpiece “Harakiri” gives a darker examination of the flawed aspects of the Bushido Code. Kobayashi would bring corruption and humanism to the forefront in his excellent film “Samurai Rebellion.”

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The original Japanese title for the feature translates to “Rebellion: Receive the Wife,” which is fitting, considering what transpires within the story. The movie is based on Yasuhiko Takiguchi’s short story “Hairyozuma shimatsu.” The screenplay is written by acclaimed screenwriter Shinobu Hashimoto, who had previously collaborated with Masaki Kobayashi on his samurai movie “Harakiri.

When we think of an Ozu film, there is a couple of themes and motifs that immediately spring to our mind. Family conflicts and tensions between parents and their children are inherently woven into most of the narratives from the Japanese director. They are usually accompanied by a trademark set of feelings, especially those of resentment, melancholy, neglect, but also of nervous hope. “Late Autumn” was yet another film fitting precisely within these aforementioned categories.

The film opens with a sequence in a temple – characters gathered there to commemorate the passing of their friend, Miwa. Fast forward a couple of hours, and Miwa’s daughter Ayako (Yôko Tsukasa) proclaims during a celebratory dinner that she is looking for a husband. Three men sitting opposite to her are friends of the deceased. Mamiya (Shin Taburi), Taguchi (Nobuo Nagamura) and Hirayama (Ryuji Kita) quickly volunteer to help her with finding the right match.

The End Of Summer Review: Part I The narrative in The End of Summer is simple: the widowed but impish patriarch Manbei (Ganjiro Nakamura) of the Kohayagawa clan, which runs a small but failing Osaka-based sake company, has taken to seeing an old mistress, Tsune Sasaki (Chieko Naniwa), in Kyoto. Sasaki claims her venal daughter Yuriko (Reiko Dan) was sired by him. The ‘daughter’ has no real interest in Manbei, save for what he can provide for her financially. She also dates American men, which leads to a funny moment between the old man and his lover, who tells him that their daughter ‘sometimes she brings home strange things.’ Manbei has three daughters of his own: two of them, Akiko (Hara) and Noriko (Yôko Tsukasa), are being wooed for marriage. Akiko’s suitor is a business friend, Isomura (Hisaya Morishige), a widowed steel mill owner, while Noriko’s is never seen onscreen.

Kohayagawa-ke No Aki / The End of Summer (1961) Direction: Yasujiro Ozu Screenplay: Yasujiro Ozu, Kôgo Noda Cast: Ganjiro Nakamura, Setsuko Hara, Yôko Tsukasa, Michiyo Aratama, Chieko Naniwa, Hisaya Morishige, Reiko Dan By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica: When an artist has reached a level of such high art that he and his work can be spoken of as being in the top tier of his art form, something terrible happens: often brilliant — but not quite ineffably so — work is looked upon with a lesser eye by critics and audiences alike. This is not an unnatural development; once treated to fancy cuisine, even a good steak can seem a comedown to most palates. Yet, that is a frustrating development, for sometimes quality is overlooked or dismissed because it is merely an 8 of 10, rather than a perfect 10. Such is the case concerning the critical reception of Yasujiro Ozu’s [...]...

Precious (15)

(Lee Daniels, 2009, Us)

Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey. 110 mins.

It sounds like a relentlessly depressing pile-up of miseries: the tale of a 1980s Harlem teenager who's poor, lonely, overweight, undereducated, abused by both parents, and pregnant for the second time by her father. And it gets worse after that. But, mercifully, this doesn't play by European social realist rules, throwing in flourishes of fantasy and even comedy, and offering glimmers of hope, real and imagined, to lighten its heroine's unenviable burden. It's still a harrowing watch, powerfully performed and earnestly authentic, but even as it wallows in the gutter, it's looking for the stars.

The Princess And The Frog (U)

(Ron Clements, John Musker, 2009, Us)

Anika Noni Rose, Bruno Campos. 97 mins.

Another Disney Princess™ for the merchandising range, sorry, cinematic tradition, and the first African-American one. True to latter-day Disney form, she's capable and motivated – until she's turned into a frog,...

This masterpiece from Japanese auteur Yasujiro Ozu is as subtle and exquisite as anything he ever made, writes Peter Bradshaw

Another gem from the Ozu canon, a masterpiece of tendernesss and serio-comic charm, as tonally ambiguous and morally complex as anything he ever made. Three conceited middle-aged salarymen attend a memorial anniversary for a contemporary, and the experience appears to reawaken their feelings for his beautiful widow Akiko (Setsuko Hara). Meddlesome busybodies that they are, the men try to match-make for Akiko's unmarried daughter Ayako (Yôko Tsukasa), clearly as a pretext for the next stage of their operations, ­remarrying off Akiko herself – to the eligible widower among them – allegedly so that she will not be lonely on her own. They act as one, and Ozu shows how, tellingly, they are persistently ­unable to remember exactly who said and did what with regard to Akiko, either long ago in their youth,...