Masahiro Shinoda Archives

6.9

Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees

A mountain man beheads his many wives to prove his love to an alluring woman he meets in an enchanted forest.

NR

6.9

1975 Drama 95 min Play

6.9

Himiko

A freestyle, imagined telling of the life of shaman queen Himiko, who falls in love with her half-brother, making her powers weaken thus putting her position to risk.

NR

6.9

1974 Drama 100 min Play

6.9

Silence

Two Jesuit priests encounter persecution when they travel to Japan in the 17th century to spread Christianity and search for their mentor.

NR

6.9

1971 Drama 129 min Play

7.1

Double Suicide

Successful and married with children, paper-mill owner Jihei knows better than to contradict the strict social and moral codes of 18th-century Japan. But when he meets the lovely courtesan Koharu, he becomes a man obsessed. Koharu returns his love, even foregoing other customers while Jihei schemes to somehow buy her freedom. His efforts yield ruinous consequences for his business and his family life, and Koharu is meanwhile purchased by another client.

NR

7.1

1969 Drama 105 min Play

6.7

Samurai Spy

Years of warfare end in a Japan unified under the Tokugawa shogunate, and samurai spy Sasuke Sarutobi, tired of conflict, longs for peace. When a high-ranking spy named Tatewaki Koriyama defects from the shogun to a rival clan, however, the world of swordsmen is thrown into turmoil. After Sasuke is unwittingly drawn into the conflict, he tracks Tatewaki, while a mysterious, white-hooded figure seems to hunt them both. By tale’s end, no one is who they seemed to be, and the truth is far more ...

NR

6.7

1965 Action 100 min Play

6.7

Assassination

Assassination begins with the events of 1853 when "four black ships" anchored at Edo Bay, sparking civil unrest and the major political manoeuvring that saw the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate. At a time when assassination had become a disturbing political tool, Shinoda's film follows Hachiro Kiyokawa, an ambitious, masterless samurai whose allegiances drift dangerously between the Shogunate and the Emperor.

NR

6.7

1964 Drama 104 min Play

7.3

Pale Flower

Muraki, a hardboiled Yakuza gangster, has just been released from prison after serving a sentence for murder. Revisiting his old gambling haunts, he meets Saeko, a striking young upper-class woman who is out seeking thrills, and whose presence adds spice to the staid masculine underworld rituals. Muraki becomes her mentor while simultaneously coping with the shifts of power that have affected the gangs while he was interred. When he notices a rogue, drug-addicted young punk hanging around ...

NR

7.3

1964 Crime 96 min Play

5.5

A Flame at the Pier

Takashi Fujiki stars as a rebel in this drama about life on the Yokohama waterfront by New Wave director Masahiro Shinoda. The rebel works as an errand boy for a shipping company and vents his frustrations by plucking on the guitar. His interpretations of popular trends in music are sometimes right-on, and sometimes not exactly. Bereft of his guitar, the rebel's modes of expression are not as effective in generating interest as the Yokohama docks themselves, a fascinating world in their own ...

NR

5.5

1962 Drama 92 min Play

5.3

Killers on Parade

Mod-sixties visuals and black humor mark this wild New Wave masterpiece about a vengeful contractor who hires a series of young killers to target a woman muckraker. Trouble brews when an amateur marksman shows up his eclectic competition.

NR

5.3

1961 Crime 82 min Play