JAPANESE FILMS

Ozu Goes to Nanking

I posted some photographs of directors and one young actress from prewar Japanese cinema magazines in the past weeks. Today, I post three daring photographs of Yasujiro Ozu, to commemorate his 110th anniversary. The first photograph is from 1932. This was taken during the shooting of I WAS BORN, BUT … (1932), the film I consider the best among his extant silent works. According to the caption, these two kids had fallen ill during the shooting of the film previous year, and the production had to be stopped. Now, apparently these rascals were feeling better (is that a cigarette?) and …

  /
JAPANESE FILMS

Another “Yasujiro” in Shochiku

For past weeks, I reviewed two films by Yasujiro Shimazu, THE TRIO’S ENGAGEMENT (1937) and LOVE, BE WITH HUMANITY (1931). I assume his name is not as familiar as another Yasujiro (Ozu) among the readers. Maybe some of you know MY LITTLE NEIGHBOR, YAE (1934), which has circulated among various film festivals around the globe in recent years. Though relatively unknown today, he was the most reliable and professional director during 20s and 30s at the Shochiku and deserves more attention. Shimazu was one of the “founding” fathers of the Shochiku Kamata Studio (1920 – 1936), which produced many early …

  / /
'BOBTAIL' REVIEW / JAPANESE FILMS

Love, Be With Humanity (1931)

Experience in a movie theater is not about the movie itself sometimes. It is about sharing time and space with total strangers. Most of the time, you don’t know who this person is sitting in the next seat. Sometimes it’s a guy munching on popcorn, sputtering the salver-coated debris whenever he finds something funny on the screen. Sometimes it’s an old fat lady who wiggles in the seat uncomfortably whenever a sexually-explicit scene comes up. Of course, there is always a soul who just snores through whole 2 hours of matinée. But somehow we share the time and space, – …

  / /