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Perhaps best known to Western audiences for his films “Death by Hanging”, the erotic “In the Realm of the Senses” as well as the war film “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence” which stars David Bowie, Nagisa Oshima’s 1969 drama “Boy” is maybe the Japanese director’s most approachable and straightforward work.

In 1966, a family of con artists are desperately trying to make ends meet. The father, Takeo (Fumio Watanabe), is a diabetic war veteran who routinely abuses his spouse, Takeko (Akiko Koyama), and his son Toshio (Tetsuo Abe), the child from a previous marriage. To earn money, he makes Takeko throw herself into traffic and fake injuries in hopes of extorting money from hapless drivers. When she becomes pregnant, however, he recruits Toshio to assume her role. Things go well at first until the boy is eventually caught, forcing the family to pack up and hurriedly move across the country.

Faced...

Japan Society presents a rare sctreening of Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 on the occasion of its 50th Anniversary, as part of the Monthly Classics series.

Best recognized outside of Japan for her role as the mesmerizing, katana-wielding Lady Snowblood, Meiko Kaji’s equally definitive portrayal of the fearless convict Sasori (Scorpion) initially cemented her status as an icon of 70s exploitation.

After a year in solitary confinement in a vicious women’s prison, Sasori has taken on a mythic stature among the prisoners. Escaping with an uncouth band of inmates, she leads the group while the prison’s sadistic guards follow in hot pursuit.

The second film in Toei’s Female Prisoner Scorpion series, Shunya Ito’s fever dream sequel is recognized as the series’ best entry, bolstered by avant-garde tinged visuals, delirious violence, a fuzzy guitar score and, of course, Meiko Kaji’s fierce, steely-eyed performance of rage and vengeance.

Teruo Ishii’s Shogun’S Joy Of Torture (1968) will be available on Blu-ray February 23rd from Arrow Video

From the outrageous imagination of cult director Teruo Ishii comes this infamous omnibus of three shocking tales of crime and punishment based on true-life documented cases set during the reign of the Tokugawa shogunate.

The first tale sees the beautiful Mitsu (Masumi Tachibana) going to horrifying lengths to tend to her older brother Shinz (Teruo Yoshida), a carpenter injured in a work accident, but the law catches up on them and metes out a terrifying retribution after they violate the ultimate taboo. In the second, unfettered passions in a Buddhist nunnery are not allowed to go unpunished after abbess Reih (Yukie Kagawa) and her attendant Rintoku (Naomi Shiraishi) encounter a virile young monk from a neighboring temple. In the closing segment, a sadistic torturer (Fumio Watanabe) attempts to show a tattoo artist (Asao Koike...

Directed by Osamu Takahashi (assistant director to Yasujiro Ozu in “Tokyo Story”), “Only She Knows” mixes detective story with a melodrama in an interesting film noir style that runs at a mere 63 minutes.

“Only She Knows” screened at Japan Society

There is a murderer and rapist on the loose in the 1960s Tokyo, and the events are spanned over a couple of weeks in Christmas- and New Years’- time. Sugi (Fumio Watanabe) and Natsuyama (an Ozu regular Chishu Ryu) are the two police detectives chasing the criminal. He strikes at random women every four days, leaving no traces or clues for the police. Yet, the protagonists have one more thing in common – Sugi dates Natsuyama’s daughter Ayako, who becomes the next victim of the rapist. Although she survives the attack, her honour is still tarnished.

The strict moral code prohibits Ayako from telling about the event to her father or boyfriend.

“Flowing , a woman’s tears pour out/

Softly floating on the river./

The river overflows/

Overflowing to the shore/

Overflowing, overflowing/

Drowning all the men.”

After the commercial success of the first movie, it was obvious Japanese production company Toei wanted a sequel to the “Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion”, a movie which not only manifested leading actress Meiko Kaji’s but also director Ito’s reputation among the Japanese film industry as well as audiences. The success was also proof Kaji’s and Ito’s approach to the role of Nami Matsushima nicknamed “Sasori” (scorpion) had been the right direction playing her in almost complete silence with only Kaji’s eyes doing most of the talking, a movie which would make the character iconic beyond the borders of Japan.

For Kaji, who was 25 at the time the second movie was filmed, the sequel was a blessing as well as a curse.

“To be deceived is a woman’s crime.”

When you listen to the magnificent soundtrack to Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill, Vol.1” you will notice that one track called “The Flower of Carnage” sung by Meiko Kaji. Even though you might not understand the lyrics the voice of the singer, the bittersweet melody hints at the character being deeply emotional, full of tenderness, but at the same time carrying something with her, something dark and vicious. It seems to conjure a certain image, feeling or memory of a past and a present of a certain somebody who is addressed in this film, so strong is the voice it wants you to almost take a mental picture of the person, see her pain but also her beauty. To Tarantino this was the perfect sound for The Bride, a character played by Uma Thurman, a woman who has been continuously betrayed and declared dead,...

While Osamu Takahashi is not an unimportant figure in the Shochiku Nouvelle Vague movement, his contributions as writer and as Naoki Prize winner are more known than his cinematographic work. One could even argue that his greatest contribution to the Nouvelle Vague movement is not so much his debut narrative, but his fundamental role in the launch of the film journal Shichinin (The Seven) with his circle of fellow directors, which included Nagisa Oshima and Kiju Yoshida.

Despite his limited importance as director, it nevertheless remains valuable to return to and review his debut narrative, which, as it deals with sexual violence, fits perfectly within the Japanese Nouvelle Vague movement as such.

“Only She Knows” is screening as part of Japan Society:

On Christmas Eve, the whole police division is requested to attend a strategy meeting concerning a rapist murderer on the loose. Division Chief Kitae (Kappei Matsumoto) has...

“If you’re too nice to pests they increase.”

In general, Tsutomu Tamura is mostly known for his fruitful collaborations with one of the greatest icons of the Japanese New Wave, director Nagisa Oshima. Starting with “Shiiku” (1961) most of Oshima’s movies, such as “Boy” (1969) or “Death by Hanging” (1968), were based on the magnificent scripts by Tamura. The characters and their dialogues defined the right kind of mix between absurdist drama and bleakness which became a trademark for these films as well as the movement as a whole.

Interestingly, Tamura is lesser known for his only film called “The Samurai Vagabonds”, a movie which brings together some of the future stars of his collaborations with Oshima. At the same time, it is a feature that sets the tone for the particular kind of writing he provided for these later works. Now that his film is re-discovered by institutions such as Japan Society,...

Before he would come to be known as one of cinema’s most controversial provocateurs with his most infamous title, 1976’s In the Realm of the Senses, Nagisa Oshima was heralded as one of the most influential voices in the Japanese New Wave of the 1960s. The decade prior showed the director contemplating urban youth issues, showcasing the moral quandaries of a new, disenchanted generation struggling to define notions of identity in Post WWII Japan. In the early 60s, Oshima spent most of his time working in television before returning to features predicated on lurid social issues usually involving a fascinating mixture of sexuality and crime. But 1968 saw the auteur tackling the treatment of Korean immigrants in Japan in two striking portraits, Three Resurrected Drunkards and the dark comedy Death by Hanging.

Based on an actual criminal case from a decade prior concerning a Korean immigrant who murdered two Japanese girls,...

With the exception of several crowd-pleasing samurai epics (like Zatoichi and Three Outlaw Samurai) and a few bargain-priced historical costume dramas (such as The Ballad of Narayama and Gate of Hell), the flow of newly released Japanese art films by the Criterion Collection has slowed to a trickle over the past five years or so. (And for the sake of politeness and avoiding pointless controversy, I won’t invoke Jellyfish Eyes in this argument either.) We’ve obviously enjoyed a steady stream of chanbara, Ozu and especially Kurosawa Blu-ray upgrades during this past half-decade, and there have been several outstanding Japanese sets recently issued as part of the Eclipse Series as well, but we really haven’t seen much else along these lines in the main lineup since Kaneto Shindo’s Kuroneko came out in the fall of 2011. That’s over 200 spine numbers ago! But I’m happy to report...

You want radical? Look no further. Nagisa Oshima's near-legendary issue drama makes a wickedly frightening protest against the death penalty, but then proceeds into formal abstraction and the endorsement of a violent radical position. You can't find a political 'gauntlet picture' as jarring or as potent as this one. Death by Hanging Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 798 1968 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 118 min. / Kôshikei / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 16, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Do-yun Yu, Kei Sato, Fumio Watanabe, Toshiro Ishido, Masao Adachi, Rokko Toura, Hosei Komatsu, Masao Matsuda, Akiko Koyama. Cinematography Yasuhiro Yoshioka Film Editor Sueko Shiraishi Original Music Hikaru Hayashi Written by Michinori Fukao. Mamoru Sasaki, Tsutomu Tamura, Nagisa Oshima Produced by Masayuki Nakajima, Takuji Yamaguchi, Nagisa Oshima Directed by Nagisa Oshima

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Believe me, you ain't seen nothing yet. Nagisa Oshima is a radical's radical, a cinema stylist completely committed to his politics -- which...