1.Prologue
When I was in elementary school, on the weekends I would go over to a friend’s house—a boy from my Saturday Japanese school. His mother had a massive collection of Japanese films on DVD, which was how I started watching Japanese films.
After we’d get out of Japanese school, we’d go over to his house. To me, watching Japanese films gave me the illusion of going on a journey somewhere far away.
In a way, it felt even more out-of-the-ordinary than going to a place like Disneyland.
For a grade school kid, viewing Japanese society and Japanese people through the lens of cinema was at times bizarre, and at times nostalgic.
My friend’s mother would have the Japanese film magazine Kinema Junpo sent to her, and I would enjoy flipping through each month’s issue.
By the time I was in middle school, I made sure to watch all of the films on the magazine’s annual “Kinema Junpo Best 10”, announced in the February issue.
In high school, I started watching a lot of Japanese films that had been adapted from fiction, and that inspired me to make Japanese literature the focus of my Asian Humanities major.
Today I’d like to list off a number of Japanese film directors and films that are especially well regarded overseas.
Speaking of international recognition, Kore-eda Hirokazu winning the Palme d’Or for his film Shoplifters this past May is truly cause to rejoice. He’s the first Japanese director to win in 21 years (the last being Imamura Shohei for his film Unagi in 1999).
2.Ozu Yasujiro(1903-1963)
Ozu was born in Tokyo and raised in Matsusaka in Mie Prefecture. He is greatly regarded worldwide for his distinctive cinematic style: in terms of visuals, his camera was often stationary, giving his shot compositions more of a painting-like feel. He often used a 50 mm lens—the focal length considered closest to the human eye—and positioned his camera low to the ground (a position known as the “tatami shot"). His films grappled with the concept of the modern Japanese family.
Tokyo Story（1953）
Ozu would often revisit the same themes and employ a singular cinematic language, and what’s more he would often cast the same actors. He cast Hara Setsuko as a character named Noriko three times in what’s referred to as the “Noriko Trilogy”, three of his most highly regarded works. The third film of this “trilogy” is Tokyo Story, Ozu’s greatest masterpiece. An elderly couple living in rural Hiroshima goes to Tokyo to visit their adult kids, but is confronted with the reality that they have changed, swept up in the hustle and bustle of work and urban life. In a word, it depicts the collapse of the modern Japanese family unit.
Early Summer (1951)
This is the second film of the “Noriko Trilogy”, a drama set in the period in early summer when barley is harvested. It is about parents who want their daughter to get married while she is still of “marriageable age”; the daughter loves her parents, but struggles to honor their wishes as she is independent at heart. The themes include Japanese values in the postwar period, as well as the changing position of women in society. Side note, Ozu’s assistant director on this film was one Imamura Shohei.
3.Kurosawa Akira(1910-1998)
Kurosawa Akira is an iconic director not just of Japanese cinema, but of world cinema. He is a director with a bold and dynamic cinematic style that feels very much influenced by Western films, but at the same time his themes were rich with a Japanese brand of humanism. In 1948 he cast a then-unknown Mifune Toshiro as the lead of one of his films, and Mifune would go on to become a frequent collaborator of Kurosawa. The pair were two to watch for any fan of the cinema worldwide.
Rashomon（1950）
Rashomon is Kurosawa’s greatest masterpiece, a tour-de-force that depicts the conflict and overlap between subjectivity and objectivity, the fallibility of human memory, and human folly. When it was first released in Japan it was not particularly well reviewed, but it became the first Japanese film to win the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival (1951) and an honorary award at the Academy Awards (1952). Rankings of the best films from around the world will inevitably include this film near the top. Side note, the film is based not on Akutagawa Ryunosuke’s Rashomon, but instead on his short story In a Grove.
Ikiru (1952)
Ikiru is the story of a municipal bureaucrat who is in a perpetual rut, drowning in paperwork. It is a masterful condemnation of the Japanese bureaucracy. The protagonist hangs out with a soon-to-be-former colleague, who wants to quit her job, and whose joy for life is infectious; he eventually finds the motivation to give his job his all one more time. In recent years the Japanese concept of ikigai has started to become recognized globally. And although this film depicts the bureaucracy, Kurosawa is interested in asking about why we live. The film won the Special Prize of the Senate of Berlin at the 4th Berlin International Film Festival.
Seven Samurai (1954)
Seven Samurai is another one of Kurosawa’s most internationally well-regarded films—a masterpiece comparable to Rashomon. Set in the Sengoku period (the Warring States period, characterized by constant military conflict), it is the story of the people of a farming village that hires samurai to protect themselves from bandits. One thing I find interesting to watch is the discord between the samurai and the farmers. Also, this is the first film in which Kurosawa employed multiple cameras to shoot a single scene. That, plus the dynamic energy of the editing make the climactic battle scene one to remember.
The Hidden Fortress（1958）
The Hidden Fortress is an adventure film set in the Sengoku period. It is a story of a princess who is saved by a samurai general, told from the perspective of two peasants. The princess’s commanding personality is especially interesting...if you’re someone who’s interested in Hollywood films, and you’re thinking to yourself, “That sounds familiar...” truth be told, this is the film that inspired director George Lucas to come up with the story for a little film series called Star Wars. The Hidden Fortress won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 9th Berlin International Film Festival.
4.Ichikawa Kon(1915−2008)
Ichikawa Kon, who was born in Mie Prefecture, decided he wanted to become an animator after being mesmerized by the Walt Disney Company’s Silly Symphony. After graduating from a vocational school, he started working as an animator for a local film company. Later, he switched over to live-action films and TV dramas—namely documentaries, mysteries, and historical dramas, as well as film adaptations of literary masterworks.
The Burmese Harp（1956）
The Burmese Harp is a film adaptation of a children’s novel of the same name by Takeyama Michio. It depicts the lives of the Japanese military on the front lines in Burma during the waning days of the Second World War. The protagonist is a former Japanese Imperial soldier who decides to stay in Burma even after the war ends—he becomes a Buddhist monk intent on dedicating his days to burying his fallen comrades. Through the protagonist’s trials and tribulations, the film’s message is anti-war. In 1957 it was even nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Then in 1985, Ichikawa remade the film into a color film, which was also a bit hit.
The Makioka Sisters (1983)
This film was adapted from Tanizaki Junichiro’s long novel, whose original Japanese title is Sasameyuki (light snow). The poetic title evokes a quintessential Japanese landscape, and that, along with the dialogue, which is spoken in Senba dialect (used by merchants in the central business district of Osaka), the pre-World War II Showa era setting, and the contrast between Tokyo and the Kansai region make me marvel at the patience and skill that was likely needed for the source material to ever be translated into English. Ichikawa Kon’s film adaptation wonderfully captures the beauty of the Japanese landscape throughout the seasons, and in that way succeeds in conveying something about Japan that a reader may not have been able to gleam from the translated novel.
5.Imamura Shohei(1926-2006)
Imamura Shohei was a leading director of Japan’s New Wave, which rejected the style and approach of classical Japanese cinema and instead tackled subject matter hitherto considered taboo—social topics like racial discrimination and sexual violence. He originally worked as assistant director to Ozu Yasujiro, but eventually found that he preferred a more edgy cinematic style compared to Ozu’s gentle elegance. He is the only Japanese director to have won two Palme d’Or awards at the Cannes Film Festival.
Vengeance is Mine (1979)
This is another film adaptation of a novel by Saki Ryuzo based on Japanese serial killer Nishiguchi Akira, who killed five people in the early 1960s. Especially striking is the contrast between the brutal scenes of murder and mundane scenes of daily life, and there’s an air of dark humor to the proceedings. So often with subject matter like this the focus becomes the motive, the “why”, but Imamura is interested in “when” “where” and “what”, and chooses to leave the motive nebulous to the end. And if this were a Hollywood revenge flick, you’d expect a clear delineation between good and evil and a cherry on top in the form of a message on morality, but this film offers no clear answers. But is that not the way of the world, after all? This film can perhaps be said to be a progenitor of the current “iyamisu” trend.
The Ballad of Narayama (1983)
This film is an adaptation of a novel by Fukuzawa Shichiro about Ubasute-yama, a folktale and possibly mythical practice of carrying one’s elderly parents into the mountains to die—a way to lessen the strain in remote rural villages that only had limited resources. Nara-yama is one such village governed by a rule that all who turn 70 must undergo the ritual. This film won the Palme d’Or at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival. For those who seek to understand the village mentality that still pervades much of Japanese society, this film offers key insights.
The Eel（1997年）
This is one of Imamura Shohei’s later works, produced after an eight-year gap between his previous film, 1989’s Black Rain. A man murders his wife in a fit of passion when he finds out she is cheating on him, and after spending time in jail, he tries to lead a quiet life with his pet, the titular Eel. The irony is that the protagonist is ostensibly a free man, but his only companion is an eel that he keeps “captive” in an aquarium. This film was awarded the Palm d’Or in 1997 along with Abbas Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry.
6.Kitano Takeshi(1947-)
In Japan, Kitano is best known as “Beat" Takeshi, one of the country’s most iconic comedic talents. In his directorial work he uses his real name, Kitano Takeshi. To date he has made 18 films, mostly centered on police and yakuza affairs, and he is known for his trademark “Kitano blue", a unique sense of color that characterized his early work. In terms of his work as a director, his international reputation can be said to exceed his domestic one.
Violent Cop（1989）
Kitano’s directorial debut has been called a Japanese take on Dirty Harry, with the titular cop being a stone-faced man of few words who uses violent methods to exact his revenge on criminal thugs. Some of Kitano’s stylistic trademarks as a director—the minimal dialogue and sudden outbursts of violence—can already be found here, albeit not yet in their full-formed glory.
Hana-bi(1998年)
This Kitano masterpiece depicts the relationship between a lonely cop and his wife who have resolved to die. The highlights are how the bond between the couple is portrayed with few words, and the scenes of violence, which are poetic and artistic. The film did not do so well in terms of domestic box office, but Kitano won the Golden Lion award at the 54th Venice International Film Festival; the award marked a turning point of sorts for Kitano, as it gave him legitimacy as a director in the eyes of his countrymen, who had up to that point only considered him a comedian. This film is especially well regarded internationally, and along with 1993’s Sonatine, elevated Kitano’s name to global status.
Zatoichi（2003年）
The role of Ichi—a blind Robin Hood-type who faces off against evildoers who prey on the weak—was a role made famous by the late Katsu Shintaro, but here, Kitano manages to remix the mythology with impressive results. The film won the Silver Lion for Best Director award at the 2003 Venice International Film Festival. In terms of music, Kitano ended a long-time collaboration with composer Hisaishi Joe by hiring Suzuki Keiichi, whose percussion-heavy score is invigorating. The tap dance number at the end, which is set to those rhythms, brings down the house.
7.Epilogue
Today I’ve talked about some of Japan’s most iconic masters of cinema and their work.
Next time, I’ll be taking a look at Kore-eda Hirokazu, who just recently won the Palme d’Or at the 71st Cannes Film Festival.
