Early Autumn: Masterworks of Japanese Cinema from the National Film Center, Tokyo
September 14, 2005–January 18, 2006

Purchase the exhibition catalogue

For the first time in its history, the National Film Center of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, opens its archival holdings to another FIAF institution, and presents a groundbreaking series of fifty-two films spanning the classic years of Japanese cinema: 1929–1970. Every print screened in the series is in 35mm and is newly struck from archival negatives; in addition, new English subtitles have been created by the National Film Center for each film. Familiar and not-so-familiar works by well-known Japanese directors will be screened, among them films by Kon Ichikawa, Keisuke Kinoshita, Teinosuke Kinugasa, Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi, Mikio Naruse, Nagisa Oshima, and Yasujiro Ozu. Many lesser-known but no less interesting films by such directors as Heinosuke Gosho, Ishirô Honda, Koreyoshi Kurahara, Hiroshi Shimizu, and Sadao Yamanaka will also be showcased. Taken as a whole, this series will serve as a primer in the history of Japanese film for the uninitiated, and will provide the veteran filmgoer with important new discoveries as well as the chance to see old favorites in fresh, clean prints. All films are in Japanese with English subtitles.

Organized by Mary Lea Bandy, Chief Curator, and Steven Higgins, Curator, Department of Film and Media; and Hisashi Okajima, Chief Curator, Akira Tochigi, Curator, and Hidenori Okada, Curator, National Film Center, Tokyo.

See a list of past screenings in this exhibition

Showa zankyo den (Contemporary Tales of Chivalry). 1965. Japan. Directed by Kiyoshi Saeki. Screenplay by Akira Murao, Hideaki Yamamoto, Isao Matsumoto. With Ken Takakura, Ryo Ikebe, Hiroki Matsukata. Depicting the standoff between rival yakuza groups in the markets of Asakusa, in downtown Tokyo, this film was an enormous success and led to the production of eight more films in the Showa zankyo den series between 1965 and 1972. Ken Takakura is virtually synonymous with yakuza films, regularly portraying characters of strength and honor won through suffering and pain. 90 min.

Saturday, December 10, 1:00. T1

Uma (The Horse). 1941. Japan. Written and directed by Kajiro Yamamoto. With Hideko Takamine, Chieko Takehisa, Keita (Kamatari) Fujiwara. This lyrical depiction of a year in the life of a Japanese agricultural village is also a heartwarming story about a horse, lovingly raised by a young girl, who comes to be sold to the military. Yamamoto prepared for this film by spending nearly a year researching Japan’s northeastern region, documenting the scenery and events of daily life in careful detail. Akira Kurosawa assisted in location shooting and editing. 128 min.

Saturday, December 10, 3:00. T1

Suna no onna (Woman in the Dunes). 1964. Japan. Directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara. Screenplay by Kobo Abe, based on his novel. With Eiji Okada, Kyoko Kishida, Koji Mitsui. After a day collecting insects, a man finds rest in a hut set at the bottom of a sandy pit, where an attractive woman lives. The following morning, he is shocked to find the rope ladder has been removed and he is unable to escape. This, the original Japanese version, is twenty-five minutes longer than the international release. 147 min.

Saturday, December 10, 8:30. T1

Kazoku (Where Spring Comes Late). 1970. Japan. Directed by Yoji Yamada. Screenplay by Yamada, Akira Miyazaki. With Chieko Baisho, Hisashi Ikawa, Chishu Ryu. Set in 1970, the year of the Japan World Exposition in Osaka, which, along with the 1964 Olympics, signified Japan’s postwar economic recovery, Kazoku is a road movie that carefully depicts a poor, marginalized family making its way up the Japanese archipelago, from Kyushu to Hokkaido. 107 min.

Sunday, December 11, 2:00. T1; Friday, December 16, 6:30. T2

Hadaka no shima (The Island). 1960. Japan. Written and directed by Kaneto Shindo. With Taiji Tonoyama, Nobuko Otowa, Shinji Tanaka. A middle-aged couple and their two sons live on a small, isolated island in the Inland Ocean. The landscape is forbidding, but the family manages to survive by gathering wheat in the spring and yams in the summer. The Island is a representative work by Shindo (b. 1912), the oldest living member of Japan’s scriptwriting fraternity, who continues to work in his nineties. 96 min.

Sunday, December 11, 4:30; Monday, December 12, 6:00. T1

Jigokumon (Gate of Hell). 1953. Japan. Written and directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa. With Kazuo Hasegawa, Machiko Kyo, Isao Yamagata. During the Heian period, warrior Morito falls in love with Kesa, a beautiful young woman he is charged with protecting. When he is offered his choice of reward for his services, Morito asks for Kesa’s hand, but discovers that she is already married. Unable to give her up, he kidnaps Kesa, who then takes her own life. In remorse, Morito becomes a monk. 88 min.

Monday, December 12, 8:00; Saturday, December 17, 2:00. T1

Hana Chirinu (Flowers Have Fallen). 1938. Japan. Directed by Tamizo Ishida. Screenplay by Kaoru Morimoto. With Ranko Hanai, Reiko Minakami, Rikie Sanjo. It is July 1884, and the owner of a Kyoto restaurant resents the current political instability and its negative impact on her business, while her daughter is hopeful in the face of change. Many other women pass through the restaurant, each with their own sadness and worry. A rare female period film, in which men appear only as offscreen voices. 74 min.

Wednesday, December 14, 6:00. T1

Akai satsui (Intentions of Murder). 1964. Japan. Directed by Shohei Imamura. Screenplay by Imamura, Keiji Hasebe. With Masumi Harukawa, Ko Nishimura, Shigeru Tsuyuguchi. Sadako is abused by her husband and mother-in-law, yet even after being raped by an intruder during her husband’s absence, and then being stalked in the aftermath, she worries about protecting her family life from collapse, discovering in herself a hidden emotional and psychological strength that ultimately reverses the household’s hierarchy. 150 min.

Thursday, December 15, 8:00; Saturday, December 17, 4:00. T1

Fukeyo harukaze (Spring Breeze). 1953. Japan. Directed by Senkichi Taniguchi. Screenplay by Taniguchi, Akira Kurosawa. With Toshiro Mifune, Hisako Yamane, Fubuki Koshiji. Mifune portrays Matsumura, a cab driver who values helping people over earning money. Among his many passengers: a group of poor country children who have never ridden in a cab before; a young runaway; a popular actress killing time until her next show; a couple celebrating their silver wedding anniversary; a carjacker; and a wife awaiting the return of her convict husband. 82 min.

Sunday, January 8, 5:00. T1

Ogin sama (Love under the Crucifix). 1962. Japan. Directed by Kinuyo Tanaka. Screenplay by Masashige Narusawa. With Ineko Arima, Tatsuya Nakadai, Keiko Kishi. One of the rare Japanese films directed by a woman, Love under the Crucifix was made by one of the industry’s top actresses, Kinuyo Tanaka. It is also important for having been produced by Ninjin Kurabu, a company founded in 1954 by three actresses—Keiko Kishi, Yoshiko Kuga, and Ineko Arima—who wanted to play roles of their own choosing. 101 min.

Monday, January 9, 6:00; Saturday, January 14, 2:00. T1

Kenka erejii (The Born Fighter). 1966. Japan. Directed by Seijun Suzuki. Screenplay by Kaneto Shindo. With Hideki Takahashi, Junko Asano, Yusuke Kawazu. As society hurtles tragically toward war, a pure-hearted young student copes with his personal despair over lost love and abusive peers through an ever-increasing recourse to violence. Suzuki’s lyrical yet comic sensibilities, as evidenced in this film’s energetic fight scenes, imbue The Born Fighter with a compelling sympathy for all outsiders, both social and political. 86 min.

Monday, January 9, 8:15; Saturday, January 14, 4:30. T1

Kiga kaikyo (A Fugitive from the Past). 1965. Japan. Directed by Tomu Uchida. Screenplay by Naoyuki Suzuki. With Rentaro Mikuni, Sachiko Hidari, Ken Takakura. The epic story of a police detective’s ten-year search for the lone surviving member of a murderous gang of thieves. Uchida’s reputation as a filmmaker of dynamic and experimental narratives has risen steadily since his death in 1970, and A Fugitive from the Past, dealing with issues of guilt and innocence, is representative of his late work. 182 min.

Thursday, January 12, 7:00. T1

Gobancho yugiriro (A House in the Quarter). 1963. Japan. Directed by Tomotaka Tasaka. Screenplay by Tasaka, Naoyuki Suzuki. With Yoshiko Sakuma, Michiyo Kogure, Yatsuko Tanami. Based on the true story of a monk who burned down the Kinkakuji Temple in 1950, this film interpolates the story of a young country girl who comes to Kyoto and is sold as a prostitute. A House in the Quarter depicts the tragedy of a pure and gentle romantic love torn apart by the chaotic pressures of postwar Japanese society. 137 min.

Friday, January 13, 5:45. T1

Okami to buta to ningen (Wolf, Pig and Man). 1964. Japan. Directed by Kinji Fukasaku. Screenplay by Fukasaku, Jun-ya Sato. With Ken Takakura, Kin-ya Kitaoji, Rentaro Mikuni. The three Kuroki brothers grow up in the slums. The eldest robs his aged mother, joins a yakuza gang, and becomes its boss. The second son becomes a rich woman’s lover and lone thug. The youngest becomes a petty criminal after watching over their mother’s demise. 95 min.

Monday, January 16, 6:00. T1

Nikudan (A Human Bullet). 1968. Japan. Written and directed by Kihachi Okamoto. With Minori Terada, Naoko Otani, Chishu Ryu. Okamoto directed many purely entertaining action movies, but occasionally his personal memories of war could be glimpsed within his work. In A Human Bullet, he sublimates those bitter memories with an eccentric cinematic style. A young soldier comes to terms with his inevitable death, receives leave for just one day, and goes into town, where he encounters a variety of people. 116 min.

Wednesday, January 18, 5:30. T1

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Kohayagawa ke no aki (Early Autumn/The End of Summer). 1961. Japan. Directed by Yasujiro Ozu. Screenplay by Ozu and Kôgo Noda. With Ganjiro Nakamura, Setsuko Hara, Yôko Tsukasa. The intimate epic of the Kohayagawa clan, a middle-class family whose fortunes are in decline due to the willful neglect of its patriarch. Filled with gentle humor and carefully observed vignettes of family life, Early Autumn is, as Donald Richie has observed, “one of Ozu’s most beautiful films, and one of his most disturbing.” 103 min.
Wednesday, September 14, 6:00; Saturday, September 17, 2:00. T1

Shonen (Boy). 1969. Japan. Directed by Nagisa Oshima. With Tetsuo Abe, Fumio Watanabe, Akiko Koyama. A poor family manages a meager living by extorting money from drivers after faking injuries in traffic accidents. One day, the ten-year-old son is caught at the scam, but loyalty to his family prevents him from admitting his guilt. Working from a script based on actual newspaper accounts, Oshima fashions a work of great emotional force and restrained empathy. 97 min.
Wednesday, September 14, 8:30; Saturday, September 17, 4:30. T1

Arigato san (Mr. Thank You). 1936. Japan. Written and directed by Hiroshi Shimizu. With Ken Uehara, Ryuji Ishiyama, Einosuke Naka. A young bus driver, known as “Mr. Thank You” because of his politeness, regularly travels the Izu-Tokyo route. His experiences during one particular trip form the basis of this early Japanese “road movie.” Famous for making films on location and in contemporary settings, Shimizu stages almost all of the action in Mr. Thank You within the bus itself, creating an environment that is both protective and claustrophobic. 75 min.
Thursday, September 15, 6:00. T1; Sunday, September 18, 2:30. T2

Ninjo kamifusen (Humanity and Paper Balloons). 1937. Japan. Directed by Sadao Yamanaka. With Chojuro Kawarazaki, Tsuruzo Nakamura, Kanemon Nakamura. Set during the Tokugawa era, this is the story of a poor samurai who gets caught up in the ill-fated kidnapping of a rich merchant’s daughter. A master of cinematic form, Yamanaka had already created a substantial body of work by the time this film premiered—on the very day he was drafted into the army. He died in Manchuria the following year, at the age of twenty-nine. 86 min.
Thursday, September 15, 8:00. T1; Sunday, September 18, 5:00. T2

Sugata Sanshiro (Judo Saga). 1943. Japan. Written and directed by Akira Kurosawa. With Susumu Fujita, Denjirô Ôkôchi, Yukiko Todoroki. Kurosawa’s directorial debut tells the story of a headstrong youth who comes to the city to apprentice with a jujitsu master; in the process, he learns satori, the calm acceptance of nature and its laws. An early yet accomplished work by a soon-to-be master, Judo Saga shows evidence of Kurosawa’s interest in a character that would dominate most of his films: the reckless, self-absorbed individual who must struggle to achieve compassion for others and inner illumination. 90 min.
Friday, September 16, 6:00; Wednesday, September 21, 8:00. T1

Gan (Wild Geese/The Mistress). 1953. Japan. Directed by Shirô Toyoda. With Hideko Takamine, Hiroshi Akutagawa, Jukichi Uno. A young woman becomes the mistress of an unscrupulous pawnbroker so that she can support her sickly father. She falls in love with a young student who passes by her house every day, but he eventually leaves to study abroad. Set in the late Meiji period, the Tokyo of Gan is a world of thwarted hopes and ennobling duty. 104 min.
Friday, September 16, 8:00; Monday, October 10, 4:00. T1

Narayama bushiko (The Ballad of Narayama). 1958. Japan. Written and directed by Keisuke Kinoshita. With Kinuyo Tanaka, Teiji Takahashi, Yûko Mochizuki. According to legend, it was once customary for the young inhabitants of a remote Japanese village to escort those turning seventy years old to Mount Narayama to die, thus assuring the community’s continued economic stability. Orin, the matriarch of a small family, ties up the loose ends of her life and forces her reluctant son to take her on the final sad yet transcendent journey. 98 min.
Saturday, September 17, 6:30. T1

Muhomatsu no issho (The Rikisha Man). 1943. Japan. Directed by Hiroshi Inagaki. With Tsumasaburo Bando, Ryunosuke Tsukigata, Keiko Sonoi. A poor rickshaw driver becomes the surrogate parent of a boy whose father, a soldier, has been killed in the line of duty. The driver gradually falls in love with the child’s widowed mother, but their class differences prevent him from pursuing his deepest desires. Inagaki filmed this story again in 1958, with Toshirô Mifune in the leading role, but this wartime version is the stronger, more affecting work. 79 min.
Saturday, September 17, 8:30; Wednesday, September 21, 6:00. T1

Anata kaimasu (I’ll Buy You). 1956. Japan. Directed by Masaki Kobayashi. With Keiji Sada, Keiko Kishi, Minoru Oki. Rival professional baseball teams compete for a high school athlete, driving a wedge between the young man, his family, and his girlfriend. An exposé of Japan’s corrupt baseball world, Kobayashi’s film also suggests that "sport is not always the purification ritual that many Japanese apparently believe" (Joseph Anderson and Donald Richie). 112 min.

Saturday, October 1, 2:00. T2; Sunday, October 30, 5:00. T1

Bakumatsu taiyo den (Not Long after Leaving Shinegawa). 1957. Japan. Directed by Yuzo Kawashima. With Frankie Sakai, Sachiko Hidari, Yoko Minamida. This light, comic film tells the story of Saheji, who is taken hostage by the owner of a brothel for nonpayment of debts. He soon becomes the brothel’s manager, successfully collecting on the debts of others, settling patron disputes, and generally working the situation to his advantage. 110 min.

Saturday, October 1, 4:30. T2; Sunday, October 9, 5:30. T1

Namida o shishi no tategami ni (Tears on the Lion’s Mane). 1962. Japan. Directed by Masahiro Shinoda. With Takashi Fujiki, Tamotsu Hayakawa, Mariko Kaga. A Yokohama dockworker accidentally kills a union organizer. He becomes even more despondent when he learns that the man was his girlfriend’s father and that his relationship with his boss is based on a lie. A portrait of the suppressed passions and disillusionment of youth. 92 min.

Saturday, October 1, 6:45. T2; Wednesday, October 12, 6:00. T1

Tokaido Yotsuya kaidan (Ghost Story of Yotsuya). 1959. Japan. Directed by Nobuo Nakagawa. With Shigeru Amachi, Katsuko Wakasugi, Shuntaro Emi. A samurai in feudal-era Japan marries the daughter of an older samurai, after having killed the man and his servants. When he decides to poison his wife so that he can marry another, her grotesquely disfigured ghost drives him mad. 77 min.

Saturday, October 1, 8:45. T2; Monday, October 10, 8:30. T1

Mizu de kakareta monogatari (A Story Written with Water). 1965. Japan. Directed by Yoshishige Yoshida. With Mariko Okada, Yasunori Irikawa, Ruriko Asaoka. A boy is raised by his widowed mother with the help of an important man in town with whom she is having a secret affair. The boy marries the man’s daughter, but upon learning of the affair both the marriage and his world fall apart. 120 min.

Sunday, October 2, 2:00. T2; Friday, October 28, 5:30. T1

Zatoichi monogatari (The Life and Opinions of Masseur Ichi). 1962. Japan. Directed by Kenji Misumi. With Shintaro Katsu, Shigeru Amachi, Masayo Banri. A blind masseur turns legendary master swordsman, an Everyman with extraordinary fighting skills as well as a personal integrity reminiscent of the greatest heroes of the Western. This was the first in a highly successful series of films and television programs featuring the character Zatoichi. 96 min.

Sunday, October 2, 4:30; Friday, October 21, 6:00. T2

Irezumi. 1966. Japan. Directed by Yasuzo Masumura. With Ayako Wakao, Akio Hasegawa, Manbu Yamamoto. Exquisitely photographed by the great cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa, Irezumi tells the story of a rich man’s daughter sold into service as a geisha. Like the black widow spider tattooed on her back, she seduces a succession of partners and sends them to their deaths. 86 min.

Monday, October 3, 6:00; Sunday, October 16, 5:30. T2

Aru koroshiya (A Certain Killer). 1967. Japan. Directed by Kazuo Mori. With Raizo Ichikawa, Yumiko Nogawa, Mikio Narita. Employed as a cook in a restaurant, a man supplements his income by working as a contract killer. When he murders a Yakuza boss, he must go into hiding in a shabby suburb. A gritty morality tale that finds its emotional core in the lost dreams of the postwar generation. 82 min.

Monday, October 3, 8:00. T2; Saturday, October 29, 6:30. T1

Gion no kyodai (Sisters of the Gion). 1936. Japan. Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. With Isuzu Yamada, Yoko Umemura, Benkei Shiganoya. Two sisters work as geishas in the Gion district of Kyoto. The older one is bound to tradition and remains loyal to her bankrupt suitor, while the younger sister flits from man to man, exploiting the system in order to increase both of their earnings. 69 min.

Wednesday, October 5, 6:00; Saturday, October 15, 4:30. T1

Ototo (Her Younger Brother). 1960. Japan. Directed by Kon Ichikawa. With Keiko Kishi, Hiroshi Kawaguchi, Kinuyo Tanaka. In this tender melodrama, Ichikawa explores the unbridgeable pit of loneliness at the heart of familial love. A young woman, pressured by her severe and ailing stepmother, sacrifices herself to the needs of her profligate brother, developing an affection for him as he falls ill with tuberculosis. 98 min.

Wednesday, October 5, 8:00; Saturday, October 8, 2:00. T1

Entotsu no mieru basho (Where Chimneys Are Seen). 1953. Japan. Directed by Heinosuke Gosho. With Kinuyo Tanaka, Ken Uehara, Hideko Takamine. A childless married couple, living under the factory chimneys of an industrial section of Tokyo, finds a baby abandoned on their doorstep. Filled with exquisitely observed details of everyday life, this film sparked a revival of the shomin-geki genre, which explored lower middle-class life in postwar Japan. 108 min.

Thursday, October 6, 8:30. T1; Sunday, October 9, 2:00. T2

Ani imoto (Ino and Mon). 1936. Japan. Directed by Sotoji Kimura. With Chieko Takehisa, Sadao Maruyama, Heihachiro Okawa. Mon returns to her family after working as a maid in the city, and reveals that she is pregnant by her former employer’s son. Her brother Ino beats the boy up, further alienating Mon and disrupting the fragile ties that bind the family together. A subtle exploration of the stresses of working-class life in prewar Japan. 60 min.

Sunday, October 9, 4:15. T1; Wednesday, November 16, 8:30. T2

Gendaijin (The Moderns). 1952. Japan. Directed by Minoru Shibuya. With Ryo Ikebe, Isuzu Yamada, So Yamamura. A naïve young man involved in a bribery scandal becomes deeply disillusioned by the corruption of modern life. Shibuya presents an indictment of postwar Japanese life and elicits powerful performances from his cast, especially the young Ryo Ikebe, whose work here as the idealistic protagonist won him wide acclaim. 111 min.

Wednesday, October 12, 8:15; Thursday, October 27, 5:30. T1

Narayama Bushiko (The Ballad of Narayama). 1958. Japan. Written and directed by Keisuke Kinoshita. With Kinuyo Tanaka, Teiji Takahashi, Yûko Mochizuki. According to legend, it was once customary for the young inhabitants of a remote Japanese village to escort those turning seventy years old to Mount Narayama to die, thus assuring the community’s continued economic stability. Orin, the matriarch of a small family, forces her reluctant son to take her on this final journey. 98 min.

Saturday, October 15, 2:00. T1

Getsuyobi no yuka (Monday Girl). 1964. Japan. Directed by Ko Nakahira. With Mariko Kaga, Akira Nakao, Takeshi Kato. Yuka is a "good-time girl" from Yokohama who is persuaded by her papa to sleep with a foreign business executive so that he can close an important deal. Nakahira presents a shrewdly observed portrait of a modern, sexually assertive woman—an unsettling character for a changing but still patriarchal society. 93 min.

Sunday, October 16, 1:30; Thursday, October 27, 8:00. T1