Films with: Mizoguchi, Kenji

47 Ronin.

Their lord having been tricked into commiting suicide by a corrupt elder court official, a group of 47 samurai who have been forced to become ronin nurse their anger and outrage, each becoming the personification of the samurai spirit, until the time is right to avenge their dead lord's honor.

DVD 688

Akasen chitai Street of shame /

The final film of director Kenji Mizoguchi follows the lives of five prostitutes in the Yoshiwara region of Tokyo. Each has a different story and different plans, but they all share an uncertain future as they face the outlawing of their profession.

DVD 8604

Chikamatsu monogatari A story from Chikamatsu /

"An exquisitely moving tale of forbidden love struggling to survive in the face of persecution. Based on a classic of eighteenth-century Japanese drama, the film traces the injustices that befall a Kyoto scroll maker's wife and his apprentice after each is unfairly accused of wrongdoing. Bound by fate in an illicit, star-crossed romance, they go on the run in search of refuge from the punishment prescribed them: death"--Container.

DVD 12867

Gion no shimai Sisters of the Gion /

Two geisha sisters - one modern-minded, the other staunchly traditional - disagree over how to deal with the men controlling their lives and livelihoods. An early work by Kenji Mizoguchi featuring his favored theme of women struggling against societal boundaries.

DVD 8606

Ōsaka erejī Osaka elegy /

Telephone company employee Ayako agrees to enter into an affair with her married boss, after he promises to support her and her father but setting her off on an apparently irreversible downward spiral.

DVD 8556

Sanshô dayû Sansho the bailiff /

When an idealistic governor disobeys the reigning feudal lord, he is cast into exile, his wife and children left to fend for themselves and eventually wrenched apart by vicious slave drivers.

DVD 5265

Shin heike monogatari Taira clan saga /

In twelfth century Japan, the Fujiyawa clan confronts the problems of famine, riots, and the growing power of the Samurai.

DVD 5264

Ugetsu

In sixteenth century Japan a village potter and his brother-in-law set out for the city to seek their fortunes in the spoils of war. Their neglected wives suffer the bitter consequences of their husbands' ambition as one is murdered by soldiers and the other is raped and becomes a prostitute.

DVD 4696

Yoru no onnatachi Women of the night /

Filmed on location in Osaka, Women of the night concerns two sisters, Fusako and Natsuko, one a war widow and the other in an affair with a drug dealer. Along with their younger friend Kumiko they fall into prostitution and moral chaos and a life of gangs and gangsters, trapped by their city's postwar desperation and devastation.

DVD 8605

Zangiku monogatari Story of the last chrysanthemum /

This heartrending masterpiece by Kenji Mizoguchi about the give-and-take between life and art marked the director's first use of the hypnotic long takes and eloquent camera movements that would come to define his films. The adopted son of legendary kabuki actor Kikunosuke, who is striving to achieve stardom by mastering female roles, turns to his infant brother's wet nurse for support and affection, and she soon gives up everything for her beloved's creative glory.

DVD 11981