Ronin

Oct 24, 2005 — Kihachi Okamoto’s dynamic, intricately madcap movie is a multitoned send-up of samurai film lore.

Oct 24, 2005 — The hero in Masahiro Shinoda’s popular samurai movie is both a genre figure and an ordinary character, both killer and savior, both larger than life and lost in the mists.

Jul 25, 2005 — Seijun Suzuki’s drama sees sexuality as a potent anarchic force that, in its implacable selfishness, brushes aside any sort of order or discipline.

Jan 29, 2001 — Masahiro Shinoda’s historical drama uses traditional elements of Japanese theater to explore the tension between ethics and eroticism.

Jul 21, 1998 — Hiroshi Inagaki’s Samurai Trilogy, of which this release is the first part, was adapted from Eiji Yoshikawa’s epic novel Musashi Miyamoto, which has been called Japan’s Gone with the Wind. The comparison is valid, for the tale of the medieval...

Jan 15, 1996 — If Akira Kurosawa is the John Ford of Japanese samurai dramas, then director Kihachi Okamoto—a specialist in action films, with a particulat accent on violence and raw characterizations—is the samurai film’s Sam Fuller.

Nov 13, 2018 — Turning to theater for inspiration, Kenji Mizoguchi transformed a popular eighteenth-century play into a spiritually charged meditation on forbidden love and societal oppression.

One of Japan’s most important filmmakers, Kenji Mizoguchi created a cinema rich in technical mastery and social commentary, specifically regarding the place of women in Japanese society.

Mar 23, 2010 — If we adapt the language of horse breeders to the genealogy of films, we might write Yojimbo, by Shane out of Scarface.But while this odd coupling does suggest the most obvious hereditary traits of Akira Kurosawa’s black comedy, it fails...