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Shochiku
is a Japanese entertainment company. Founded in 1895, it initially managed '' kabuki'' theaters in Kyoto; in 1914, it also acquired ownership of the Kabuki-za theater in Tokyo. In 1920, Shochiku entered the film production industry and established the Kamata Film Studio. Currently, it is considered one of Japan's Big Four film studios and is the oldest among the Big Four. Shochiku is a member of the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan (MPPAJ). It also produces and distributes anime films, in particular those produced by Bandai Namco Filmworks (which has a long-time partnership—the company released most, if not all, anime films produced by Bandai Namco Filmworks). Its best remembered directors include Yasujirō Ozu, Kenji Mizoguchi, Mikio Naruse, Keisuke Kinoshita and Yōji Yamada. It has also produced films by highly regarded independent and "loner" directors such as Takashi Miike, Takeshi Kitano, Akira Kurosawa, Masaki Kobayashi and Taiwanese New Wave d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masaki Kobayashi
was a Japanese film director and screenwriter, best known for the epic trilogy '' The Human Condition'' (1959–1961), the samurai films '' Harakiri'' (1962) and '' Samurai Rebellion'' (1967), and the horror anthology '' Kwaidan'' (1964). ''Senses of Cinema'' described him as "one of the finest depicters of Japanese society in the 1950s and 1960s." Biography Early life (1916–1946) Childhood and schooling (1916–1942) Kobayashi was born on February 14, 1916, in Otaru, a port city on the island of Hokkaido. Kobayashi's family was a part of the upper-middle class, as his father, Yuichi, worked for Mitsui & Co., and his mother, Hisako, was part of a merchant family. He had two older brothers and a younger sister. He was also a second cousin of the actress and director Kinuyo Tanaka. The Kobayashi family descends from a samurai from Shimonoseki. Kobayashi lived in Tokyo while in elementary school, but otherwise lived in Otaru until he was 17 years-old. Kobayashi's household was w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shochiku Geino
is a Japanese talent agency headquartered in Chuo-ku, Osaka. It was founded in 1958 under the conglomerate Shochiku Co., Ltd and focuses on talent management for comedians and ''tarento''. The agency mainly associates itself with acts and entertainment under the ''Kamigata'' culture. Notable talents Comedians Groups * America Zarigani (Tetsuya Yanagihara, Yoshiyuki Hirai) * Masuda Okada (Hidehiko Masuda, Keisuke Okada) * TKO (Takehiro Kimoto, Takayuki Kinoshita) * Yasuda Dai Circus (Yasuda Dancho, Kuro-chan, HIRO) * Yoiko (Masaru Hamaguchi, Shinya Arino) Solo * Kintalo * Buruma Konno *Kenji Moriwaki *Shōfukutei Tsurube II Other tarento * Chiemi Hori (singer, actress) * Atsushi Oyagi (former rugby player) *Masakatsu Funaki (actor, wrestler) Former talents *Othello ''The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice'', often shortened to ''Othello'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare around 1603. Set in Venice and Cyprus, the play depicts the Moorish military ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yasujirō Ozu
was a Japanese filmmaker. He began his career during the era of silent films, and his last films were made in colour in the early 1960s. Ozu first made a number of short comedies, before turning to more serious themes in the 1930s. The most prominent themes of Ozu's work are family and marriage, and especially the relationships between generations. His most widely beloved films include ''Late Spring'' (1949), ''Tokyo Story'' (1953) and ''An Autumn Afternoon'' (1962). Widely regarded as one of the world's greatest and most influential filmmakers, Ozu's work has continued to receive acclaim since his death. In the 2012 ''Sight & Sound'' poll, Ozu's ''Tokyo Story'' was voted the third-greatest film of all time by critics world-wide. In the same poll, ''Tokyo Story'' was voted the greatest film of all time by 358 directors and film-makers world-wide. Biography Early life Ozu was born in the Fukagawa, Tokyo, Fukagawa district of Tokyo City, Tokyo, the second son of merchant Torano ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Keisuke Kinoshita
was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. Ronald Berganbr>"A satirical eye on Japan: Keisuke Kinoshita" ''The Guardian'', 5 January 1999. While lesser-known internationally than contemporaries such as Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasujirō Ozu, he was a household figure in his home country, beloved by both critics and audiences from the 1940s to the 1960s. Kinoshita's films were marked by a sense of sentimentality, purity, and beauty, and often featured experimentation in both technique and subject matter. Kinoshita entered the film industry in 1933 as a film processor. He moved on to the position of camera assistant, then assistant director. In 1943, Kinoshita was promoted to director and released his first film, ''Port of Flowers''. A prolific filmmaker, Kinoshita directed 43 films in the first 23 years of his career, and then five more after a stint in television production. Among his best known films are '' Carmen Comes Home'' (1951), '' A Japanese Tragedy'' ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kabuki-za
in Ginza is the principal theater in Tokyo for the traditional ''kabuki'' drama form. History The Kabuki-za was originally opened by a Meiji era journalist, Fukuchi Gen'ichirō. Fukuchi wrote kabuki dramas in which Ichikawa Danjūrō IX and others starred; upon Danjūrō's death in 1903, Fukuchi retired from the management of the theater. The theater is now run by the Shochiku Corporation which took over in 1914. The original Kabuki-za was a wooden structure, built in 1889 on land which had been either the Tokyo residence of the Hosokawa clan of Kumamoto, or that of Matsudaira clan of Izu Province, Izu. The building was destroyed on 30 October 1921, by an electrical fire. The reconstruction, which commenced in 1922, was designed to "be fireproof, yet carry traditional Japanese architecture, Japanese architectural styles", while using Western building materials and lighting equipment. Reconstruction had not been completed when it again burned down during the 1923 Great Kant� ... [...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] |
Nikkatsu
is a Japanese film studio located in Bunkyō. The name ''Nikkatsu'' amalgamates the words Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally "Japan Motion Pictures". Shareholders are Nippon Television Holdings (35%) and SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation (28.4%). History Founding in 1912 Nikkatsu is Japan's oldest major movie studio, having been founded on September 10, 1912, when several production companies and theater chains, Yoshizawa Shōten, Yokota Shōkai, Fukuhōdō and M. Pathe, consolidated under the name Nippon Katsudō Shashin. The company enjoyed its share of success. It employed such notable film directors as Shozo Makino and his son Masahiro Makino. During World War II, the government ordered the ten film companies that had formed by 1941 to consolidate into two. Masaichi Nagata, founder of Daiei Film and a former Nikkatsu employee, counter-proposed that three companies be formed and the suggestion was approved. Nikkatsu, set to merge with the two weakest companies, Shin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yoji Yamada
is a Japanese film director best known for his ''Otoko wa Tsurai yo'' series of films and his Samurai Trilogy ('' The Twilight Samurai'', '' The Hidden Blade'' and '' Love and Honor''). Biography Yamada was born in Osaka, but due to his father's job as an engineer for the South Manchuria Railway, he was brought up in Dalian, China, from the age of two. Following the end of World War II, he returned to Japan and subsequently lived in Ube in Yamaguchi Prefecture. After receiving his degree from Tokyo University in 1954, he entered Shochiku and worked under Yoshitaro Nomura as a scriptwriter and as an assistant director. Yamada won many awards throughout his long career and is well respected in Japan and by critics throughout the world. He wrote his first screenplay in 1958 and directed his first movie in 1961. Yamada continues to make movies to this day. He once served as president of the Directors Guild of Japan, and is currently a guest professor of Ritsumeikan University. To ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tsukiji
Tsukiji (築地) is a district of Chūō, Tokyo, Japan. Literally meaning "reclaimed land", it lies near the Sumida River on land reclaimed from Tokyo Bay in the 18th century during the Edo period. The eponymous Tsukiji fish market opened in 1935 and closed in 2018 when its operations were moved to the new Toyosu Market. There are also districts named ''Tsukiji'' in Kobe and Amagasaki, cities in Hyōgo Prefecture, although neither is as well known as the district in Tokyo. History Tsukiji is built on reclaimed land out of what were once lowland marshes along the Sumida River delta. Throughout the Tokugawa period, earth from the shogunate's extensive moat and canal excavations was systematically used to fill in the marshes along the river, creating new commercial districts and waterfront housing. The land was then named Tsukiji (築地), meaning "constructed land" or "reclaimed land". The Great Fire of Meireki of 1657 destroyed over two-thirds of Edo's buildings, including Hon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hou Hsiao-hsien
Hou Hsiao-hsien ( zh, t=侯孝賢, poj=Hâu Hàu-hiân; born 8 April 1947) is a retired Mainland Chinese-born Taiwanese film director, screenwriter, producer and actor. He is a leading figure in world cinema and in Taiwan's New Wave cinema movement. He won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1989 for his film '' A City of Sadness'' (1989), and the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015 for '' The Assassin'' (2015). Other highly regarded works of his include '' The Puppetmaster'' (1993) and ''Flowers of Shanghai'' (1998). Hou was voted "Director of the Decade" for the 1990s in a poll of American and international critics by ''The Village Voice'' and ''Film Comment''. In a 1998 New York Film Festival worldwide critics' poll, Hou was named "one of the three directors most crucial to the future of cinema." ''A City of Sadness'' ranked 117th in the British Film Institute's 2012 ''Sight & Sound'' critics' poll of the greatest films ever made. In 2017, Met ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kabuki
is a classical form of Theatre of Japan, Japanese theatre, mixing dramatic performance with Japanese traditional dance, traditional dance. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily stylised performances, its glamorous, highly decorated costumes, and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers. Kabuki is thought to have originated in the early Edo period, when the art's founder, Izumo no Okuni, formed a female dance troupe that performed dances and light sketches in Kyoto. The art form later developed into its present all-male theatrical form after women were banned from performing in kabuki theatre in 1629. Kabuki developed throughout the late 17th century and reached its zenith in the mid-18th century. In 2005, kabuki theatre was proclaimed by UNESCO as an intangible heritage possessing outstanding universal value. In 2008, it was inscribed in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists, UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pine
A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. ''World Flora Online'' accepts 134 species-rank taxa (119 species and 15 nothospecies) of pines as current, with additional synonyms, and ''Plants of the World Online'' 126 species-rank taxa (113 species and 13 nothospecies), making it the largest genus among the conifers. The highest species diversity of pines is found in Mexico. Pines are widely species distribution, distributed in the Northern Hemisphere; they occupy large areas of boreal forest, but are found in many habitats, including the Mediterranean Basin, and dry tropical forests in southeast Asia and Central America. Wood from pine trees is one of the most extensively used types of timber, and some pines are widely used as Christmas trees. Description Pine trees are evergreen, coniferous resinous trees (or, rarely, shrubs) growing tall, with the majority of species reachin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
