Departures is nakedly manipulative. Its director, Yôjirô Takita, doesn’t show any sensitivity to tone or character. He aims to wring tears out of us by any means necessary, underlining every emotion with a blatancy that borders on shamelessness. Not content to let a scene play out, he cues big musical swells on the soundtrack and [...]

Ghost stories. They have haunted many genres – horror-slash-supernatural, comedy, romance,  fantasy. They have been told to us by friends and parents around campfires, or during blackouts, with “Ooooo” sound effects and torch-lighting. They have been around almost as long as we have been writing stories. (The ancient Epic of Gilgamesh – one of the [...]

I watched Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story twice, and only during the second viewing did I understand who the characters were and how they were related to each other. Such is Ozu’s style, explains David Desser, editor of Ozu’s Tokyo Story, a collection of writings about the 1953 drama. He provides the audio commentary and describes [...]

“It’s human to lie. Most of the time we can’t even be honest with ourselves.”
So says a nameless commoner (Kichijiro Ueda). He has come upon a priest (Minoru Chiaki) and a woodcutter (Takashi Shimura) in a broken-down gatehouse identified by an overhead sign: Rashomon. It is Akira Kurosawa’s celebrated 1950 mystery, set in feudal Japan, [...]

Note: This review contains spoilers
Enough cannot be said about the man who brought the Japanese Cinema to the attention of the world with his philosophical, action-packed, darkly comic movies that were to inspire countless ones later (including Sholay, the most popular Indian movie ever). Yojimbo is one of the manifestations of Akira Kurosawa’s genius (but [...]

Director: Kihachi Okamoto
Many movies have been made in Japan on Samurai, (and swords) and with a name like “Sword of doom” – that is bound to make one discard it off as a silly video-gameisque Japanese movie all about fighting – one may be tempted to skip it. However do not be misled by [...]