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Gonza the Spearman [VHS]

Gonza the Spearman [VHS]

Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Staring: Haruko Kato , Hideji Ôtaki , Kuniko Miyake , Choichiro Kawarazaki , Naoto Takenaka
Director: Masahiro Shinoda

List Price: $24.95 Our Price: $95.59
Akage [VHS]

Akage [VHS]

Staring: Toshirô Mifune , Shima Iwashita , Etsushi Takahashi , Minori Terada , Nobuko Otowa

Double Suicide [VHS]

Double Suicide [VHS]

Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Staring: Kichiemon Nakamura , Shima Iwashita , Hôsei Komatsu , Yûsuke Takita , Kamatari Fujiwara
Director: Masahiro Shinoda
Inspired by a classic 18th-century puppet play, Double Suicide is the heartbreaking tale of a married shopkeeper in love with a prostitute. Bound by duty, and too poor to pay her way out of bondage, Jihei asks Koharu to enter a suicide pact, the only way they can be free. Masahiro Shinoda's moving adaptation is at once faithful to the original and extremely innovative. Puppet masters and stage hands appear on screen, changing scenery and manipulating the actors' movements. Even Shinoda, his cameras, and crew are visible at times. These backstage views brilliantly accentuate how the characters' lives are dictated by outside forces. The superb cast is led by Shima Iwashita, who plays both the merchant's lovely mistress and his plain wife. The beautifully composed suicide scene brings the timeless love story to a shattering conclusion.
List Price: $29.95 Our Price: $39.95
An Autumn Afternoon [VHS]

An Autumn Afternoon [VHS]

Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Staring: Chishû Ryû , Shima Iwashita , Keiji Sada , Mariko Okada , Teruo Yoshida
Director: Yasujirô Ozu
Deceptively breezy, Yasujiro Ozu's final film, made in 1962, is the lovely culmination of the mysterious writer-director's fascination with family, and the social mechanisms by which different generations fulfill obligations to one another and to themselves. The central character, Shuhei Hirayama (Chishu Ryu, Ozu's longtime collaborator), is a 60-ish executive and widower who slowly grows concerned that his 24-year-old daughter, Michiko (Shima Iwashita), has not married because she feels responsible for taking care of him at home. Taciturn, low-key, but affable, Shuhei is a hard man to read. But through his friendships, habits, daily reminders of his past and fear that he might rob his daughter of her youth, Shuhei gradually comes to terms with his responsibility to see Michiko fulfilled and happy. There is also more to it than that: An Autumn Afternoon is also about Shuhei turning a page in his small part in history, the closing chapters of a life that involved military service during World War II and settling into post-war, largely Westernized Japan. These things are all understated, but Ozu gives every character a shape, a recognition that one must play the cards one is ...
List Price: $19.95 Our Price: $19.95
Macarthur's Children [VHS]

Macarthur's Children [VHS]

Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Staring: Takaya Yamauchi , Yoshiyuki Omori , Shiori Sakura , Masako Natsume , Hideji Otaki
Director: Masahiro Shinoda

List Price: $29.99
Red Lion [VHS]

Red Lion [VHS]

Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Staring: Toshirô Mifune , Shima Iwashita , Etsushi Takahashi , Minori Terada , Nobuko Otowa
Director: Kihachi Okamoto

List Price: $29.95 Our Price: $17.79
Harakiri [VHS]

Harakiri [VHS]

Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Staring: Tatsuya Nakadai , Rentaro Mikuni , Shima Iwashita , Akira Ishihama , Tetsuro Tamba
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: $14.79
No More God, No More Love [VHS]

No More God, No More Love [VHS]

Staring: Hiromi Gô , Shima Iwashita , Miyuki Ono , Kouichi Iwaki , Toshirô Mifune
Director: Toru Murakawa

List Price: $39.99