japan
SAILOR CATS Review: A mad mission through time in search of the ultimate fun.
Three beautiful girls wearing sailor Moon costumes, travel through time to help Hattori Hanzo in a deadly mission that can change Japan´s history forever… Mad premise for a crazy adventure, in which all this craziness is where relies all its charming.
STATION (駅) (1981) Review: When life is a station where trains of regret never stop coming
Ken Takakura and Chieko Baisho screen romances were something special that went beyond any definition that words could express. They were restrained and quiet on the surface but passionate and intense underneath.
This classic from Japanese cinema directed by Yasuo Furuhata (Demon Yasha) hides on its plot a story of vengeance that is caught into a love story. 2 hours and 15 minutes of feelings put into images and two terrific actors that put on display their incredible talent in an acting masterclass, to tell a story about regrets, in which Ken Takakura plays a detective training to be a sharpshooter at Olympics who goes out of his way to crack the case of a serial killer specialising in policeman murders when his coach is gunned down by a fleeing criminal.
Ken Takakura leads the story, being restrained and serious but filling every scene with his smashing screen presence, showing us why he was the toughest man on the history of Japan, playing a character who suffers multiple tragedies who begins an affair with a middle-aged woman as escape from the pain, but just reliving his past mistakes.
Chieko Baisho appears here prettier than ever, portraying a lively and memorable character that makes us forget her unforgettable portrayal of Sakura in the Tora san series, making the audience fall into her dangerous clutches of love, at the same time that Takakura´s character does it.
The films that Yasuo Furuhata and Ken Takakura made together were exquisite and technically beautiful, telling heartbreaking and touching stories wrapped into a warming melancholic tone that made them unique and special, becoming instant classics that moviegoers around the world really need to discover. So, dear movie fans around the world, if in your cinematic journeys there´s a chance to stop in this STATION, don´t hesitate in going down to the platform and enjoy one of the most beautiful films that you could ever watch.
BOXER ボクサー (1977) Review: Losers Building Dreams That They Can Believe In
A pessimistic, darker, and probably more realistic vision of the boxing world than most movies of the genre,that tells the story of an old glory of boxing played by the legendary Bunta Sugawara, who becomes the coach of the man who accidentaly killed his brother in a construction site, in order to make him pay his debt with him and more importantly achieve again boxing glory, but this time as a coach. Here there’s no fanfares or inspirational heroes, just two hopeless losers that need each other to build a dream that they can believe.
DEMON/YASHA Review: Even the toughest guys live passionate romances
Ken Takakura plays Shuji, a retired Yakuza gangster who lives in a small coastal town trying to put his dark past behind him, but when a gorgeous young woman (Yuko Tanaka) also from Osaka comes to town to settle down, the world of our cold and ruthless Yakuza seems to stop. She becomes a forbidden passion for him, and we all know that passion blinds reason and is guided by heart. So our cold protagonist lets his weakness for the beautiful Yuko Tanaka, (gorgeous as always), guide him back to that past he left in Osaka, for just one and only reason, LOVE. Because when real tough guys as ken Takakura falls madly in love, all the passion they keep inside their soul, explodes in glorious violence splashing the screen for the enjoyment of movie junkies and moviegoers all around the world.
A restrained story full of silences, complicit glances, and silent passion, that follows two characters in search of a redemption that constantly eludes them, in a ruthless world leaded by treachery and violence, in which they may find hope in each other to survive.
Exquisitely shot with a beautiful cinematography and memorable images of some of Osaka’s iconic sites like Dotonbori street, which has been a part of so many other unforgettable movies, this Demon/Yasha from 1985, directed by Yasuo Furuhata, is an essential classic from Japanese cinema, that belongs to a wonderful collection of movie romances in which Ken Takakura, gave really useful masterclasses on how a real man should love
If you love cinema, you can´t miss it
SAMURAI MARATHON Review: A Marathon To Defend A Nation, Turns Into A Race Of Survival Towards A New Era
An original and different kind of samurai movie that is really worth it to watch.
BURNOUT NEO Review: Asami’s Badassery At Its Finest Expression
Revisiting Asami´s filmography, I came to the conclusion that Burnout Neo, must be one of her finest works, at least in terms of martial action, but also might be one of the most unknown and unfairly forgotten, which means that despairly needs to be reivindicated.
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