Shōchiku Kabushiki Kaisha
1) Harakiri
Series
Criterion collection volume 302
Pub. Date
2011
Edition
Blu-ray special ed.
Physical Desc
1 Blu-ray (133 min.) : sound, black and white ; 4 3/4 in. + 1 booklet (31 pages : illustrations ; 16 cm).
Language
日本語
Description
After an unemployed samurai is forced to commit harakiri before a feudal lord, his father-in-law returns to the scene, seemingly to play out the same agonizing suicide ritual.
Series
Publisher
The Criterion Collection
Pub. Date
[2012]
Edition
Special edition.
Physical Desc
1 DVD (93 min.) : sound, black and white ; 4 3/4 in. + 1 booklet (12 unnumbered pages : illustrations ; 19 cm).
Language
日本語
Description
A wandering, seen-it-all ronin becomes entangled in the dangerous business of two other samurai hired to execute a band of peasants who have kidnapped the daughter of a corrupt magistrate.
Series
Criterion collection volume 645
Publisher
The Criterion Collection
Language
日本語
Formats
Description
This haunting, kabuki-inflected version of a Japanese folk legend is set in a remote mountain village, where food is scarce and tradition dictates that citizens who have reached their seventieth year must be carried to the summit of Mount Narayama and left there to die. The sacrificial elder at the center of the tale is Orin, a dignified and dutiful woman who spends her dwindling days securing the happiness of her loyal widowed son with a respectable...
Publisher
FUNimation
Pub. Date
[2017]
Physical Desc
1 DVD + 1 Blu-ray (90 min.) : sound, black and white, color ; 4 3/4 in. + 1 booklet (20 unnumbered pages : illustrations ; 15 cm)
Language
日本語
Description
This film, Japan's first feature-length animated film that set the stage for the rise of anime, was a propaganda piece ordered by the Japanese Naval Ministry during World War II made to show the Japanese public how the Japanese military had achieved such decisive victories in the South Pacific. It tells the story of young Japanese boys -- a bear cub, a monkey, a pheasant, and a puppy -- from their school days to their joining the army and fighting...
Publisher
Tartan Video
Pub. Date
2006.
Physical Desc
1 DVD (approximately 132 min.) : anamorphic, sound, color ; 4 3/4 in.
Language
日本語
Description
During the time of change of the mid-19th Century, Yaichiro is bid farewell by his fellow samurai friends Munezo and Samon as he leaves their clan's fiefdom on the northwest coast of Japan...
Series
Criterion collection volume 302
Publisher
Home Vision Enertainment
Pub. Date
[2005]
Physical Desc
2 DVDs (133 min.) : sound, black and white ; 4 3/4 in.
Language
日本語
Description
Peace in 17th-century Japan causes the Shogunate's breakup of warrior clans, throwing thousands of samurai out of work and into poverty. An honorable end to such fate under the samurai code is ritual suicide, or hara-kiri.
Series
Criterion collection volume 480
Publisher
The Criterion Collection
Pub. Date
2009.
Physical Desc
4 DVDs (574 min.) : sound, black and white ; 4 3/4 in. + 1 booklet.
Language
日本語
Description
Tells of the journey of the well-intentioned yet naive Kaji from labor camp supervisor to Imperial Army soldier to Soviet POW. Constantly trying to rise above a corrupt system, Kaji time and again finds his morals an impediment rather than an advantage.
8) Creepy
Publisher
KimStim
Pub. Date
[2017]
Physical Desc
1 DVD (130 min.) : sound, color ; 4 3/4 in.
Language
日本語
Description
A year after a botched hostage negotiation with a serial killer turned deadly, ex-detective Koichi and his wife move into a new house with a deeply strange new neighbor. His old cop colleagues come calling for his help on a mysterious case, which may be related to the strange goings-on next door, in this insidiously constructed narrative that braids plot twists on top of plot twists and shock on top of shock.
Publisher
The Criterion Collection
Pub. Date
2013.
Physical Desc
4 DVDs (440 min.) : sound, black and white ; 4 3/4 in.
Language
日本語
Description
The thick-walled room. Among the first Japanese films to deal directly with the scars of World War II, this drama about a group of rank-and file Japanese soldiers jailed for crimes against humanity was adapted by Abe Kōbō from the diaries of real prisoners.
I will buy you. Masaki Kobayashi's pitiless take on Japan's professional baseball industry is unlike any other sports film ever made. A condemnation of the inhumanity bred by a mercenary, bribery-fueled...
11) The only son
Series
Criterion collection volume 525
Publisher
The Criterion Collection
Pub. Date
[2010]
Physical Desc
1 DVD (83 min.) : sound, black and white ; 4 3/4 in. + 1 booklet (16 pages : illustrations ; 19 cm).
Language
日本語
Description
A good-natured mother gives up everything to ensure her son's education and future. Special feature: New interviews with film scholars Tadao Sato, David Bordwell, and Kristin Thompson.
Publisher
Strand Releasing Home Video
Pub. Date
[2009]
Edition
Widescreen.
Physical Desc
1 DVD (133 min.) : sound, color ; 4 3/4 in.
Language
日本語
Description
After her husband is arrested on suspicion of being a Communist, a woman is suddenly in charge of taking care of her household and her two daughters, with the help of her husband's sister, during the early days of World War II.
Series
Criterion collection volume 240
Publisher
Criterion Collection
Pub. Date
1951.
Edition
Widescreen version.
Physical Desc
1 DVD (125 min.) : sound, black and white ; 4 3/4 in.
Language
日本語
Description
The Mamiya family is seeking a husband for their daughter, Noriko, but she has ideas of her own.
Series
Criterion collection volume 526
Publisher
The Criterion Collection
Pub. Date
[2010]
Physical Desc
1 DVD (87 min.) : sound, black and white ; 4 3/4 in. + 1 booklet (24 pages : illustrations ; 19 cm).
Language
日本語
Description
A widowed high school teacher finds that the more he tries to do what is best for his son's future, the more they are separated.
Series
Criterion collection volume 384
Publisher
Criterion Collection
Pub. Date
[2007]
Edition
Widescreen.
Physical Desc
1 DVD (140 min.) : sound, color ; 4 3/4 in. + 1 booklet (32 pages ; illustrations ; 19 cm).
Language
日本語
Description
A true crime story about Iwao Enokizu, self-styled "King of criminals." Director Imamura turns this fact-based story of the seventy-eight day killing spree of a remorseless man from a devoutly Catholic family, into a cold, perverse, and at times funny tale of the primitive coexisting with the modern.
17) Good morning
Series
Publisher
The Criterion Collection
Pub. Date
[2017]
Edition
Blu-ray special edition.
Physical Desc
1 Blu-ray (93 min.) : sound, color ; 4 3/4 in. + 1 booklet.
Language
日本語
Description
Two young boys take a vow of silence after their parents refuse to buy them a television set for their suburban Tokyo home.
Series
Publisher
Criterion Collection
Pub. Date
[2004]
Physical Desc
2 DVDs (86 min.; 119 min.) : sound, black and white and color ; 4 3/4 in.
Language
日本語
Description
In 1959, Yasujiro Ozu remade his 1934 silent film: A Story of Floating Weeds in color and sound with the cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa (Rashomon, Ugetsu). Setting his later version in a seaside location, Ozu otherwise preserves the details of his elegantly simple plot wherein an aging actor returns to a small town with his troupe and reunities with his former lover and illegitimate son, a scenario that enrages his current mistress and results in...
Series
Publisher
Twilight Time, Red Jam LLC
Pub. Date
[2017]
Edition
Limited edition.
Physical Desc
1 Blu-ray (109 min.) : sound, color ; 4 3/4 in. + 1 booklet (6 unnumbered pages : illustrations ; 15 cm).
Language
日本語
Description
The story of an ex-murderer on parole traveling with two companions to make his way home to Hokkaido to meet his wife.
Series
Publisher
Twilight Time, Red Jam
Pub. Date
2015.
Edition
Limited edition.
Physical Desc
1 Blu-ray (approximately 137 min.) : sound, color ; 4 3/4 in. + 1 booklet.
Language
日本語
Description
The time frame is 1931-1945, as Japan drifts towards war. But while the sociopolitical aspects make an important backdrop, the story is deeply personal: the doomed illicit love between a married matron and her husband's artistic colleague, as observed and later recalled by an innocent servant girl.