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Departures (2008 Film)
is a 2008 Japanese drama film directed by Yōjirō Takita and starring Masahiro Motoki, Ryōko Hirosue, and Tsutomu Yamazaki. The film follows a young man who returns to his hometown after a failed career as a cellist and stumbles across work as a ''nōkanshi, ''—a traditional Japanese ritual mortician. He is subjected to prejudice from those around him, including from his wife, because of strong social taboos against people who deal with death. Eventually he repairs these interpersonal connections through the beauty and dignity of his work. The idea for ''Departures'' arose after Motoki, affected by having seen a funeral ceremony along the Ganges when travelling in India, read widely on the subject of death and came across ''Coffinman''. He felt that the story would adapt well to film, and ''Departures'' was finished a decade later. Because of Japanese prejudices against those who handle the dead, distributors were reluctant to release it—until a surprise grand prize win ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yōjirō Takita
Yōjirō Takita (滝田 洋二郎 ''Takita Yōjirō'', born December 4, 1955) is a Japanese filmmaker. Takita received an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for his 2008 drama '' Departures''. It marked the first time a Japanese film won the award after the category first became competitive in 1957. Career Yōjirō Takita entered the film industry through Mukai Productions, where he served as an assistant director. Takita first came to prominence with the long-running, popular light-comic ''pink film'' series, started by Shin'ya Yamamoto in 1975, and which Takita began directing in 1982 at Shintōhō Eiga. Later, for the Nikkatsu studio, Takita filmed similar ''Molester's'' films as part of that studio's ''Roman Porno'' line. ''Molester's School Infirmary'' (1984), ''Molester's Tour Bus'' (1985) and ''Molester's Delivery Service'' (1986) are some of these titles. Takita's 1986 mainstream comedy, ''No More Comic Magazines!'' received critical praise, and he has produced several ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Montreal World Film Festival
The Montreal World Film Festival (), commonly abbreviated MWFF in English or FFM in French, was an annual film festival in Montreal, Quebec, Canada from 1977 to 2019."Montreal World Film Festival abruptly cancelled weeks before opening" CBC News Montreal, July 22, 2019. Founded and run throughout its lifetime by Serge Losique, it was the only competitive film festival in North America accredited by the FIAPF. (The |
Manga
are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics and cartooning. Outside of Japan, the word is typically used to refer to comics originally published in Japan. In Japan, people of all ages and walks of life read manga. The medium includes works in a broad range of genres: action, adventure, business and commerce, comedy, detective, drama, historical, horror, mystery, romance, science fiction and fantasy, erotica ( and ), sports and games, and suspense, among others. Many manga are translated into other languages. Since the 1950s, manga has become an increasingly major part of the Japanese publishing industry. By 1995, the manga market in Japan was valued at (), with annual sales of 1.9billion manga books and manga magazines (also known as manga anthologies) in Japan (equivale ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang. Although the name "Rotten Tomatoes" connects to the practice of audiences throwing rotten tomatoes in disapproval of a poor Theatre, stage performance, the direct inspiration for the name from Duong, Lee, and Wang came from an equivalent scene in the 1992 Canadian film ''Léolo''. Since January 2010, Rotten Tomatoes has been owned by Flixster, which was in turn acquired by Warner Bros. in 2011. In February 2016, Rotten Tomatoes and its parent site Flixster were sold to Comcast's Fandango Media, Fandango ticketing company. Warner Bros. retained a minority stake in the merged entities, including Fandango. The site is influential among moviegoers, a third of whom say they consult it before going to the cinema in the U.S. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dersu Uzala (1975 Film)
''Dersu Uzala'' (; ; alternative U.S. title: ''Dersu Uzala: The Hunter'') is a 1975 biographical adventure drama film directed and co-written by Akira Kurosawa. Shot in Russian, it is his only non-Japanese-language film and only 70mm film. An Co-production (media), international co-production between Japan and the Soviet Union, shot at the peak of the Détente#Cold War, East-West detente, the film is based on the 1923 memoir ''Dersu Uzala (book), Dersu Uzala'' (which was named after the Dersu Uzala, native trapper) by Russian explorer Vladimir Arsenyev, about his exploration of the Sikhote-Alin region of the Russian Far East over the course of multiple expeditions in the early 20th century. Shot almost entirely outdoors in the Russian Far East wilderness, the film explores the theme of a native of the forests who is fully integrated into his environment, leading a style of life that will inevitably be destroyed by the advance of civilization. It is also about the growth of respec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hiroshi Inagaki
was a Japanese filmmaker who worked on over 100 films in a career spanning over five decades. He is one of the most successful and critically acclaimed filmmakers in the history of Japanese cinema, having directed several ''jidaigeki'' epics such as the 1954 Academy Award-winning film '' Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto'', and its two sequels (1955's '' Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple'' (1955) and 1956's '' Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island''). Career Born in Tokyo as the son of a shinpa actor, Inagaki appeared on stage in his childhood before joining the Nikkatsu studio as an actor in 1922. Wishing to become a director, he joined Chiezō Kataoka's Chiezō Productions and made his directorial debut with ''Tenka taiheiki'' (1928). Returning to Nikkatsu, he continued making jidaigeki and participated in the Naritaki Group of young filmmakers such as Sadao Yamanaka and Fuji Yahiro who collaboratively wrote screenplays under the made up name "Kinpachi Kajiwara". Like others in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Musashi Miyamoto
, was a Japanese swordsman, strategist, artist, and writer who became renowned through stories of his unique double-bladed swordsmanship and undefeated record in his 62 duels. Miyamoto is considered a '' kensei'' (sword saint) of Japan. He was the founder of the Niten Ichi-ryū (or Nito Ichi-ryū) style of swordsmanship, and in his final years authored and ''Dokkōdō'' (獨行道, ''The Path of Aloneness''). Both documents were given to Terao Magonojō, the most important of Miyamoto's students, seven days before Musashi's death. ''The Book of Five Rings'' focuses on the character of his Niten Ichi-ryū school in a concrete sense; his own practical martial art and its generic significance. ''The Path of Aloneness'', on the other hand, deals with the ideas that lie behind it, as well as his life's philosophy in a few short aphoristic sentences. It is believed that Miyamoto was a friend of Mizuno Katsunari, a Tokugawa shogunate general. They fought together in the Battle of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Teinosuke Kinugasa
was a Japanese filmmaker and actor. His best-known films include the Silent film, silent Experimental film, avant-garde films ''A Page of Madness'' and ''Crossroads (1928 film), Crossroads'' and the Academy Awards, Academy Award-winning historical drama ''Gate of Hell (film), Gate of Hell''. Biography Kinugasa was born in Kameyama, Mie, Kameyama, Mie Prefecture. He began his career as an onnagata (actor specializing in female roles) at the Nikkatsu studio. When Japanese cinema began using actresses in the early 1920s, he switched to directing and worked for producers such as Shōzō Makino (director), Shozo Makino, before becoming independent to make his best-known film, ''A Page of Madness'' (1926). It was considered lost for 45 years until the director rediscovered it in his shed in 1971. A silent film, Kinugasa released it with a new print and score to world acclaim. He also directed the film ''Crossroads (1928 film), Crossroads'' in 1928. He directed jidaigeki at the Shochiku ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gate Of Hell (film)
is a 1953 Japanese ''jidaigeki'' film directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa. It tells the story of a samurai (Kazuo Hasegawa) who tries to marry a woman (Machiko Kyō) he rescues, only to discover that she is already married. Filmed using Eastmancolor, ''Gate of Hell'' was Daiei Film's first color film and the first Japanese color film to be released outside Japan. It was digitally restored in 2011 by the National Film Center of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo and Kadokawa Shoten Co., LTD. in cooperation with NHK. The film won Academy Award for Best Costume Design, Best Costume Design and Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, Best Foreign Language Film at the 27th Academy Awards and the Palme d'Or, Grand Prize (the top prize of that year) at the 1954 Cannes Film Festival. Plot During the Heiji Rebellion, samurai Endō Morito is assigned to escort lady-in-waiting Kesa away from the palace after she had volunteered to disguise herself as the daimyō’s sister, givi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Akira Kurosawa
was a Japanese filmmaker who List of works by Akira Kurosawa, directed 30 feature films in a career spanning six decades. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in the History of film, history of cinema. Kurosawa displayed a Filmmaking technique of Akira Kurosawa, bold, dynamic style strongly influenced by Western cinema yet distinct from it. He was involved with all aspects of film production. Kurosawa entered the Cinema of Japan, Japanese film industry in 1936, following a brief stint as a painter. After years of working on numerous films as an assistant director and scriptwriter, he made his debut as a director during World War II with the popular action film ''Sanshiro Sugata'' (1943). After the war, the critically acclaimed ''Drunken Angel'' (1948), in which Kurosawa cast the then-little-known actor Toshiro Mifune in a starring role, cemented the director's reputation as one of the most important young filmmakers in Japan. The two m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rashomon
is a 1950 Japanese ''jidaigeki'' film directed by Akira Kurosawa from a screenplay he co-wrote with Shinobu Hashimoto. Starring Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyō, Masayuki Mori, and Takashi Shimura, it follows various people who describe how a samurai was murdered in a forest. The plot and characters are based upon Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's short story " In a Grove", with the title and framing story taken from Akutagawa's " Rashōmon". Every element is largely identical, from the murdered samurai speaking through a Shinto psychic to the bandit in the forest, the monk, the assault of the wife, and the dishonest retelling of the events in which everyone shows their ideal self by lying. Production began in 1948 at Kurosawa's regular production firm Toho but was canceled as it was viewed as a financial risk. Two years later, Sōjirō Motoki pitched ''Rashomon'' to Daiei Film upon the completion of Kurosawa's ''Scandal''. Daiei initially turned it down but eventually agreed to produc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
