Takashi Shimura
Series
Publisher
Criterion Collection
Pub. Date
1998.
Language
日本語
Description
This epic masterpiece is about a group of 16th century samurai who are hired to defend a small Japanese village that finds itself annually raided by an army of bandits who steal the meager crops harvested by the peasants. Tired of relinquishing their food supply but woefully inept in combat skills, the villagers decide to hire a band of samurai to protect them. In addition to the primary conflict between the villagers and the bandits, much of the...
3) Godzilla
Series
Criterion collection ; 594
Publisher
Image Entertainment
Pub. Date
[2012]
Language
日本語
Description
It's also a remarkably humane and melancholy drama made in Japan at a time when the country was still reeling from nuclear attack and H-bomb testing. Its rampaging radioactive beast, the poignant embodiment of an entire populations fears, became a beloved international icon of destruction, spawning more than twenty sequels and spinoffs. Here, we present the original, 1954 Japanese version, along with Godzilla: King of the Monsters!, the 1956 American...
4) Rashomon
Series
Publisher
Criterion Collection
Pub. Date
[2001]
Language
日本語
Description
Set in the Middle Ages, the nature of truth and subjective reality are probed in a series of flashbacks from four viewpoints to present the case history of a man's murder and the rape of his wife by a bandit.
Series
Publisher
Criterion Collection
Pub. Date
2004.
Language
日本語
Description
A bad day gets worse for rookie detective Murakami when a pickpocket steals his gun on a hot, crowded bus. Desperate to right the wrong, he goes undercover, scavenging Tokyo's sweltering streets for the thief, whose desperation has led him to a life of crime. With each step, the cop and the criminal's lives become more intertwined and the investigation becomes an examination of Murakami's own dark side.
Publisher
GoodTimes Home Video
Pub. Date
[2001]
Language
English
Description
Godzilla rises from the sea, his slumber disturbed by atomic tests. With its haunting scenes of a devastated Tokyo eerily echoing the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this film gave the world the perfect monster, and metaphor, for the Atomic Age.
Series
Criterion collection ; 190
Publisher
The Criterion Collection
Pub. Date
[2014?]
Language
日本語
Description
A vivid, visceral Macbeth adaptation, directed by Akira Kurosawa (Seven Samurai), sets Shakespeare's definitive tale of ambition and duplicity in a ghostly, fog-enshrouded landscape in feudal Japan. The film fuses classical Western tragedy with formal elements taken from Noh Theater to create an unforgettable cinematic experience.
Series
Criterion collection ; 594
Language
日本語
Description
Godzilla: A prehistoric monster ravages metropolitan Tokyo. Scientists suspect that H-bomb tests awakened it from a two-million year sleep. They try to develop techniques to stop the monster.
Godzilla, king of the monsters: An American reporter investigating a series of mysterious disasters off the coast of Japan comes face to face with Godzilla, an ancient powerful creature capable of reducing Tokyo to smoldering rubble.
9) Ikiru
Publisher
Criterion Collection
Pub. Date
[2008]
Language
日本語
Description
A young Japanese businessman dying of cancer wants to give something back to society before his death, so he decides to build a playground for children.
10) Yoidore tenshi
Series
Criterion collection ; 413
Publisher
Criterion Collection
Pub. Date
[2007]
Language
日本語
Description
A yakuza mobster suffering from tuberculosis enters into an unusual relationship with an alcoholic doctor.
Publisher
Sony Music Entertainment
Pub. Date
[2002]
Language
English
Description
When American reporter Steve Martin investigaates a series of mysterious disasters off the coast of Japan, he comes face to face with an ancient creature so powerful and so terrifying, it can reduce Tokyo to a smoldering graveyard.
Publisher
Criterion Collection
Pub. Date
[2010]
Language
日本語
Description
Akira Kurosawa's patriotic World War II morale booster focuses on a volunteer corps of women working at an optics factory to produce lenses for binoculars and targeting scopes, and was shot on location at the Nippon Kogaku factory in Hiratsuka.
13) Ikiru: To live
Series
Publisher
Criterion Collection
Pub. Date
[2004]
Language
日本語
Description
Discovering that he is in the terminal stages of cancer, a clerk spends his last months in search of the meaning to life. After his pursuit of pleasure has failed, he finds self-realization in bringing about the building of a children's playground in the slums and dies quiety fulfilled.
15) Seven samurai
Series
Publisher
Criterion Collection
Pub. Date
[2010]
Language
日本語
Description
The story of a sixteenth century village whose desperate inhabitants hire the eponymous warriors to protect them from invading bandits.
16) Seven samurai
Series
Publisher
Criterion Collection
Pub. Date
[2006]
Language
日本語
Description
"Tells the story of a sixteenth-century village whose desperate inhabitants hire seven out-of-work warriors to protect them from invading bandits"--Container.
