Happy New Year and Happy New Radiance Films Release Day to all those who celebrate. After falling head over heels for Elegant Beast (1962), I was delighted to be jumping back into 60’s Japan for Radiance’s latest release I, The Executioner (1968), a neo-noir directed by former Akira Kurosawa protégée […]
Akira Kurosawa
20 Movies for Japanuray
Between Social Media and Marketing agencies, Japanuary is one of these traditions that happen every year, in which people portmanteau months to programme month long sessions into a particular movement – or, in this case, national cinema – into their cinematic diet. Giallo January is another common theme that people […]
Kagemusha (1980) Kurosawa, the master visual story-teller (Blu-ray Review)
74 years old Akira Kurosawa was when he directed Kagemusha. And, funnily enough, the 1970s weren’t a kind decade to the master director with the highest-profile film, of the three he produced that decade, being the marginal Serbian Adventure Movie, Dersu Uzala. A point stressed in the extras of this […]
Stray Dog – Cinema Eclectica Podcast 255
Ugetsu (1953) Mizoguchi, Japan’s most elusive master director (Review)
For all that Kenji Mizoguchi tends to be introduced as one of Japan’s post-war triumvirate of great filmmakers, along with his younger contemporaries Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa, the evidence for such claims has been poorly distributed. This is partly due to the majority of the prolific director’s films being […]
Cinema Eclectica 66 – The Biscuits for Movies Initiative
Everything can be justified if you’re rewarded with biscuits. Off The Shelf features the new (and classic), Takashi Miike film “Yakuza Apocalypse”, Akira Kurosawa’s Japanese Shakesperean epic “Ran”, and “Innocence of Memories” – an essay film from Grant Gee. We also have a minority report on “Captain America: Civil War” […]
Akira Kurosawa’s Ran (1985) Home to one of the greatest battle scenes of all time (Review)
Shakespeare’s stories, character and language might be what reel us in, but it’s the mysteries that can engender an obsession. From Sigmund Freud, who famously pored over a psychiatric diagnosis of Prince Hamlet, to John Sutherland and Cedric Watts, who published an entire book (Henry V, War Criminal?) on the […]