Kwaidan: The Illusion of Life

Photo: Toho There were two massively influential Japanese horror films released in 1964. Onibaba put an unsettling hanniya mask at the center of a grim civil war story; Kwaidan is…

Harakiri: A Gut-Wrenching Challenge

Photo: Shochiku After completing his epic ”Human Condition” trilogy of films in 1961, Japanese director Masaki Kobayashi turned to the samurai. His own family hailed from a samurai and he…

Predator: Killer of Killers

The same year as Dan Trachtenberg made another Predator prequel, Badlands, he also found time to put his name on this animated anthology film that throws a Predator into combat…

Seven Samurai: Another Battle, Another Loss

Photo: Toho I saw this, the most famous of Akira Kurosawa’s movies, for the first time twenty years ago while studying journalism. More than three hours long, Seven Samurai is…

Rashomon: One Death, Four Stories

Toshiro Mifune and Machiko Kyo. Photo: Daiei The Rashomon effect is a term that entered the English language maybe as early as the 1960s, meant to describe an event that…