The she-panther and the yakuza in Drunken Angel
Drunken Angel (Yoidore tenshi, 1948) is Akira Kurosawa’s first film in which music, used at both a diegetic and non-diegetic…
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Discover this moody Japanese film about compassion within a marginalised society
Easy Tavern is an infamous inn on the edge of town, in the wetlands of the Fukagawa. The inn’s regulars…
How Black River perfectly captures the cultural corruption of post-war Japan
Kobayashi’s vitriolic portrayal of a society dominated by crime and corruption.
Thousand Words: Evil Behind the Mask of Respectability (The Bad Sleep Well, 1960)
The Bad Sleep Well (Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru), a critical portrayal of postwar corporate Japan as a breeding ground…
Thousand Words: How to be a Human Being (Ikiru, 1952)
The first shot in Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru shows an X-ray. A voiceover reveals that this is the stomach of Watanabe,…
