On a class field trip schoolgirl Akiba (Asami Mizukawa) receives the news that her family – Mum, Dad and two infant brothers – have died in disturbing circumstances. Five years later the man convicted of her family’s murder is sentenced to death. But Akiba, now a University student, wants revenge and seeks out the condemned man’s wayward daughter, Miho (Rina … Read the rest
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Night Train (Diao Yi’nan, China, 2007)
Set in a heavily industrialised region of the country – all hellish, steam filled factories and squalid, freezing hovels – the film follows Wu (Dan) as she takes the night train to a dating service in a nearby city. After several unsatisfactory liaisons Wu finds herself drawn to Li Jun (Qi Dao), a young man who seems interested in her … Read the rest
Execution Squad (Stefano Vanzina, Italy, 1972)
Commissioner Bertone (Enrico Maria Salerno), a good cop trying to uphold the law in the hunt for a pair of murderous young bank robbers finds his job challenged by a sceptical district attorney Riciutti (Mario Adorf) who won’t believe his claims that a well organised vigilante squad is executing anyone it disapproves of. Only a dogged news reporter named Sandra … Read the rest
Red Handkerchief (Toshio Masuda, Japan, 1964)
During a police interrogation detective Mikami (Yujiro Ishihara) shoots dead a suspected drug mule when the suspect grabs his partner Ishizuka’s (Hideaki Nitani) gun. Understandably, the dead man’s beautiful young daughter (Ruriko Asoaka), with whom Mikami has fallen in love, wants nothing more to do with him. Facing an investigation into the shooting from his superiors Mikami retires from the … Read the rest
Autumn Approaches (Mikio Naruse, Japan, 1960)
Middle-aged widow Shigeko (Nobuko Otowa) and her 11 year old son Hideo (Kenzaburo Osawa) arrive in Tokyo to stay with relatives. As Shigeko finds hostess work at a local inn Hideo gets into scraps with the local kids before befriending Junko (Futaba Ichiki), the 9 year old daughter of his mother’s employer. But after Shigeko runs off with a salesman … Read the rest
Fall Guy (Kinji Fukasaku, Japan, 1982)
To spare himself public embarrassment an insecure and ageing movie star named Ginshiro (Morio Kazama) forces his pregnant mistress Konatsu (Keiko Matsuzaka) to marry his lackey Yasu (Mitsuru Hirata). To Ginshiro’s envy the pair fall deeply in love and Yasu – now desperate for money to support Konatsu – volunteers to perform a fall down an oversized staircase on the … Read the rest
Only On Mondays (Ko Nakahira, Japan, 1964)
20 year old Yuko (Mariko Kaga), a sexually assertive good time gal from the port city of Yokohama finds herself caught between the manipulative sugar-daddy (Takeshi Katô) who wants her to sleep with an American skipper to ensure a business transaction goes through and her young best friend (Akira Nakao) who wants to make an honest woman of her.
One … Read the rest
What Did The Lady Forget? (Yasujiro Ozu, Japan, 1937)
Wise and charming battle of the sexes comedy in which Komiya (Tatsuo Saito) a meek professor under the thumb of bossy wife Tokiko (Suiko Kurishima) is put straight by his liberated niece Setsuko (Michiko Kuwano after he gets into trouble for concocting an alibi to cover their drunken night out together at a geisha house. Kuwano – who conveys a … Read the rest
Village Of Eight Gravestones (Yoshitara Nomura, Japan, 1977)
Following the death of his grandfather a young airport worker named Tatsuya (Kenichi Hagiwara) returns to his family home in a remote valley and discovers that a curse has been placed on the village by the leader of a band of samurai warriors who were brutally murdered there 400 years earlier. As the bodies begin to pile up fearful villagers … Read the rest
A Legend Or Was It? (Keisuke Kinoshita, Japan, 1963)
In the last months of WW2 a tiny village becomes home to two refugee families, the Sonobes and the Shimizus. But after pretty Yuri Shimizu (Mariko Kaga) refuses to marry the mayor’s son, a local war hero named Takamori (Bunta Sugawara), malicious rumours put about by the latter have the villagers blaming the new arrivals for every incident no matter … Read the rest
