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Masaru Sato
(sometimes transliterated Satoh) was a Japanese composer of film scores. Following the 1955 death of Fumio Hayasaka, whom Sato studied under, Sato was the composer of Akira Kurosawa's films for the next 10 years. He was nominated for Best Music at the 15th Japan Academy Prize in 1992. In 1999, the Japanese government decorated Sato with the Order of the Rising Sun, 4th Class, Gold Rays with Rosette for his contributions to the arts. Career He was born in Rumoi, Hokkaido, and raised in Sapporo. While studying at the National Music Academy, Sato came under the influence of Fumio Hayasaka, Akira Kurosawa's regular composer for his earlier films. He became a pupil of Hayasaka's, studying film scoring with him at Toho Studios, and working on the orchestration of '' Seven Samurai'' (1954). When the older composer died suddenly in 1955, leaving the scores to Kenji Mizoguchi's '' New Tales of the Taira Clan'', and Kurosawa's '' I Live in Fear'' incomplete, Toho assigned Sato to finish t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rumoi, Hokkaido
is a city located in Rumoi Subprefecture, Hokkaido, Japan. It is the capital of Rumoi Subprefecture. As of September 2016, the city has an estimated population of 22,242 and the density of 75 persons per km2. The total area is 297.44 km2. History Rumoi was developed by herring fishery and mining. *1869: Rurumoppe was renamed Rumoi. *1877: The village of Rumoi was founded. *1902: The villages of Rumoi and Reuke were merged to form Rumoi Village. *1907: Sandomari village was merged into Rumoi village. *1908: Rumoi village became Rumoi town. *1914: The capital of Mashike Subprefecture was transferred from Mashike to Rumoi and Mashike Subprefecture was renamed Rumoi Subprefecture. *1919: Obirashibe village (now Obira town) was split off. *1945 Rumoi was designated as the site of the proposed Soviet invasion of Hokkaido, with a plan to occupy the island from Rumoi in the west to Kushiro in the east. The plan was cancelled. *1947: Rumoi town became Rumoi city. Geography Rumoi is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Throne Of Blood
is a 1957 Japanese ''jidaigeki'' film co-written, produced, edited, and directed by Akira Kurosawa, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. The film transposes the plot of William Shakespeare's play ''Macbeth'' from Medieval Scotland to feudal Japan, with stylistic elements drawn from Noh drama. The film stars Toshiro Mifune and Isuzu Yamada in the lead roles, modelled on the characters Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. As with the play, the film tells the story of a warrior who assassinates his sovereign at the urging of his ambitious wife. Kurosawa was a fan of the play and intended to make his own adaptation for several years, delaying it after learning of Orson Welles' ''Macbeth'' (1948). Among his changes was the ending, which required archers to fire arrows around Mifune. The film was shot around Mount Fuji and Izu Peninsula. Despite the change in setting and language and numerous creative liberties, ''Throne of Blood'' is often considered one of the better film adaptations of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Godzilla
is a fictional monster, or '' kaiju'', originating from a series of Japanese films. The character first appeared in the 1954 film ''Godzilla'' and became a worldwide pop culture icon, appearing in various media, including 32 films produced by Toho, four American films and numerous video games, novels, comic books and television shows. Godzilla has been dubbed the "King of the Monsters", a phrase first used in ''Godzilla, King of the Monsters!'' (1956)'','' the Americanized version of the original film. Godzilla is an enormous, destructive, prehistoric sea monster awakened and empowered by nuclear radiation. With the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the '' Lucky Dragon 5'' incident still fresh in the Japanese consciousness, Godzilla was conceived as a metaphor for nuclear weapons. Others have suggested that Godzilla is a metaphor for the United States, a giant beast woken from its slumber which then takes terrible vengeance on Japan. As the film series expan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Lost World Of Sinbad
is a 1963 Japanese drama action film directed by Senkichi Taniguchi, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. The film stars Toshiro Mifune and Mie Hama. at Time Out The film is often confused with the theme of fantasy instead of '''' but, the book ''Toho Special Effects All Monster Encyclopedia'' specifically identifies it in the genre of ''tokusatsu'' fantasy. It was also released as ''Samurai Pirate'' in the United States. Cast * as Sukezaemon Naya *[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Senkichi Taniguchi
(February 19, 1912 – October 29, 2007) was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. Born in Tokyo, Japan, he attended Waseda University but left before graduating due to his involvement in a left-wing theater troupe. He joined P.C.L. (a precursor to Toho) in 1933 and began working as an assistant director to Kajirō Yamamoto alongside his longtime friend, acclaimed Japanese filmmaker, Akira Kurosawa. He made his feature film directing debut in 1947 with ''Snow Trail,'' which was written by Kurosawa. ''Snow Trail'' starred Toshirō Mifune in his film debut and actress Setsuko Wakayama. It helped establish Taniguchi's reputation for action film. Taniguchi and Wakayama married in 1949 (he had earlier been married to the screenwriter Yōko Mizuki), but the couple divorced in 1956. Taniguchi married his third wife, actress Kaoru Yachigusa, in 1957. Yachigusa and Taniguchi remained together for over fifty years until his death in 2007. Taniguchi was the screenwriter for th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The H-Man
is a Japanese science fiction thriller film directed by Ishirō Honda, with special effects directed by Eiji Tsuburaya. Plot On a rainy night in the outskirts of Tokyo, a drug smuggler, Misaki, is killed while trying to escape in a getaway car, leaving only his clothes behind. The police go to his apartment to investigate, questioning his girlfriend, Arai Chikako, who says Misaki hasn't returned home for five days. Arai is a singer at a cabaret, and meets Masada, a Jyoto University professor, there. She gives him a note to take to Misaki, but is confiscated and taken into custody by the police. He theorizes to the police Misaki's disappearance is the result of his physical form melting away due to exposure to radiation in the rain that night. The police dismisses the theory. That night, Nishiyama of a drug smuggling gang sneaks into Arai's apartment and threatens her, asking her where Misaki is. However, Arai doesn't know, and Nishiyama leaves by the window, followed by gu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Half Human
is a 1955 Japanese science fiction horror film directed by Ishirō Honda, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. The film stars Akira Takarada, Momoko Kōchi, Akemi Negishi, Sachio Sakai, and Nobuo Nakamura, with Sanshiro Sagara as the Abominable Snowman. Plot The Japanese version is told in flashbacks framed by scenes of a reporter questioning the expedition after they have returned from their harrowing ordeal in the mountains. Five young friends, university students, have come to the Japanese Alps in Nagano during New Year's for a skiing vacation. Among them are Takashi Iijima his girlfriend Machiko Takeno, her elder brother Kiyoshi Takeno and their friends Nakada and Kaji. Rather than the five of them skiing together, Kiyoshi announces that he will follow Kaji to the cabin of a mutual friend named Gen, and then meet the other three at the inn. Takashi, Michiko, and Nakada arrive at the inn, welcomed by the manager Matsui, who informs them that a blizzard is approaching. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ishirō Honda
was a Japanese filmmaker who directed 44 feature films in a career spanning 59 years. The most internationally successful Japanese filmmaker prior to Hayao Miyazaki, his films have had a significant influence on the film industry. Honda entered the Japanese film industry in 1934, working as the third assistant director on Sotoji Kimura's ''The Elderly Commoner's Life Study''. After 15 years of working on numerous films as an assistant director, he made his directorial debut with the short documentary film ''Ise-Shima'' (1949). Honda's first feature film, ''Aoi Shinju, The Blue Pearl'' (1952), was a critical success in Japan at the time and would lead him to direct three subsequent drama films. In 1954, Honda directed and co-wrote ''Godzilla (1954 film), Godzilla'', which became a box office success in Japan, and was nominated for two Japanese Movie Association awards. Because of the film's commercial success in Japan, it spawned a Godzilla (franchise), multimedia franchise, re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hideo Gosha
was a Japanese film director. Born in Arasaka, Tokyo Prefecture, Gosha graduated from high school and served in the Imperial Navy during the Second World War. After earning a business degree at Meiji University, he joined Nippon television as a reporter in 1953. In 1957 he moved on to the newly founded Fuji Television and rose through the ranks as a producer and director. One of his television shows, the chambara ''Three Outlaw Samurai'', so impressed the heads of the Shochiku film studio that he was offered the chance to adapt it as a feature film in 1964. Following this film's financial success, he directed a string of equally successful chambara productions through the end of the 1960s. His two most critical and popular successes of the period are ''Goyokin'' and '' Hitokiri'' (also known as ''Tenchu''), both released in 1969 and both considered to be two of the finest examples of the chambara genre. In ''The Samurai Film'', the first book-length study of the genre in English, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinephiles and public and academic libraries. Criterion has helped to standardize certain aspects of home-video releases such as film restoration, the letterboxing format for widescreen films and the inclusion of bonus features such as scholarly essays and commentary tracks. Criterion has produced and distributed more than 1,000 special editions of its films in VHS, Betamax, LaserDisc, DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray formats and box sets. These films and their special features are also available via an online streaming service that the company operates. History The company was founded in 1984 by Robert Stein, Aleen Stein and Joe Medjuck, who later were joined by Roger Smith. In 1985, the Steins, William Becker and Jonathan B. Turell f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Prince
Stephen Robert Prince (September 13, 1955 – December 30, 2020) was an American film critic, historian and theorist. He was a Professor of Communication Studies and was a Professor of Cinema at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University ("Virginia Tech"). His books include ''The Warrior's Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa'' (1991) and ''Savage Cinema: Sam Peckinpah and the Rise of Ultraviolent Movies'' (1998).Prince was frequently cited as an expert in East Asian cinema by Criterion and can often be heard in commentary tracks in their collections. Works Original works *''The Warrior's Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa'' (1991, 2nd edition, 1999), Princeton University Press. *''Visions of Empire: Political Imagery in Contemporary American Films'' (1992), Praeger. *''Movies and Meaning: An Introduction to Film'' (1996; 6th Edition, 2012) *''Savage Cinema: Sam Peckinpah and the Rise of Ultraviolent Movies'' (1998), University of Texas Press; *''Screening Violence'' (2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Red Beard
is a 1965 Japanese ''jidaigeki'' film co-written, edited, and directed by Akira Kurosawa, in his last collaboration with actor Toshiro Mifune. Based on Shūgorō Yamamoto's 1959 short story collection, '' Akahige Shinryōtan'', the film takes place in Koishikawa, a district of Edo, towards the end of the Tokugawa period, and is about the relationship between a town doctor and his new trainee. Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel ''Humiliated and Insulted'' provided the source for a subplot about a young girl, Otoyo (Terumi Niki), who is rescued from a brothel. The film looks at the problem of social injustice and explores two of Kurosawa's favorite topics: humanism and existentialism. A few critics have noted the film to be reminiscent in some ways of ''Ikiru''. It is Kurosawa's last black-and-white film. The film was a major box office success in Japan but is known for having caused a rift between Mifune and Kurosawa, with this being the final collaboration between them after working on 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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