Japanese Movie Listing

I have loved the Japanese culture and Feudal Japan in particular since I was young. I have watched many Japanese movies over the years, and have put my own notes along with the notes of friends and family. Over the this list has grown and grown, thanks to the input of many web visitors!

Note that since each of these movies was seen by a normal human being, what you read here is just one person's opinion :) Your own opinion may of course be different! If you notice that a movie listing is missing or incorrect, please Contact Me (Really!! WRITE ME!!!) so I can update the list!

Check out Japanese Movies By Director if you want to see what movies a given director made. Otherwise, use this alphabetical listing to view your movie by title.

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Varar, the Unbelieveable (Japan/US: 1964) 70m.
Rubber monster film, typical except monster defies clear definition: giant squirrel, vaguely reptilian. Adapted with new footage from 1958 release. D: Inoshiro Honda.

Vengeance is Mine (1979) (Fukushu Suru wa Wareni Ari)
D: Imamura Shohei. A police thriller based on a true story of a mass murderer in the 1960s. A violent, psychological profile, reminiscent of In Cold Blood.

Victory of Women (1946) 80m. (Josei no shori)
Mizoguchi's first postwar film found the director working in radically different political circumstances. His previous two features, Musashi Miyamoto (1944) and The Famous Sword (1945), had been made under wartime overseers anxious to exalt Japan's militarist traditions; Victory of Women was produced under American Occupation censors determined to stamp out feudal values and promote democratic ideals. Co-written by regular Ozu scenarist Kogo Noda, Victory of Women stars Kinuyo Tanaka as Hiroko, a feisty female lawyer practicing in postwar Japan. Her fiancé is an anti-militarist activist who had been imprisoned during the war; his persecutor had been Hiroko's own brother-in-law. Hiroko takes on the defence of a former school chum charged with murdering her own baby -- and discovers that the government prosecutor on the other side is none other than her detested brother-in-law. "Sisters of Gion and Osaka Elegy, made a decade earlier, had been powerful pleas for women's rights, and [Mizoguchi's] first post-war film . . . affirmed his earlier position" (David Owens). The work is often cited as the first instalment in a "Fighting Women" trilogy that also includes Mizoguchi's The Love of Sumako the Actress (1947) and My Love Has Been Burning (1949). Director: Kenji Mizoguchi. Cast: Kinuyo Tanaka, Michiko Kuwano, Toyoko Takahashi. B&W, In Japanese with English subtitles.

Virus (1980) 155m.
Manking is destroyed by a plague and nuclear war except for 858 men and 8 women. Beautiful sequences filmed in Antarctic; adequate special FX, overlong and meandering. D: Kinji Fukasaku.

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Origami Folding Instructions Video DVD Have you always wanted to learn how to fold origami? Would you like to make a bouquet of lily or iris for your loved one? How about crane ornaments for a Christmas tree? Origami is an inexpensive way to beautify every room of your home with color-matching works of art. With my instructional DVD, you can watch on your TV or computer as I lead you step by step through a collection of 17 different traditional origami shapes. Origami Instructional DVD

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