Category "japanese-cinema"

Why was Kurosawa the first director to shoot the sun?

Akira Kurosawa is often credited as the first director to point his camera towards the sun in his film Rashomon (1950). Was this an artistic first, or was there

Cultural Basis of Asian Ghost Lady

In a lot of Asian horror movies (particularly Japanese ones) a common motif is the ghost lady in white, with long black hair covering her face. The wide spread

Japanese films/TV adaptations of the Taiping Rebellion?

In the 1850's and 60's, the Taiping Rebellion broke out in China, observed by both the Tokugawa Bakufu and subsequently the Meiji Imperial government. Some 200

What is the cultural significance of the "kaiju screech"?

Last night I watched The Mighty Peking Man for the first (and probably last) time. It's a 1977 Cantonese King Kong ripoff, made purely "to capitalize on the cra

Is the beard on Toshiro Mifune's samurai characters an exception?

I'm not sure whether historically samurai — members of the Japanese warrior caste — were supposed to always be clean-shaven or not. But I seem to re

Why is Yasujirō Ozu regarded as the most "Japanese" filmmaker?

I am studying Ozu and his films, and I often come across the sentence that he is the most "Japanese" filmmaker. Ozu's style is very different and unique, howeve

What is the name of this technique?

I saw this in two japanese movies (as I remember), and they were not from the same directors. First was Kagemusha, and the other one was Kwaidan. And they both