Rentarō Mikuni

After more than a decade of sober political dramas and social-minded periodpieces, the great Japanese director Masaki Kobayashi shifted gears dramatically for this rapturously stylized quartet of ghost stories. Featuring colorfully surreal sets and luminous cinematography, these haunting tales of demonic comeuppance and spiritual trials, adapted from writer Lafcadio Hearn's collections of Japanese folklore, are existentially frightening and meticulously...

The story of Sen-no Rikyu, a Buddhist priest, who four centuries ago brought the art of the tea ceremony to perfection. Living in one of the most turbulent moments in Japanese history, Rikyu gained unexpected political influence as the confidant and cultural mentor to the powerful warlord, Hideyoshi Toyotomi. The film illustrates the classic struggle between art and politics and between the impulse to create and the impulse to destroy.

After more than a decade of sober political dramas and social-minded periodpieces, the great Japanese director Masaki Kobayashi shifted gears dramatically for this rapturously stylized quartet of ghost stories. Featuring colorfully surreal sets and luminous cinematography, these haunting tales of demonic comeuppance and spiritual trials, adapted from writer Lafcadio Hearn's collections of Japanese folklore, are existentially frightening and meticulously...

After an unemployed samurai is forced to commit harakiri before a feudal lord, his father-in-law returns to the scene, seemingly to play out the same agonizing suicide ritual.

Rengoku eroika: The director Yoshishige Yoshida criticizes the revolutionary movements after World War II in Japan through this fictional film. Nanako finds a runaway girl, Ayu, and takes her home. Ayu insists that her father is Nanako's husband Rikiya. Ayu's presence forces Rikiya to remember the days when he was a political activist. The story crosses over past, present, and future. Kaigenrei: A young terrorist, Heigo Asahi, stabbed Zenjiro Yasuda...