Portrait of Hell is a 1969 jidaigeki (period drama) film directed by Shiro Toyoda and starring Tatsuya Nakadai and Kinnosuke Nakamura.
The story, set in the Heian era, depicts the conflict between Korean painter Yoshihide (Nakadai) and his Japanese patron, the cruel and egotistical daimyo Hosokawa (Nakamura). Continue reading »
Kagemusha is a 1980 film by Akira Kurosawa starring Tatsuya Nakadai and Tsutomu Yamazaki. The title (“Shadow Warrior” in Japanese) is a term used for an impersonator. It is set in the Warring States era of Japanese history and tells the story of a lower-class criminal who is taught to impersonate a dying warlord in order to dissuade opposing lords from attacking the newly vulnerable clan. Continue reading »
Harakiri is a 1962 Japanese film directed by Masaki Kobayashi. The story takes place between 1619 and 1630 during the Edo period and the reign of the Tokugawa shogunate. It tells of a ronin, Hanshiro Tsugumo, who instead of committing seppuku (ritual suicide by disembowelment) after his lord was deposed, was ordered to stay alive in order to care for his daughter and grandson as well as his son-in-law, the son of another samurai who had committed the ritual suicide. Continue reading »
Kwaidan is a 1964 Japanese portmanteau film directed by Masaki Kobayashi; the title means ‘ghost story’. It is based on stories from Lafcadio Hearn’s collections of Japanese folk tales. The film consists of four separate and unrelated stories. Kwaidan is the archaic transliteration of Kaidan, meaning “ghost story”. Continue reading »
Sanjuro is a 1962 black and white Japanese samurai film directed by Akira Kurosawa and starring Toshirō Mifune. It is a sequel to Kurosawa’s previous film Yojimbo, with Mifune reprising his role as a wandering ronin. The film combines action and humour, and is lighter in tone than its predecessor. Continue reading »