Bullets 'n' Babes

Yokiro (The Geisha) (1983)

The winner of 9 Japanese Academy Awards. Hideo Gosha’s period film set in the 1930’s proves that Japanese and American film academy think alike. It’s a technically well done and good looking film, with melodramatic story of two geishas and a man affecting to both of their lives, all done in somewhat operatic style. Gosha, who once directed most cutting edge Japanese cinema, now seems more keen on subtle quality filmmaking that should please the critics. Ken Ogata, as expected, does brilliant work in the leading male role. The film is based on a novel by Tomiko Miyao.

Yokiro is one of the few Gosha films released on R1. You can find caps from beaver. The dvdtalk review also features a cap where subtitles display additional notes that help the dumb viewer to understand the film’s plot. On the positive side the disc allows you to choose between yellow and white subtitles. Extras appear to be limited to Image Gallery, Text Notes and Trailers.

The French Wild Side dvd is really quite nice. The progressive transfer looks great and free of any edge enhancement. Extras feature photo gallery (45 photos), trailer (2:55), Gosha filmography, and 14 minutes of interviews with the filmmakers. Note that the dvd case – like many other Wild Side covers – states incorrect running time. The film runs 138 min (case says 144 min, which is the NTSC running time).















And a few caps for beaver comparison:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y297/S ... ocomp3.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y297/S ... rocomp.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y297/S ... ocomp2.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y297/S ... ocomp1.jpg

HungFist wrote:

Goyokin (1969)

This masterful samurai film set in the snowy Hokkaido was the first Japanese film shot in Panavision. The film stars Tatsuya Nakadai, Tetsuro Tamba and Isao Natsuyagi. Originally Toshiro Mifune was also casted, but apparently grueling conditions were too much for the legend and he was replaced by Kinnosuke Nakamura.

Thanks for the review. Just today I gave some thought on what Hideo Gosha movies I have to see (haven't watched anything by him yet), and among "Violent Streets" (1974) "Goyokin" also popped my mind. The snow-setting looks really unique and impressive, and it seems like the US-DVD isn't too bad, either.

Kai (1985)

Hideo Gosha’s third adaptation of a Tomiko Miyao novel (the previous two being Kiruyin Hanako no shogai and Yokiro) is perhaps his most succesfull. While the earlier films were somewhat uneven, Kai remains very consistent in quality throughout. Ken Ogata plays the leading male role – a well doing but somewhat small time dealer in women trade - but once again it’s the female characters who form the film’s core. Yukiyo Toake is excellent as Ogata’s wife who slowly grows tired of his husbad who does what he wishes. The storyline certainly has a melodramatic undertone – and Gosha has sometimes gone wrong with his ”suffering women” scenarios – but Kai abstains from bigger emotional bursts.

The most important factor behind the success is the excellent acting from the entire leading cast. A slight exception might be Mikio Narita – an action film villain actor that Gosha insisted using in his films despite Narita not quite being in the same league with Gosha’s other regular cast. In Kai, whoever, his make-up assisted appearance as a grumpy old yakuza boss work as a slight relief in an otherwise drama heavy feature, which could maybe be called ”women’s cinema”.

Another nice transfer from Wild Side Video. There’s some scenes that appear a bit soft, and sometimes the encoding seems less that perfect, but it’s not much of a problem. As a whole this is much more pleasing work than what HK Video ever did. Extras feature Gosha filmography, photo gallery, original trailer and an excellent 15 minute interview with the filmmakers.













Mikio Narita with moustache. 1970's comedy actor Tonpei Hidari (Delinquent Girl Boss, Truck Yaro) on the left.

Wives of the Yakuza (Gokudo no onnatachi) (1986)

Hideo Gosha marries his ”women cinema” with modern yakuza film in a movie based on Shoko Ieda’s novel. Unfortunately this is a rather lazy effort from the director. The basic idea is not bad, though. The film follows yakuza wives, most of them now heads of their families as the husband is either dead or in jail. Two sisters - a leader of the most powerful crime organization in the area (Shima Iwashita), and a ”normal girl” living with his father and trying to stay clean (Rino Katase) - are in the spotlight. Instead of going into action mode Gosha gives a somewhat realistic view of their normal life; relationships, sunny beaches, karaoke… and clan wars. But the characters are ultimately not very interesting, and nor is the storyline. The concept was nevertheless a success, and numerous sequels followed.

Extras include interviews (15 min, most of it Mark Schilling aka in English!), more interviews (another 15 min), filmography, trailer and photo gallery

Yoshiwara enjo (1987)

High class prostitutes love, suffer, and fight each other in Hideo Gosha’s drama set in the Yoshiwara pleasure district in the early 20th century. The beginning is quite good and interesting, but after the first half an hour the storyline starts following overly familiar rails that don’t even function well. The character fates and the director’s vision are no doubt historically accurate, but often predictable and frustrating to follow on screen. Also, as typical for 1980’s Gosha films, Yoshiwara enjo runs well over two hours and in this case it’s too much.

The cinematography and visual design - which was inspired by Shinichi Saito’s paintings - work, though; a lot of time the film looks gorgeous. The ending is also very impressive, as is the huge replication of the Yoshiwara district built just for the making of this movie. Yûko Natori, whose role is partly well written, fares quite decently in the lead role. Gosha’s regular star Ken Ogata has a small and rather unnecessary supporting role.

A couple of scenes display a vertical line in the picture. Otherwise this Wild Side release looks terrific. Extras feature filmography, photo gallery and interviews that run 15 min. Perhaps it should be noted here that despite the fact that almost all interviews on these Wild Side discs have the same running time (15 min), they are not the same feature but different interviews on each disc.

Some screencaptures from the extras

Art director Yoshinobu Nishioka


Shinichi Saito's paintings


Film vs an old postcard picture of real Yoshiwara


More interesting pictures shown during the interview

In June Toei will re-release Yokiro, Kai and Nikutai no mon (aka Carmen 1945) in their semi-annual limited time low priced batch (3000 yen). Nikutai no mon is one of the films that have not been released in France or elsewhere outside Japan on dvd. The film based on the same novel as Seijun Suzuki’s Gate of Flesh (1964).

Nikutai no mon related goods from yahoo

The Wolves (Shussho Iwai) (1971)

Hideo Gosha made a brief visit to Toho and directed the studio’s first ninkyo yakuza film. Obviously Toho was quite late as by 1971 the genre was already past its prime. The Wolves is no match for Toei’s royal yakuza productions – or Gosha’s best movies in other genres – but it certainly has its merits. Most importantly, The Wolves is lot darker and more pessimistic than stories usually told in the ninkyo yakuza genre. Much of the content is actually closer to jitsuroku films. In this aspects, the film might have been ahead of its time rather than late. The storyline follows a yakuza who returns to his clan after being released from prison. As typical for ninkyo yakuza films, he must choose between following the yakuza codes and doing the right thing. The first third of the film doesn’t work quite that well, but the rest is captivating. The supporting characters are well drafted and Gosha creates some memorable images (a beach full of ship wrecks is used as background in several scenes). Tatsuya Nakadai, Noboru Ando and Isao Natsuyagi play the leading roles.

Animeigo’s dvd is problematic. The picture quality isn’t too bad, although a bit pink, but the audio is weak. There’s two audio tracks. The first one is a remastered track. The music sounds good, but dialogue and sound effets are very muffled. The second track is the original track. It’s clear, altough a tiny bit harsh on ears, but features loud hiss. As far as Japanese 70’s cinema on dvd goes, both tracks are clearly below average (myself I managed to make the audio slightly better by giving it a custom touch). Bonus material feature trailer, photos and text info. The photo gallery features a weird little glitch; the pages are anamorphic but the content is not; in other words, the photos are horizontally stretched. No big deal, really.

Animeigo will release Kiryuin Hanako no shogai (Onimasa) on dvd in November.

http://www.animeigo.com/home.t

Shochiku will release a limited time low priced edition (2667 yen) of Usugesho. The dvd will be available from September 26th. The normal price is 3800 yen.

HungFist wrote:Animeigo will release Kiryuin Hanako no shogai (Onimasa) on dvd in November.

http://www.animeigo.com/home.t

Looks like this is pushed back Jan 12.
http://www.hkflix.com/xq/asp/filmID.552 ... etails.htm

HungFist, can you give your opinion on this movie? How does it compare to say, The Wolves?

Hanako was basically the film that started Gosha's women cinema period. In the 80's and 90's he would make a lot of melodramas as well as action films starring women. Some exceptions aside men would only play supporting roles in these movies. This was quite different from the masculine movies he had been making in the 60's and 70's, were women were rarely more than story objects (someone who needs to be saved, someone who triggers the course of events).

Content and view point wise Hanako falls somewhere in between these two. It's a gangster family biopic that covers events from about 20 years, but it's seen through the eyes of a godfather's daughter. But she's actually more of a witness than an active character. The real star of the show is Nakadai and his enjoyable (some might consider over the top) Al Pacino performance.

The Wolves had a purely masculine view and dealt with ninkyo yakuza themes... loyalty, friendship and honor between Men. Hanako is more of a general look at a yakuza family, maybe leaning a bit towards the feminine view. It's also slightly epic, even if a bit messy as well (similarly to Gosha's late 70's film Bandits vs Samurai Squad). The Wolves was really concentrating on one conflic only, like most ninkyo yakuza films. But it has to be said that The Wolves is more grim than for example Toei's classic ninkyo yakuza movies. Gosha's nihilism was maybe even closer to the jitsuroku style (Fukasaku and other mid 70's Toei yakuza directors).

I like both movies, although neither are my Gosha favourites. I know many people love The Wolves, and out of the two it's definitely the more coherent movie. Hanako is more of an entertainment film than razor sharp yakuza analysis.

Thank you for your thoughts on the two.

Hello! I'm interested in those beautiful Wild Side Goshas, but they have English subs?

Dan wrote:Hello! I'm interested in those beautiful Wild Side Goshas, but they have English subs?

They don't have English subs. Fansubs are available for all of them, so if custom subbing you your weapon of choice, go for it.

Thanks for the double-quick answer!

HungFist wrote:Three Outlaw Samurai (3 Samourais hors-la-loi) (Sanbiki no samurai) (1964)

Hideo Gosha’s first film was an instant classic, a tough samurai adventure starring Tetsuro Tamba. Chang Cheh remade this film a few years after as The Magnificent Trio. Chang copied almost every plot detail, but made the characters more heroic and patriotic. Gosha’s flawed anti-heroes heroes have more depth.

Hi! First posting here. I'm amazed to find out how this film has been played around with for DVD releases! I've the Panorama version, and the movie is still a great one to watch, even in cropped form! From which release do the widescreen screen captures come from?

Fang Shih-yu wrote:

HungFist wrote:Three Outlaw Samurai (3 Samourais hors-la-loi) (Sanbiki no samurai) (1964)

Hideo Gosha’s first film was an instant classic, a tough samurai adventure starring Tetsuro Tamba. Chang Cheh remade this film a few years after as The Magnificent Trio. Chang copied almost every plot detail, but made the characters more heroic and patriotic. Gosha’s flawed anti-heroes heroes have more depth.

Hi! First posting here. I'm amazed to find out how this film has been played around with for DVD releases! I've the Panorama version, and the movie is still a great one to watch, even in cropped form! From which release do the widescreen screen captures come from?

HK Video

14 Feb 2012

High-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
Trailer
New English subtitle translation
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Bilge Ebiri

Three Outlaw Samurai BD
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film3/blu-ray_ ... lu-ray.htm

An interesting and informative Gosha article at Wildgrounds:
http://www.wildgrounds.com/feature-hideo-gosha/

HungFist wrote:An interesting and informative Gosha article at Wildgrounds:
http://www.wildgrounds.com/feature-hideo-gosha/

The same author's article at Midnight Eye, Part I:
http://www.midnighteye.com/features/hid ... manly-way/

(still cannot understand how he considers the utterly fantastic Violent Streets a failure, but each to his own)

HungFist wrote:

HungFist wrote:An interesting and informative Gosha article at Wildgrounds:
http://www.wildgrounds.com/feature-hideo-gosha/

The same author's article at Midnight Eye, Part I:
http://www.midnighteye.com/features/hid ... manly-way/

(still cannot understand how he considers the utterly fantastic Violent Streets a failure, but each to his own)

Part 2:
http://www.midnighteye.com/features/hid ... l-to-live/

An interesting article on cinematographer Fujio Morita, who filmed most of Gosha's films starting from Hitokiri (1969):
http://www.midnighteye.com/features/the ... io-morita/

+ In case you didn't notice before, I posted some pictures from Shin Bungeiza's Gosha festival a few weeks ago in the other thread:
https://www.bulletsnbabesdvd.com/forums/ ... 00#p173400

HK Video has released a Blu-Ray edition of The Wolves in France last month.



Contient:
- le Blu-ray du film
- le DVD du film
- un livret exclusif de 32 pages
Nouvelle édition tirée d'un master restauré
Boîtier Blu-ray avec fourreau
La rencontre avec Robin Gatto et Christophe Gans
Commentaire audio de Christophe Gans et Léonard Haddad
Bandes-annonces

- http://www.amazon.fr/Loups-Édition-Limi ... 00SU2UY10/

This should be well worth a purchase. The R1 DVD by animeigo has horrible sound quality, one of the worst I have ever heard on DVD. And Toho is very unlikely to ever release this in Japan (they don't seem to acknowledge they've ever produced any other films than Kurosawa films and kaiju/sci-fi flicks).

Toei is releasing of Gosha's 80s films on BD later this year. I don't even remember which ones. I never quite understood why Gosha's technically accomplished but otherwise underwhelming 80s women melodramas are so highly regarded in Japan, while his amazing 60s and early 70s samurai and crime films are largely ignored. Toei has never even released the Samurai Wolf films on DVD...