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The Yakuza
''The Yakuza'' is a 1974 neo-noir crime drama film directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Robert Mitchum, Ken Takakura and Brian Keith. The screenplay by Paul Schrader and Robert Towne is from a story by Schrader's brother, Leonard Schrader. The film is about a retired American detective who returns to Japan after decades away in order to rescue his friend's daughter, kidnapped by the eponymous crime syndicate. Following a lackluster initial release, the film has since gained a cult following. Plot Retired detective Harry Kilmer is called upon by an old friend, George Tanner. Tanner has been doing business with a ''yakuza'' gangster, Tono, who has kidnapped Tanner's daughter to apply pressure in a business deal involving the sale of guns. Tanner hopes that Kilmer can rescue the girl using his Japanese connections. Kilmer and Tanner had been Marine MPs in Tokyo during the post-war occupation. Kilmer became aware of a woman, Eiko, who was involved in the black market so that sh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sydney Pollack
Sydney Irwin Pollack (July 1, 1934 – May 26, 2008) was an American film director, producer and actor. Pollack directed more than 20 films and 10 television shows, acted in over 30 movies or shows and produced over 44 films. For his film ''Out of Africa'' (1985), Pollack won the Academy Award for Best Director and Best Picture. He was also nominated for Best Director Oscars for '' They Shoot Horses, Don't They?'' (1969) and ''Tootsie'' (1982). Some of his other best-known works include '' Jeremiah Johnson'' (1972), ''The Way We Were'' (1973), '' Three Days of the Condor'' (1975) and '' Absence of Malice'' (1981). His subsequent films included ''Havana'' (1990), '' The Firm'' (1993), ''The Interpreter'' (2005), and he produced and acted in ''Michael Clayton'' (2007). Pollack also made appearances in Robert Altman's Hollywood mystery '' The Player'' (1992), Woody Allen's relationship drama ''Husbands and Wives'' (1993), and Stanley Kubrick's erotic psychological drama ''Eyes Wid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cult Following
A cult following refers to a group of fans who are highly dedicated to some person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The lattermost is often called a cult classic. A film, book, musical artist, television series, or video game, among other things, is said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fanbase. A common component of cult followings is the emotional attachment the fans have to the object of the cult following, often identifying themselves and other fans as members of a community. Cult followings are also commonly associated with niche markets. Cult media are often associated with underground culture, and are considered too eccentric or anti-establishment to be appreciated by the general public or to be widely commercially successful. Many cult fans express their devotion with a level of irony when describing entertainment that falls under this realm, in that something ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Jordan
Robert Anson Jordan Jr. (July 19, 1937 – August 30, 1993) was an American actor. A long-time member of the New York Shakespeare Festival, he performed in many Off Broadway and Broadway plays. His films include ''Logan's Run'', ''Les Misérables'', '' Old Boyfriends'', ''Raise the Titanic'', ''The Friends of Eddie Coyle'', ''The Yakuza'', ''Interiors'', '' The Bunker'', ''Dune'', '' The Secret of My Success'', '' Timebomb'', ''The Hunt for Red October'', ''Posse'' and '' Gettysburg''. Early life Jordan was born in New York City to Robert Anson Jordan, Sr. from Boston, Massachusetts, and Constance (née Hand) from New York. His maternal grandfather was Learned Hand, judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and one of the most highly respected jurists in the United States. In 1942, when Jordan was five years old, his parents divorced. His mother married Newbold Morris, president of the New York City Council. Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia officiated at t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herb Edelman
Herbert Edelman (November 5, 1933 – July 21, 1996) was an American actor of stage, film and television. He was twice nominated for an Emmy Award for his television work. One of his best-known roles was as Stanley Zbornak, the ex-husband of Dorothy Zbornak (played by Beatrice Arthur) on ''The Golden Girls''. He also had a recurring role on the 1980s medical drama '' St. Elsewhere''. Early life and career Edelman was born in New York City in the borough of Brooklyn. Before becoming an actor, Edelman studied to become a veterinarian at Cornell University, but left during his first year. After serving in the United States Army as an announcer for Armed Forces Radio, he enrolled in Brooklyn College as a theater student, but eventually dropped out. He later worked as a hotel manager and as a taxicab driver. One of his fares was director Mike Nichols, who in 1963 cast Edelman in his breakthrough Broadway role, as the bewildered telephone repairman in Neil Simon's ''Barefoot in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nihongo
is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic languages, Japonic or Japanese-Ryukyuan languages, Ryukyuan language family. There have been many Classification of the Japonic languages, attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as the Ainu languages, Ainu, Austroasiatic languages, Austroasiatic, Koreanic languages, Koreanic, and the now-discredited Altaic languages, Altaic, but none of these proposals has gained widespread acceptance. Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century AD recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial Old Japanese texts did not appear until the 8th century. From the Heian period (794–1185), there was a massive influx of Sino-Japanese vocabulary into the language, affecting the phonology of Early Middle Japanese. Lat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yubitsume
or ''otoshimae'' is a Japanese ritual to atone for offenses to another, a way to be punished or to show sincere apology and remorse to another, by means of amputating portions of one's own little finger The little finger, or pinkie, also known as the baby finger, fifth digit, or pinky finger, is the most ulnar and smallest digit of the human hand, and next to the ring finger. Etymology The word "pinkie" is derived from the Dutch word ''p .... In modern times, it is primarily performed by the yakuza, one of the most prominent Japanese criminal organizations. Origin The ritual is thought to have originated with the bakuto, itinerant gamblers who were predecessors of the modern yakuza.Kaplan, D.; Dubro, A: ''Yakuza'', p. 14. University of California Press, 2003 If a person was unable to pay off a gambling debt, yubitsume was sometimes considered an alternative form of repayment. Yubitsume was a form of credit and reputation score. In Japanese swordsmanship (kendo an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seppuku
, sometimes referred to as hara-kiri (, , a native Japanese kun reading), is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai in their code of honour but was also practised by other Japanese people during the Shōwa period (particularly officers near the end of World War II) to restore honour for themselves or for their families. As a samurai practice, ''seppuku'' was used voluntarily by samurai to die with honour rather than fall into the hands of their enemies (and likely be tortured), as a form of capital punishment for samurai who had committed serious offences, or performed because they had brought shame to themselves. The ceremonial disembowelment, which is usually part of a more elaborate ritual and performed in front of spectators, consists of plunging a short blade, traditionally a ''tantō'', into the belly and drawing the blade from left to right, slicing the belly open. If the cut is deep enough, it can sever the abdominal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Katana
A is a Japanese sword characterized by a curved, single-edged blade with a circular or squared guard and long grip to accommodate two hands. Developed later than the ''tachi'', it was used by samurai in feudal Japan and worn with the edge facing upward. Since the Muromachi period, many old ''tachi'' were cut from the root and shortened, and the blade at the root was crushed and converted into ''katana''. The specific term for ''katana'' in Japan is ''uchigatana'' (打刀) and the term ''katana'' (刀) often refers to single-edged swords from around the world. Etymology and loanwords The word ''katana'' first appears in Japanese in the '' Nihon Shoki'' of 720. The term is a compound of ''kata'' ("one side, one-sided") + ''na'' ("blade"), in contrast to the double-sided '' tsurugi''. See more at the Wiktionary entry. The ''katana'' belongs to the ''nihontō'' family of swords, and is distinguished by a blade length (''nagasa'') of more than 2 ''shaku'', approximately . ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaijin
is a Japanese word for foreigners and non-Japanese citizens in Japan, specifically being applied to foreigners of non-Japanese ethnicity and those from the Japanese diaspora who are not Japanese citizens. The word is composed of two kanji: and . Similarly composed words that refer to foreign things include and . The word is typically used to refer to foreigners of non-East Asian ethnicities. Some feel the word has come to have a negative or pejorative connotation, while other observers maintain it is neutral. is a more neutral and somewhat more formal term widely used in the Japanese government and in media. ''Gaijin'' does not specifically mean a foreigner that is also a white person; instead, the term ''hakujin'' (白人, "white person") can be considered as a type of foreigner, and ''kokujin'' (黒人, "black person") would be the black equivalent. Etymology and history The word ''gaijin'' can be traced in writing to the 13th-century ''Heike Monogatari'': Here, ''gaijin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kyoto, Japan
Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the city had a population of 1.46 million. The city is the cultural anchor of a substantially larger metropolitan area known as Greater Kyoto, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) home to a census-estimated 3.8 million people. Kyoto is one of the oldest municipalities in Japan, having been chosen in 794 as the new seat of Japan's imperial court by Emperor Kanmu. The original city, named Heian-kyō, was arranged in accordance with traditional Chinese feng shui following the model of the ancient Chinese capital of Chang'an/Luoyang. The emperors of Japan ruled from Kyoto in the following eleven centuries until 1869. It was the scene of several key events of the Muromachi period, Sengoku period, and the Boshin War, such as the Ōnin War, the Honn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kendo
is a modern Japanese martial art, descended from kenjutsu (one of the old Japanese martial arts, swordsmanship), that uses bamboo swords (shinai) as well as protective armor (bōgu). Today, it is widely practiced within Japan and has spread to many other nations across the world. History Swordsmen in Japan established schools of '' kenjutsu'' (the ancestor of kendo). These continued for centuries and form the basis of kendo practice today.. Formal kendo exercises known as '' kata'' were developed several centuries ago as ''kenjutsu'' practice for warriors. They are still studied today, in a modified form. The introduction of bamboo practice swords and armor to sword training is attributed to during the Shotoku Era (1711–1715). Naganuma developed the use of this armor and established a training method using bamboo swords. , third son of Naganuma and the 8th headmaster of the Kashima Shinden Jikishinkage-ryū Kenjutsu, is credited with improving the art with Japanese ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giri (Japanese)
is a Japanese value roughly corresponding to "duty", "obligation", or even "burden of obligation" in English. It is defined as "to serve one's superiors with a self-sacrificing devotion" by Namiko Abe. It is also associated with the complex Japanese values that involve loyalty, gratitude, and moral debt. This value is so integral to Japanese culture that the conflict between ''giri'' and ''ninjō'', or "human feeling", is said to have been the primary topic of Japanese drama since earlier periods in history. Concept ''Giri'' is defined as social obligation and is best explained in the way it goes in direct conflict with ''ninjō.'' According to Doi Takeo, giri can be classified with those forms and actions that locates the self in relation to society whereas ''ninjō'' falls within the category of the inner and intimate realm of the self. Scholars refer to the dynamics of the ''giri''-''ninjō'' relationship as a dichotomy that reflects the human dilemma of needing to belong ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
