Hideko Takamine (displaying real star wattage here even though she was only 17 at the time) plays the titular heroine Okoma, who works for a financially struggling bus company in a small, sleepy town and comes up with the idea of giving a speech to passengers about places of interest on her local bus route in order to drum up … Read the rest
Category: Japan
Invisible Man Vs The Human Fly (Mitsuo Murayama, Japan, 1957)
A man is killed aboard a packed jet flight but none of the crew or passengers see or hear a thing. Inspector Wakabayashi (Yoshiro Kitahara) discovers that fellow passenger Professor Hayakawa (Shozo Nanbu) has invented an invisibility ray and wonders if that’s the link to a series of baffling murders and bank robberies. But when the culprit turns out to … Read the rest
The Affair (Yoshishige Yoshida, Japan, 1967)
30-something Oriko (Mariko Okada), trapped in a loveless marriage, encounters her mother’s younger lover, a sculptor who crafts feminine shapes out of stone and begins a friendship with him. At a party the sight of her swinging sister-in-law being roughly seduced at the hands of a labourer stirs her own sexual desires and Oriko begins to understand the poetry her … Read the rest
Sway (Miwa Nishikawa, Japan, 2006)
Two brothers, achingly trendy Tokyo fashion photographer Takeru (Jô Odagiri) and shy homebody Minoru (Key Of Life‘s Teruyuki Kagawa) reunite at their mother’s funeral. The next day a walk across a rickety wooden bridge with Chieko (Yoko Maki), a local girl employed in the family business and a former girlfriend of Takeru’s, results in tragedy and Minoru finds … Read the rest
Virus/Resurrection Day (full 156m version) (Kinji Fukasaku, Japan, 1980)
A renegade scientist passes onto the Russians a doomsday virus developed by the US military. But the virus escapes and proves unstoppable. Hospitals overflow with dying patients and mass panic erupts. Overwhelmed, the authorities begin burning mounds of corpses in the streets while the US President (Glenn Ford) and a wily senator (Robert Vaughn) try to identify the source of … Read the rest
Shadow of Deception (Koichi Saito, Japan, 1971)
An adulterous affair between Minako (Shima Iwashita), the wife of a rich but much older husband who can no longer satisfy her physically, and Shozo (Akira Nakao), a young archaeology scholar married to his teacher’s daughter, reaches breaking point when it becomes apparent that while Minako is quite willing to leave her husband, Shozo values his work and career far … Read the rest
The Long Darkness (Kei Kumai, Japan, 1972)
University student Tetsuro (Go Kato) falls in love with waitress Shino (Komaki Kurahara) but as the pair fall in love each is burdened with family tragedies that threaten to tear them apart.
This deeply moving film from director Kei Kumai is a contemporary social issue drama about that distinctively Japanese sense of personal shame which leads individuals to believe they … Read the rest
Deep Red (Takashi Tsukinoki, Japan, 2005)
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
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
