Blog Archives

Daredevil in the Castle (1961)

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In his prolific and much-lauded career, Toshiro Mifune worked with director Hiroshi Inagaki even more often than he did with his more celebrated collaborator Akira Kurosawa — the best-known product of these collaborations is the Miyamoto Musashi trilogy, with Mifune playing the title character. Working for the Toho studio, Inagaki was a very well-respected writer/director during the 1950s and 60s with a bit of a specialisation in period action films: his Musashi films and his version of The 47 Ronin(read more)

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Equinox Flower (1958)

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The first colour piece by Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, Equinox Flower is a flawless movie: funny, charming, and gently moving. It is built around one of the oldest stories in the book: “father disapproves of daughter’s fiancé”, and as trite as such a story may sound these days, this is probably the most deeply felt and well observed version of it ever made. At the centre of the film’s success is its uniformly wonderful cast, with every performance pitched perfectly … (read more)

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