Shall We Dance? is an immensely popular 1996 movie starring Kôji Yakusho & Tamiyo Kusakari and directed by Masayuki Suo.
The film begins with a close-up of the inscription above the stage in the ballroom of the Blackpool Tower: “Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear”, from the poem Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare. As the camera pans around the ballroom giving a view of the dancers, a voice-over explains that in Japan, ballroom dancing is treated with suspicion. Read more…
A Lonely Cow Weeps at Dawn is a 2003 pink movie directed by Daisuke GotÅ and starring RyÅko Asagi and Horyu Nakamura.
Young widow Noriko lives with her senile father-in-law, Shukichi. In Japanese cinema at its most bizarre, to convince Shukichi his favorite cow is still alive, Noriko rises before dawn and, posing as the cow, allows him to milk her instead! Conflict arises when Shukichi’s daughter tries to put an end to the strange relationship.
Get A Lonely Cow Weeps at Dawn on DVD
Whisper of the Heart (If You Listen Closely in Japanese) is a 1995 anime movie from Studio Ghibli directed by Yoshifumi Kondo with screenplay by Hayao Miyazaki and based on the manga by Aoi Hiiragi.
One summer evening in 1994, Shizuku Tsukishima, a fourteen-year old girl who is in junior high school in Tama New Town, on the outskirts of Tokyo, looks through the checkout cards in her books and notices a pattern: each book had previously been checked out by someone named “Seiji Amasawa”. Read more…
Love*Com The Movie is a 2006 film based on the manga of the same name. It is a love story between a boy and a girl. The girl, Risa Koizumi, is 172 cm (5′ 7″) tall—much taller than the average Japanese girl. The boy, Atsushi Otani, is 156 cm (5’1 and a half”) — way below the height of the average Japanese boy. Because of this, they are called the “All Hanshin Kyojin” after a popular comedy duo that has a similar height difference. Read more…
Train Man : Densha Otoko is a 2005 Japanese movie, starring Takayuki Yamada and Miki Nakatani. It is part of the Densha Otoko franchise of television series, manga, novel etc. all based on the purportedly true story of a 23-year-old otaku (Japanese geek) who intervened when a drunk man was harassing several women on a train. One young woman sends him a set of Hermès tea cups as a thank you, and the otaku ultimately begins dating one of the women. Read more…
Vampire Hunter D, 1985, is one of the first anime films released outside of Japan and remains a cult classic in the English-speaking world. Billed by the Japanese producers as a “dark future science-fiction romance”, Vampire Hunter D is set in the year 12,090 A.D., in a post-nuclear holocaust world where a vampiric Nobility terrorizes human peasants. Read more…
This selection of Japanese Romance movies draws from across the broad spectrum of the genre. Covering ligthearted comedy such as Shall We Dance and Love*Com, through the provocative subject matter of Shoujyo – An Adolescent to the tragedy of Double Suicide and Lost Paradise, there’s something here to satisfy all tastes.
A middle-aged workaholic’s incredibly dull life takes a funny turn when he signs up for a ballroom dance class – just to meet the sexy dance teacher. But when he finally muscles up the nerve for lessons he winds up with a different instructor and her colorfully eccentric class of beginners! And now he’ll have to step lightly – and do some fancy footwork – if he expects to keep his new secret passion from his family and friends!
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