A doctor gains a new perspective on life after being sent to a remote rural village in Hiroshi Shimizu’s gentle social drama.
Sep 30, 2022 • Subscribe
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Sayon’s Bell (サヨンの鐘, Hiroshi Shimizu, 1943)
An indigenous woman becomes a martyr for the Japanese empire after drowning in a river while carrying the possessions of a Japanese policeman in an unabashed propaganda effort…
Image of a Mother (母のおもかげ, Hiroshi Shimizu, 1959)
A little boy’s difficulties in accepting his new stepmother express an anxiety about the changing nature of the family in Hiroshi Shimizu’s familial melodrama.
The Heart of Hiroshima (愛と死の記録, Koreyoshi Kurahara, 1966)
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Sound in the Mist (霧の音, Hiroshi Shimizu, 1956)
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A loyal sister finds her tremendous sacrifice rejected by an unforgiving and conservative society in Yasujiro Ozu’s silent melodrama
Children of the Beehive: What Happened Next (その後の蜂の巣の子供たち, Hiroshi Shimizu, 1951)
In an interesting piece of meta docufiction, Hiroshi Shimizu revisits the Beehive a few years later to find out how the orphans live now.
Dancing Girl (踊子, Hiroshi Shimizu, 1957)
The arrival of a free-spirited younger sister creates chaos in the live of a chorus dancer and her violinist husband in Hiroshi Shimizu’s elegantly lensed melodrama.
The Woman in the Rumour (噂の女, Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954)
A mother and daughter find themselves deceived by the same man, each hemmed in by realities which cannot be altered in Kenji Mizoguchi’s touching melodrama.
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A cynical old woman regains her sense of humanity after unwillingly fostering a lost little boy in Ozu’s heartwarming post-war drama
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A young woman walks into the mountains to die but unexpectedly discovers what it is to feel truly human in Takeshi Fukunaga’s bleak folk tale.
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The young women of post-war Japan struggle to define themselves in a changing society in Mikio Naruse’s uncharacteristically hopeful family drama
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Luminous Woman (光る女, Shinji Somai, 1987)
A pure-hearted mountain man descends into the hell of the model capital in search of lost love in Shinji Somai’s surrealist fable.
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Documentarian Kim Sungwoong follows the relentlessly cheerful Shoji Sakurai who spent 29 years behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit.
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The conflict between warring neighbours of differing dispositions deepens when their children want to get married in Shigeo Yagura’s modernising comedy.
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A bus breaking down on a mountain pass signals a roadblock on the way to a new Japan in Hiroshi Shimizu’s lighthearted yet melancholy drama.
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Sachi is out visiting her folks at the newly opened family diner, so when a storm causes a blackout, it’s just Nagi and Erika, who instinctually hold one…
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I’m watching Queen’s Legend, and the main character is a modern day doctor who finds herself transported to the past. Her conversation sounds too familiar to me. So…
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