The Essential Japanese Cinema

The Naked Island is my No. 1 Human Cultural Artifact – All-Time, All-Media, All-Genres.

Which film was the girl smashing her face in a cake from?

The japanese cinema is surprising from its early days to nowadays. But I like especially the modern era (from 1955 to 1975 more or less); the bravest directors and movies comes from that period.
Yasuzo Masumura, Seijun Suzuki, Masaki Kobayashi, Shohei Imamura, Yoshishige Yoshida, Toshio Masuda, Nagisa Oshima, Hiroshi Teshigahara...the quality and power of their movies is something beyond belief

A truly mesmerising episode. Amazing as always

I'm glad that Mind Game was added in this video, i loved that anime so much

this video was amazing

Is there somewheren where i can find a list of the movies you site in this? Your content is amazing!! Its also super dense (in a good way!!!) And i miss the movie titles sometimes.

Amazing essay, thank you :)

Can someone help me?
30 years ago I saw a Japanese movie on Australian TV and I have never been able to find its name to watch it again, the basic plot was;
A school teacher, on his vacation, takes a hiking trip into the mountains to search for a teacher friend who went missing in the same area a year earlier. He arrives at a village that was in drought as the local spring had dried up. They were so short of water that a local women uses breast milk to wash dust out of the teachers eye to his great surprise.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Fascinating, thank you. Tampopo is one of my fave ever films, I am glad it was mentioned.

I'm finding it really difficult to find good modern Japanese cinema. It seems easy to find new and original South Korean media but when I'm searching for new Japanese films all I usually find are anime and manga live-action adaptations or gore-fest shock films. Can anyone point me in the right direction? I like Takashi Miike but he can't be the only one still making new original films in the entire country. I need a guide

I love ‘House’. It’s currently my favourite movie.

Why call it essential Japanese cinema but then not list any of the films...

For the lovers of Japanese classic Pink films, go watch,
Pink Curtain 1982,
Belladonna of Sadness 1973

good taste in films 👍

O.07 can anybody tell me the movie name?

I know Fujimoto (chainsaw man) loves movies but I didn’t know that was where he got Yoru’s scar from.

this guy just likes japan, grow up and learn that japan is just another country

In the future, no one will have a Japanese accent. But we will alll have hundreds of different pronunciations. Or not.

The treatment of films as an academic subject seems odd because the language used is very arty as opposed to technical. I appreciate as the video says that this list must be subjective and somewhat random, but the language of the narrator felt impenetrable to understand given the above academic tone used.

For example I think it is easier to understand what the director is attempting to do with a film by taking a specific approach or other features from the film that describe it as opposed to an external general narrative as if all the films blend into one coherent whole.

what a well presented and researched video! Lovely! Reallyilluminating to reacquaint oneself with basic japanese aesthetics and to see them analysed in some golden films. If only it was LONGER!!! Do you have similar videos for Korean etc films?

will you ever do a video on the films of hideaki anno and shunji iwai? particularly films like shiki-jitsu (2000) or picnic (1996) they're absolutely beautiful and i would love for someone who can put that into words to do so

What is certain is that in Japan gore, violent movies and dramas are far more minor than in the US. It's different from watching Americans people slasher movies as a genre and having fun. Basically most Japanese people hate this. It shows up well in actual box office or box office performance rankings. So, the censorship agency is also strict, and in this case, Mortal Kombat was also banned from release. If you have Japanese friends, you will know this better.

The video above introduces it as if it were mainstream, but it is absolutely not mainstream. It's much more indie than America. In fact, an American distributor has introduced violent Asian films as mainstream, calling them Asian Extreme. The reality is completely different.

Actually im sri lankn 🇱🇰 but i realy like to japan movies films songs also its realy nice and entertainment 💓👍love all

It would be great if the films shown had their respective titles in the corner of the video

I love j horror and gore movies

To bad none of Tomu Uchida's visionary work (e.g., The Mad Fox, Chikamatsu's Love in Osaka, A Fugitive from the Past) has been included.

RASHOMON and WOMAN IN THE DUNES are mentioned in the following 2022 article:

"Movies Which Explore the Consequences Borne by People Removed From Traditional Group Norms"

Vengeance is Mine is probably my favorite Japanese picture.

anybody know the opening song? please?

Please help me i need to know the name of the film from literally the second image of the video (the four people holding the cross) the image entrances me i must know please help me, why do these people not put the name of the films goddamit

Visitor Q, House and Paprika in the same list yeah!

Good work dude but you forgot the pinku eiga movies.

Considering how well behaved and north Japanese people seem, they movies are weird af, they get freaky

Bollywood, I think would make a interesting video essay

Super@ 7;46
the profound beauty and startling cruelty. Such an advance thought.

What is the intro music?

Can you talk about Goncharov (1973) ?

u use to write name of the movies on each section... why not anymore?

Clicked for ichi but the intro was jus so good I left and had to explore music for a bit n came back like tf

Used to be great. For over a decade now Japan has barely made anything of substance at all, just romantic comedies starring idols and anime bullshit. Japan in geenral has tanked creatively, economically and socially.