griggs's - Japanuary 2025 (Ranked) List
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Ikiru (1952)Living
Opening with a shot of an x-ray, showing the main character's stomach, 'Ikiru' tells the tale of a dedicated, downtrodden civil servant who, diagnosed with a fatal cancer, learns to change his dull, unfulfilled existence, and suddenly discovers a zest for life. Plunging first into self-pity, then a bout of hedonistic pleasure-seeking on the frenetic streets of post-war Tokyo, Watanable (Takashi Shimura) - the film's hero - finally finds satisfaction through building a children's playground. - Director:
- Akira Kurosawa
- Cast:
- Takashi Shimura, Nobuo Kaneko, Shin'ichi Himori
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Yojimbo (1961)Yôjinbô / Bodyguard
The enigmatic samurai in Yojimbo is played by the great Toshiro Mifune as a scruffy, scratching, itinerant warrior who wanders into a strange town and right into the middle of two warring clans. Showing his skills with the samurai sword within minutes of his arrival, he soon has the town's rival factions competing for his services.Kurosawa's genius for storytelling combines with thrilling swordplay, a healthy dose of black humour, a soundtrack every bit as atmospheric and amusing as Ennio Morricone's, and a towering performance from Mifune, to make Yojimbo an irresistible widescreen action movie. - Director:
- Akira Kurosawa
- Cast:
- Toshirô Mifune, Eijirô Tôno, Tatsuya Nakadai
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Red Beard (1965)Akahige
Red Beard, the last and most ambitious of Kurosawa's collaborations with Toshiro Mifune, marks the end of one of the most remarkable actor-director relationships in the history of cinema. Toshiro Mifune plays a commanding but humane doctor in a rural clinic in late 19th-century Japan. An idle and socially ambitious intern (Yuzo Kayama) arrives at the clinic and discovers the meaning of responsibility, first to oneself and then to others. This intimate epic - and offbeat social drama - boldly mixes the styles of soap opera and the action movie, and rewards the viewer with a detailed reconstruction of a feudal era, a warmly humanitarian message and a powerhouse performance by Mifune. - Director:
- Akira Kurosawa
- Cast:
- Toshirô Mifune, Yûzô Kayama, Tsutomu Yamazaki
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Woman of the Dunes (1964)Suna No Onna
When teacher Junpei Niki misses his last bus home after a day out collecting insects on a remote stretch of coast, he is invited by a local villager to take shelter in a young widow's ramshackle hut. Ignoring the fact that her home is at the bottom of a sandpit accessible only by rope ladder, he accepts this hospitality without realising he is the victim of a cruel trick. Trapped, he is forced into an uneasy life with this woman, sharing with her the Sisyphean task of shoveling the sand that threatens to engulf them. - Director:
- Hiroshi Teshigahara
- Cast:
- Eiji Okada, Kyôko Kishida, Hiroko Itô
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The Crucified Lovers (1954)Chikamatsu Monogatari
The movie tells the hauntingly tragic story of a forbidden love affair between a merchant's wife, Osan (Kyôko Kagawa), and her husband's employee, Mohei (Kazuo Hasegawa), in an era when the punishment for adultery was crucifixion. When a series of innocent events lead to the false accusation of an affair between Osan and Mohei, the accused pair are forced to flee an almost certain death sentence. On the run, the outlaw couple grow closer together, drawn inexorably towards the romantic crime of which they are accused. - Director:
- Kenji Mizoguchi
- Cast:
- Kazuo Hasegawa, Kyôko Kagawa, Eitarô Shindô
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Good Morning / I Was Born, But (1959)Ohayô / Otona no miru ehon - Umarete wa mita keredo
Good Morning only- Director:
- Yasujirô Ozu
- Cast:
- Keiji Sada, Yoshiko Kuga, Chishû Ryû
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The Face of Another (1966)Tanin no kao
Following Woman of the Dunes (Suna no onna) in 1964, Hiroshi Teshigahara continued his collaboration with avant-garde novelist/playwright Kobo Abe and experimental composer Toru Takemitsu for 'The Face of Another' (Tanin no kao). Starring Tatsuya Nakadai (Yojimbo, Kagemusha) as a man "buried alive behind eyes without a face", the film addresses the illusive nature of identity and the agony of its absence. A man (Tatsuya Nakadai) facially disfigured in a laboratory fire persuades his doctor to fashion him a lifelike mask modeled on a complete stranger - totally different from his own face. Shortly after the mask is made, he successfully seduces his own wife (Machiko Kyo) but becomes angry at her falling for a handsome stranger. Worrying about his looks, and the way the mask seems to influence his identity, he begins to question everything. - Director:
- Hiroshi Teshigahara
- Cast:
- Tatsuya Nakadai, Mikijirô Hira, Kyôko Kishida
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Fireworks (1997)Hana-Bi
Former Police officer Nishi (Takeshi Kitano) feels responsible for the shattered lives of his loved ones. His partner Horibe (Ren Ôsugi) has been crippled in a disastrous stakeout, a colleague is shot dead by the same villain, and his own wife has a terminal illness. In debt to a yakuza loanshark, Nishi conceives a bank robbery to provide for his partner, help the dead cop's widow, and take one last holiday throughout Japan with his wife and share a final taste of happiness... - Director:
- Takeshi Kitano
- Cast:
- Takeshi Kitano, Kayoko Kishimoto, Ren Ôsugi
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The Naked Island (1960)Hadaka no shima
Filmed on the virtually deserved Setonaikai archipelago in south-west Japan. The Naked Island tells the story of a small family unit and their subsistence as the only inhabitants of an arid, sun-baked island. Daily chores, captured as a series of cyclical events, result in a hypnotizing, moving, and beautiful film harkening back to the silent era. - Director:
- Kaneto Shindô
- Cast:
- Nobuko Otowa, Taiji Tonoyama, Shinji Tanaka
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Yearning (1964)Midareru
Reiko Morita (Hideko Takamine) is a widow who loses her husband in war. Bombing destroys his family's shop and the widow stays to rebuild it as the rest of the family flee and runs it for 18 years out of love for her dead husband and his mother. The film starts after 18 years when a new supermarket threatens to put them out of business. The sisters conspire to turn the shop into a supermarket and get rid of their brother's widow. Meanwhile, the surviving younger brother 25-year-old Koji Morita (Yuzo Kayama) loafs around, losing jobs, getting drunk, laid and gambling. In the crisis, he confesses to his shocked sister-in-law, 12 years older, that he has always loved her and can't deal with it. She cares for him, but in the motherly, elder sister way. She rejects him and decides to return home to her family, threatening suicide if he stops her. This suits the sisters, but he follows her onto the long train ride. On the way, she softens and they disembark for a country inn, where they can talk. He resumes his approaches, but at the last minute, she can't face intimacy. He storms out and gets drunk. He calls Reiko up and says he is going back home. In the morning, Reiko looks out the window and sees him being carried into the village on a stretcher, his face covered. Someone says he fell from a cliff. Reiko runs after him but falters. The last shot is of her face, blank, as she realizes what happened. - Director:
- Mikio Naruse
- Cast:
- Hideko Takamine, Yûzô Kayama, Mitsuko Kusabue
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Monster (2023)Kaibutsu
When her young son Minato (Soya Kurokawa) starts to behave strangely, single mother Saori (Sakura Andô) knows that there is something wrong. Discovering that one of his teachers might be responsible, she storms into the school demanding answers. But as the story unfolds through the eyes of mother, teacher and child, shocking truths begin to emerge. - Director:
- Hirokazu Koreeda
- Cast:
- Sakura Andô, Eita, Soya Kurokawa
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Drive My Car (2021)Doraibu mai kâ
Ryusuke Hamaguchi's 'Drive My Car' is a masterful, moving and multi-award winning film based on a short story by Haruki Murakami. When the wife of Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a stage actor and director, suddenly passes away, she leaves behind a secret. Two years later, Kafuku meets Misaki (Toko Miura), a reserved young woman assigned to be his chauffeur on a work trip to Hiroshima. As they spend time together, Kafuku confronts the mystery of his wife that quietly haunts him. - Director:
- Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
- Cast:
- Hidetoshi Nishijima, Tôko Miura, Reika Kirishima
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Onibaba (1964)Devil Woman / The Demon / The Hole / The Ogress / The Witch
Onibaba is set during a brutal period in history, a Japan ravaged by civil war between rival shogunates. Weary from combat, samurai are drawn towards the seven-foot-high susuku grass fields to hide and rest themselves, only to be ambushed and murdered by a ruthless team of mother (Nobuko Otowa) and daughter-in-law (Jitsuko Yoshimura). When Hachi (Kei Sato), a neighbour returning from the wars, brings bad news, he threatens the women's partnership. - Director:
- Kaneto Shindô
- Cast:
- Nobuko Otowa, Jitsuko Yoshimura, Kei Satô
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After Life (1998)Wandâfuru raifu
"After Life" revolves around an intriguing premise. At a half way station between heaven and earth, guides greet the newly dead. Over the next three days, they will help them sift through their memories to find the one defining moment of their lives - an old woman remembers dancing for her older brother's friends as a child; a man recollects the breeze felt on a tram ride the day before summer vacation; a young girl wants to ride the Splash Mountain at Disneyland. The chosen moment will be recreated on film and relieved for eternity. - Director:
- Hirokazu Koreeda
- Cast:
- Arata Iura, Erika Oda, Susumu Terajima
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Ugetsu Monogatari (1953)Ugetsu
In 16th century Japan, amidst the pandemonium of civil war, potter Genjuro (Mori Masayuki) and samurai-aspirant Tobei (Ozawa Sakae) set out with their wives in search of wealth and military glory, respectively. Two parallel tales ensue when the men are lured from their wives: Genjuro by the ghostly charm of Lady Wakasa (Kyo Machiko); Tobei by the dream of military glory. - Director:
- Kenji Mizoguchi
- Cast:
- Masayuki Mori, Machiko Kyô, Kinuyo Tanaka
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