92% (2) Sansho the Bailiff 124 min, Not Rated, [Drama] [Kenji Mizoguchi] [01 Jan 1954]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 84%, Rotten Tomatoes: 100%, External Reviews
Awards: 1 win & 1 nomination.
Actors: Eitarô Shindô, Kinuyo Tanaka, Kyôko Kagawa, Yoshiaki Hanayagi
Writer: Ogai Mori (short story "Sanshô dayû"), Fuji Yahiro (screenplay), Yoshikata Yoda (screenplay)
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: Japanese Country: Japan
Plot: In mediaeval Japan a compassionate governor is sent into exile. His wife and children try to join him, but are separated, and the children grow up amid suffering and oppression.
Rotten Tomatoes: Set in 11th-century Japan, this film tells the story of a family that is broken apart when the father is exiled. When the mother and children set out to look for him, they are ambushed by kidnappers who sell the mother as a prostitute and the two children as slaves.
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90% (2) The Bad Sleep Well 151 min, Not Rated, [Crime, Drama, Thriller] [Akira Kurosawa] [22 Jan 1963]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 81%, Rotten Tomatoes: 100%, External Reviews
Awards: 3 wins & 1 nomination.
Actors: Kyôko Kagawa, Masayuki Mori, Tatsuya Mihashi, Toshirô Mifune
Writer: Hideo Oguni, Eijirô Hisaita, Akira Kurosawa, Ryûzô Kikushima, Shinobu Hashimoto
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: Japanese Country: Japan
Plot: In Kurosawa's HAMLET-like story of corporate scandal in post-war Japan, a young man attempts to use his position at the heart of a corrupt company to expose the men responsible for his father's death.
Rotten Tomatoes: Simultaneously castigating the lingering traces of feudalism in modern-day Japanese big business and government and paying tribute to the Warner Brothers crime dramas of the 1940s, distinguished Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa's Bad Sleep Wall tells the gritty, almost Shakespearean tale of murder, power and a young son's quest for revenge.
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90% (2) A Story from Chikamatsu 102 min, Not Rated, [Drama, History, Romance, Thriller] [Kenji Mizoguchi] [01 Nov 1970]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 81%, Rotten Tomatoes: 100%, External Reviews
Awards: 1 win & 1 nomination.
Actors: Eitarô Ozawa, Eitarô Shindô, Kazuo Hasegawa, Kyôko Kagawa
Writer: Monzaemon Chikamatsu (play), Matsutarô Kawaguchi (adaptation), Yoshikata Yoda (screenplay)
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: Japanese Country: Japan
Plot: In 17th century Kyoto, Osan is married to Ishun, a wealthy miserly scroll-maker. When Osan is falsely accused of having an affair with the best worker, Mohei, the pair flee the city and declare their love for each other. Ishun orders his men to find them, and separate them to avoid public humiliation.
Rotten Tomatoes: Master filmmaker Kenji Mizoguchi directs this tale of star-crossed lovers, based on a puppet play by Monzaemon Chikamatsu. Set in 1693 during a period of rigid feudal hierarchy and strict social customs, the film unfolds in the estate of a miserly scroll maker named Ishun (Eitaro Shindo). While Ishun busies himself by harassing a comely worker named Otama (Yoko Minamida), Ishun's wife, Osan (Kyoko Kagawa), is approached by her ne'er-do-well brother, Doki, who needs money. Knowing that there is no way that Ishun will agree to the loan, Osan turns to Mohei (Kazuo Shindo), Ishun's most trusted clerk, for help and he agrees to use his master's seal to allocate the funds. Caught in the act, he confesses though never implicating Osan. Ishun cruelly beats and humiliates his employee and locks him in the grain storeroom. A series of mistakes and misunderstandings lead to Ishun believing that his wife and his clerk are having an illicit affair. Mohei flees and Osan leaves soon thereafter, confirming Ishun's suspicions. The two escape first to Osaka then to the mountains around Lake Biwa, traveling first as lady and servant and later as lovers.
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89% (2) High and Low 143 min, Not Rated, [Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller] [Akira Kurosawa] [26 Nov 1963]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 84%, Rotten Tomatoes: 94%, External Reviews
Awards: Nominated for 1 Golden Globe. Another 3 wins & 2 nominations.
Actors: Kyôko Kagawa, Tatsuya Mihashi, Tatsuya Nakadai, Toshirô Mifune, Yutaka Sada
Writer: Hideo Oguni (screenplay), Ryûzô Kikushima (screenplay), Eijirô Hisaita (screenplay), Akira Kurosawa (screenplay), Evan Hunter (novel)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: Japanese Country: Japan
Plot: An executive mortgages all he owns to stage a coup and gain control of the National Shoe Company, with the intent of keeping the company out of the hands of incompetent and greedy executives. He needs the same money, though, to pay the ransom that will possibly save a child's life. His resolution of that dilemma -- the certain loss of the company vs. the probable loss of the child -- makes for one distinct drama, and an ensuing elaborate police procedure makes for a second.
Rotten Tomatoes: Toshirô Mifune is unforgettable as Kingo Gondo, a wealthy industrialist whose family becomes the target of a cold-blooded kidnapper in Akira Kurosawa's highly influential High and Low (Tengoku to jigoku).
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77% (2) The Lower Depths 137 min, Not Rated, [Drama] [Akira Kurosawa] [01 Oct 1957]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 75%, Rotten Tomatoes: 80%, External Reviews
Awards: 5 wins.
Actors: Ganjirô Nakamura, Isuzu Yamada, Kyôko Kagawa, Toshirô Mifune
Writer: Maxim Gorky (play), Akira Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: Japanese Country: Japan
Plot: In medieval Japan, aging Rokubei, his younger wife of four years Osugi and her uncle run a tenement complex at the bottom of a cliff, the complex which from the naked eye at the top of the cliff looks like nothing more than a rubbish heap. The tenants are a group of down-and-outers with some who operate on the far side of the law. Nonetheless, the tenants are close knit community in wallowing in their collective misery, those who care who know their lives will never get better as long as they stay there. The landlords have no compassion for the tenants, they mockingly only stating that the tenants will be given a favorable standing in a future life for any good deeds done around the tenement. The recent arrival of Kahei, a mysterious elderly man, affectionately referred to as Grandpa, who spins tales of the unknown, provides at least hope that there is a better life out there somewhere. Sutekichi, a thief who arguably is the leader among the tenants, and Osugi are carrying on an affair behind Rokubei's back. Although he has previously professed his love for her, the words were more an empty platitude. He begins to have feelings for Osugi's younger sister, Okaya, who works for her sister cleaning up the tenement under her watchful eye. Okaya does not know if she can trust the words of anyone who lives in the complex, while Osugi, who knows of Sutekichi feelings for Okaya, begins to have feelings of jealousy. Osugi and Sutekichi work toward their own goals at the expense of others within the complex.
Rotten Tomatoes: Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa transferred the setting of Maxim Gorky's play The Lower Depths from Imperial Russia to his own country's Edo Period--which, like Gorky's 19th-century setting, was an era of great cultural advances, offset by the miseries of those who weren't in the aristocracy. Kurosawa's film concentrates on Toshiro Mifune, playing a crooked gambler who falls in love with the sister (Kyoko Kagawa) of his cruel landlady (Isuzu Yamada). Herself carrying a torch for Mifune, the landlady exacts a roundabout revenge by killing her own husband and pinning the blame on the gambler. As the landlady descends into madness, those whom she has treated wretchedly laugh at her plight. Originally titled Donzoko, The Lower Depths was renamed Les Bas-Fonds for its French release--the same title bestowed upon Jean Renoir's 1937 adaptation of the Gorky play. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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70% (2) Mothra 101 min, PASSED, [Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Thriller] [Ishirô Honda] [10 May 1962]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 66%, Rotten Tomatoes: 75%, External Reviews
Awards: 2 nominations.
Actors: Furankî Sakai, Hiroshi Koizumi, Kyôko Kagawa, Yumi Itô
Writer: Shin'ichi Sekizawa (screenplay), Shin'ichirô Nakamura (novel), Takehiko Fukunaga (novel), Yoshie Hotta (novel)
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: Japanese, English, Indonesian Country: Japan
Plot: Shipwreck survivors are found on Beiru Island (Infanto tô), which was previously used for atomic tests. The interior is amazingly free of radiation effects, and they believe that they were protected by a special juice that was given to them by the island's residents. A joint expedition of Rolisican and Japanese scientists explores Beiru and discovers many curious things, including two women only one foot (30 centimeters) high. Unscrupulous expedition leader Clark Nelson abducts the women and puts them in a vaudeville show. But their sweet singing contains a telepathic cry for help to Mothra, a gigantic moth that is worshiped as a deity by the island people. The giant monster heeds the call of the women and heads to Tokyo, wreaking destruction in its path.
Rotten Tomatoes: Mothra was the third major addition to the Toho Studios' giant-monster stable after Godzilla and Rodan, and the first female beast in the series. The creature begins Ishiro Honda's entertaining film as a giant larva worshipped by island tribesmen and guarded by twin sisters (Emi and Yumi Ito) who stand only a few inches high. Eventually, the larva metamorphoses into a giant female moth and panic ensues as the creature attempts to regain her stolen egg and her tiny protectors. The usual pandemonium and destruction is tempered here by a softer edge which would come to dominate the genre for much of the decade. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi
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