Sep 14, 2016 — Asian-cinema expert Tony Rayns unpacks the significance of Zatoichi’s name and the strict social hierarchy that the character so gleefully upends.

Nov 25, 2013 — He massages, he gambles, and he’s great with a blade. Who is this blind swordsman, anyway?

Nov 26, 2013 —

Mar 27, 2024 — The director of the films that launched the Zatoichi and Lone Wolf and Cub series made three virtuosic, melancholic dramas in the early 1960s.

Nov 13, 2024 — Spend the holiday season with the Pope of Trash, the Master of Suspense, MTV Productions’s turn-of-the-century thrills, and Columbia Pictures’s pre-Code button-pushers.

Apr 24, 2019 — Channel Calendars The Women (1939) It’s going to be a packed month on the Criterion Channel, with a spotlight on the unforgettable female characters of a classic Hollywood master, a tribute to the great Japanese cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa, a new...

Nov 12, 2025 — He anchored some of the best films by Kurosawa, Kobayashi, Okamoto, Naruse, and Teshigahara.

Nov 7, 2023 — By the end of the 1970s, everything had changed for Jackie Chan. He had cowritten, directed, and starred in The Fearless Hyena, which became the top-grossing Hong Kong film of 1979. His next project, The Young Master, would top that...

Feb 20, 2018 — In this wildly inventive revenge drama, director Kon Ichikawa blurs the line between stage and screen, infusing kabuki traditions with his own extravagant visual sensibility.

Nov 8, 2016 — This adaptation of one of the most influential series in manga history is a delirious mix of breathtaking swordplay and pop vulgarity.