88% (2)  An Autumn Afternoon  113 min,  Not Rated,  [Drama]  [Yasujirô Ozu]  [01 Jan 1962]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 82%,   Rotten Tomatoes: 95%,   External Reviews
Awards:  4 wins.
Actors:  Chishû Ryû, Keiji Sada, Mariko Okada, Shima Iwashita
Writer:  Kôgo Noda (screenplay), Yasujirô Ozu (screenplay)
External Links:  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  Japanese    Country:  Japan
Plot:  In the early 60's in Tokyo, the widower Hirayama is a former captain from the Japanese navy that works as a manager of a factory and lives with his twenty-four year-old daughter Michiko and his son Kazuo in his house. His older son Koichi is married with Akiko that are compulsive consumers and Akiko financially controls their expenses. Hirayama frequently meets his old friends Kawai and Professor Horie, who is married with a younger wife, to drink in a bar. When their school teacher Sakuma comes to a reunion of Hirayama with old school mates, they learn that the old man lives with his daughter that stayed single to take care of him. Michiko lives a happy life with her father and her brother, but Hirayama feels that it is time to let her go and tries to arrange a marriage for her.
Rotten Tomatoes:   Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu's Autumn Afternoon is an elegiac exercise in what one critic has labelled the director's sense of "melancholy resignation." Three elderly men discuss the problem of an aging friend's grown, unmarried daughter. The threesome decides to arrange a marriage for the girl, whether she likes it or not. Their machinations are counterpointed by a comic subplot concerning the exhausting union between an old man and a younger, more sexually supercharged, woman. Released in Japan as Samma no aji, Autumn Afternoon was the veteran Ozu's final film; he died one year after its completion.
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78% (1)  Akitsu Springs  113 min,  [Drama, Romance]  [Yoshishige Yoshida]  [15 Jun 1962]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 78%,   External Reviews
Awards:  2 wins.
Actors:  Hiroyuki Nagato, Jûkichi Uno, Mariko Okada, Sô Yamamura
Writer:  Shinya Fujiwara (novel), Yoshishige Yoshida
External Links:  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  Japanese    Country:  Japan
Plot:  The day before Japan announces its defeat in WW2, a very ill Shusaku arrives in Okayama. He meets Shinko, an innkeeper, who inadvertently gives him the will to live as he spies her crying one day. As romance blossoms, the secret death wish he'd brought with him contends with true love for precedence in their relationship. Based on the book by Shinya Fujiwara.
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78% (1)  Floating Clouds  123 min,  [Drama, Romance]  [Mikio Naruse]  [06 Jun 1980]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 78%,   External Reviews
Awards:  9 wins.
Actors:  Hideko Takamine, Isao Yamagata, Mariko Okada, Masayuki Mori
Writer:  Fumiko Hayashi (novel), Yôko Mizuki (adaptation)
External Links:  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  Japanese    Country:  Japan
Plot:  A tragic social drama set in post war Japan and concerns a lonely woman trying to find purpose and stability in a devastated Tokyo.
Rotten Tomatoes:   Floating Clouds is set in the dissolution of Japanese society after the war. Yukiko wanders figuratively and literally through a devastated Tokyo searching for a means of existence and comfort. At all turns, she is manipulated by men and forced to submit to their manipulations when she is unable to support herself. Returning to Tokyo at the end of the war, Yukiko tries to get a number of jobs but none of her attempts are successful. As a result she turns to prostitution, catering to American occupation forces. During this time a number of men, including her brother-in-law and her former lover Tomioka, come forward to help her, but their generosity is only a mask for their sexual desires. Eventually Tomioka's wife dies and he takes Yukiko to an island where he is to begin a new job. Their happiness is forestalled when Yukiko, sorely tried by her life, falls ill and dies. ~ Brian Whitener, Rovi
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77% (1)  Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island  105 min,  Not Rated,  [Action, Adventure, Drama, Romance]  [Hiroshi Inagaki]  [01 Nov 1967]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 77%,   External Reviews
Actors:  Kaoru Yachigusa, Kôji Tsuruta, Mariko Okada, Michiko Saga, Toshirô Mifune
Writer:  Hideji Hôjô (play), Hiroshi Inagaki, Tokuhei Wakao, Eiji Yoshikawa (novel)
External Links:  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  Japanese    Country:  Japan
Plot:  A humble and simple Takezo abandons his life as a knight errant. He's sought as a teacher and vassal by Shogun, Japan's most powerful clan leader. He's also challenged to fight by the supremely confident and skillful Sasaki Kojiro. Takezo agrees to fight Kojiro in a year's time but rejects Shogun's patronage, choosing instead to live on the edge of a village, raising vegetables. He's followed there by Otsu and later by Akemi, both in love with him. The year ends as Takezo assists the villagers against a band of brigands. He seeks Otsu's forgiveness and accepts her love, then sets off across the water to Ganryu Island for his final contest.
Rotten Tomatoes:   Samurai 3: Duel At Ganryu Island is the final movie in director Hiroshi Inagacki's trilogy following a samurai played by Toshiro Mifune. In this film, Mifune is challenged to a duel by his arch-rival (Koji Tsuruta). Before he fights the duel, Mifune is tested by a number of bandits and has to cope with the affections of two different women. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi
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75% (1)  Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto  93 min,  [Action, Adventure, Biography, Drama, History, Romance]  [Hiroshi Inagaki]  [18 Nov 1955]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 75%,   External Reviews
Awards:  1 win & 1 nomination.
Actors:  Kaoru Yachigusa, Kurôemon Onoe, Mariko Okada, Rentarô Mikuni, Toshirô Mifune
Writer:  Hideji Hôjô (play), Hiroshi Inagaki, Tokuhei Wakao, Eiji Yoshikawa (novel)
External Links:  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  Japanese    Country:  Japan
Plot:  Depicts the early life of the legendary warrior Musashi Miyamoto; his years as an aspiring warrior, an outlaw and finally a true samurai.
Rotten Tomatoes:   Legendary samurai Musashi Miyamoto's dreams of military glory end in betrayal, defeat, and a fugitive lifestyle. But he is saved by a woman who loves him and a cunning priest who guides him to the samurai path.
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74% (1)  Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple  104 min,  Not Rated,  [Action, Adventure, Biography, Drama, History]  [Hiroshi Inagaki]  [20 Oct 1967]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 74%,   External Reviews
Actors:  Kaoru Yachigusa, Kôji Tsuruta, Mariko Okada, Toshirô Mifune
Writer:  Hideji Hôjô (play), Hiroshi Inagaki, Tokuhei Wakao, Eiji Yoshikawa (novel)
External Links:  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  Japanese    Country:  Japan
Plot:  After years on the road establishing his reputation as Japan's greatest Samurai, Takezo returns to Kyoto. Otsu waits for him, yet he has come not for her but to challenge the leader of the region's finest school for Kendo. To prove his valor and skill, he walks deliberately into ambushes set up by the school's followers. While Otsu waits, Akemi also seeks him, expressing her desires directly. Meanwhile, Takezo is observed by Sasaki Kojiro, a brilliant young fighter, confident he can dethrone Takezo. After leaving Kyoto in triumph, Takezo declares his love for Otsu, but in a way that dishonors her and shames him. Once again, he leaves alone.
Rotten Tomatoes:   Samurai 2: Duel at Ichijoji Temple follows the adventures of the 17th-century samurai Musashi Miyamoto (Toshiro Mifune), as he wanders through feudal Japan learning the ways of a samurai warrior. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi
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73% (1)  Heroic Purgatory  118 min,  [Drama, Fantasy]  [Yoshishige Yoshida]  [26 Sep 1970]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 73%,   External Reviews
Actors:  Kaizo Kamoda, Mariko Okada, Naho Kimura, Yoshiaki Makita
Writer:  Masahiro Yamada
External Links:  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  Japanese    Country:  Japan
Plot:  An engineer's wife returns home with a lost teenager. A man posing as her dad tries to get her back, causing the engineer to recall his youth as a revolutionary, obscured by dreamlike disruptions of time and space, fantasy and reality.
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