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Kwaidan [VHS]

Kwaidan [VHS]

Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Staring: Rentarô Mikuni , Michiyo Aratama , Misako Watanabe , Kenjiro Ishiyama , Ranko Akagi
Director: Masaki Kobayashi
A sensuous and arresting use of color, set design, and wide screen cinematography create four heart-pounding ghost stories from Masaki Kobayashi (Harikari, Samurai Rebellion), one of Japan's most stylized filmmakers. Each lyrical vignette is intensely composed in the style of an ancient scroll painting, but it's the tone emanating from the editing, eerie soundscape, and the characters' mythical nature that make Kwaidan a truly haunting experience. Winner of the International Jury Prize at Cannes in 1965, the film has since become a cult classic on home video. If there were ever instructions assigned to watching at home, Kwaidan's would read 'best when viewed alone, late at night, in the dark.'
List Price: $29.95 Our Price: $9.96
The Burmese Harp [VHS]

The Burmese Harp [VHS]

Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Staring: Rentarô Mikuni , Shôji Yasui , Tatsuya Mihashi , Jun Hamamura , Taketoshi Naitô
Director: Kon Ichikawa
Kon Ichikawa's Buddhist tale of peace, The Burmese Harp, is universally relevant in various eras and cultures, although it comments specifically on the destruction of Burma during World War II. Based on the novel by Michio Takeyama, The Burmese Harp stars a Japanese platoon stationed in Burma whose choir skills are inspired by their star musician, Private Mizushima (Rentaro Mikuni), who strums his harp to cheer the homesick soldiers. As the troop surrenders to the British and is interred in Mudon prison camp, Mizushima escapes to be faced with not only his imminent death, but also the deaths of thousands of other soldiers and civilians. Relinquishing his life as a military man, Mizushima retreats into a life of Buddhist prayer, dedicating himself to healing a wounded country. Filmed in black and white, strong visual contrasts heighten the divide between peace, war, life, and death in this highly symbolic film. Scenes in which the Japanese soldiers urge opposing forces to sing with them portray military men regardless of alliance as emotionally sensitive. Showing the humanistic aspects of war, such as the male bonding that occurs between soldiers, doesn't justify war a...
List Price: $29.95 Our Price: $147.90
Samurai I - Musashi Miyamoto [VHS]

Samurai I - Musashi Miyamoto [VHS]

Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Staring: Toshirô Mifune , Mariko Okada , Rentarô Mikuni , Kuroemon Onoe , Kaoru Yachigusa
Director: Hiroshi Inagaki
Winner of the Academy Award® for Best Foreign Language Film, and hailed as one of the most visually stirring movies of the 1950s, Samurai I follows the formative years of Musashi Miyamoto, Japan's most famous swordsman, as he goes off to a civil war in search of glory but finds defeat and shame instead. Toshiro Mifune's Miyamoto is spellbinding, and his performance here rivals his work in Seven Samurai. The first film in Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy unlocks the beautiful and savage world of the samurai as few other films have.
List Price: $29.95 Our Price: $3.86
Zatoichi Blind Swordsman: The Outlaw [VHS]

Zatoichi Blind Swordsman: The Outlaw [VHS]

Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Staring: Shintarô Katsu , Rentarô Mikuni , Kô Nishimura , Yuko Hamada , Toshiyuki Hosokawa
Director: Satsuo Yamamoto

List Price: $29.98 Our Price: $23.25
The Go Masters (Mikan No Taikyoku)

The Go Masters (Mikan No Taikyoku)

Staring: Rentaro Mikuni , Misako Konno , Nobuko Otowa , Hideji Otaki , Yoshiko Mita
Director: Ji-shun Duan
Ten years before the outbreak of the Second World War in Asia, a Japanese Go master and his Chinese rival meet in China to play a game of Go (loosely described as an Asian version of chess). It soon becomes evident that the Chinese master's son is the most talented player that the Japanese master has ever encountered, and he convinces the boy's father to let him bring the child back to Japan to train him as a professional Go player. Years pass, and as the young Chinese master grows to maturity in Japan, the Japanese invasion of China forces him to choose between his triumphant career and his loyalty to his native country. His decision is complicated by his marriage to the daughter of the Japanese master, with whom he has produced a child. His choice will profoundly alter the lives of two families. Their saga serves as a reflection of the tragic relations between their two great countries, and the possibility of reconciliation and healing. This is the first co-production between Japan and the People's Republic of China.
Our Price: $175.00
A Taxing Woman's Return [VHS]

A Taxing Woman's Return [VHS]

Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Staring: Nobuko Miyamoto , Rentarô Mikuni , Masahiko Tsugawa , Tetsurô Tanba , Yasuo Daichi
Director: Juzo Itami
In A Taxing Woman's Return, we get a reprise of Nobuko Miyamoto's role as Ryoko Itakura, that indomitable Japanese tax collector who stops at nothing to get her man. In this story she is after the Chief Elder of one of the country's 180,000 registered religions. Onizawa (Rentaro Mikuni) prays for the souls of the sick and the dead with one hand and rakes in billions of yen with the other.

His cult, Heaven's Path, has its fingers in several rice bowls, including a huge land scheme involving political graft. Ryoko is on the case, trying to prove that Onizawa is not paying his fair share of taxes, but she gets herself in trouble by working outside the rules.

Itami's habit of following the lives of several characters shows itself to good advantage in this film. His use of visual symbolism also seems stronger and more accomplished. For example, Onizawa has recurring dreams of a sheer rock wall crumbling down on top of him. This image alone helps us to feel his terror and serves to make him a more sympathetic character even though he does some very unsympathetic things.

Unfortunately, Miyamoto's character seems almost incidental to this story. Itami, as usual, introduc...
List Price: $29.95 Our Price: $9.00

Kwaidan [VHS]

Kwaidan [VHS]

Staring: Rentarô Mikuni , Michiyo Aratama , Misako Watanabe , Kenjiro Ishiyama , Ranko Akagi
Director: Masaki Kobayashi
A masterpiece of filmmaking artifice and mood-setting atmosphere, Kwaidan consists of four ghost stories adapted from the fiction of Greek-born Lafcadio Hearn (a.k.a. Yakumo Koizumi, 1850-1904), who assimilated into Japanese culture so thoroughly that his writings reveal no evidence of Western influence. So it is that these four cinematic interpretations--perhaps more accurately described as tales of spectral visitation--are sublimely Japanese in tone and texture, created entirely in a studio with frequently stunning results. There are painterly images here that remain the most beautiful and haunting in all of Japanese cinema, presented with the purity of silent film, sparsely accompanied by post-synchronized sounds and music (by Toru Takemitsu) that enhance the otherworldly effect of director Masaki Kobayashi's meticulous imagery. When viewed in a receptive frame of mind, Kwaidan can be intensely hypnotic.

Each of the four stories find their protagonists confronted by spirits that compel them to (respectively) make amends for past mistakes, maintain vows of silence, satisfy the yearnings of the undead, or capture phantoms that remain frightfully e...

Rikyu [VHS]

Rikyu [VHS]

Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Staring: Rentarô Mikuni , Yoshiko Mita , Tsutomu Yamazaki , Kyôko Kishida , Tanie Kitabayashi
Director: Hiroshi Teshigahara

List Price: $79.95
Kwaidan

Kwaidan

Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Staring: Rentaro Mikuni , Michiyo Aratama , Misako Watanabe , Tatsuya Nakadai , Keiko Kishi
Director: Masaki Kobayashi
Kwaidan is an engrossing masterpiece of four nightmarish tales in which terror thrives and demons lurk. Throughout each tale, director Masaki Kobayashi's handsomely conceived imagery conveys a sensual quality that immerses the viewer deep in the spiritual world. Combining visually stunning effects with beautiful use of color, Kobayashi has created a supernatural experience beyond the imagination.
List Price: $29.95 Our Price: $4.89
Harakiri [VHS]

Harakiri [VHS]

Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Staring: Tatsuya Nakadai , Rentarô Mikuni , Shima Iwashita , Akira Ishihama , Shichisaburo Amatsu
Director: Masaki Kobayashi
In this grim yet exquisitely composed film, Kobayashi delves into the world of the 17th-century samurai, examining "the honor in death--and the death of honor" (Time). After an unemployed samurai is forced to commit harakiri before a feudal lord, his father-in-law returns to the scene, seemingly to play out the same agonizing suicide ritual. Tensions grow to excruciating levels, then find thrilling release as the elder warrior strikes out one last time against a cruelly rigid society.
List Price: $29.95 Our Price: $14.69