Movies: Donald Richie

Late in the 1500s, an aging tea master teaches the way of tea to a headstrong Shogun. Through force of will and courageous fighting, Hideyoshi becomes Japan’s most powerful warlord, unifying the country....

An extremely lovely tribute to Ozu, on the 20th anniversary of his death. It uses a combination of footage from vintage films and new material (both interviews and Ozu-related locations) shot by Ozu's long-time camera-man (who came out of retirement ...

Documentary about Nagisa Oshima. It includes interviews with Oshima, Donald Richie, Roger Pulvers and Paul Mayersberg...

Documentary on film maker Akira Kurosawa...

A documentary on sixties counterculture in Japan featuring Donald Richie, Tadanori Yokoo, Masao Adachi, Koji Wakamatsu, Toshio Matsumoto and Akaji Maro among others....

A profile and history of film director Akira Kurosawa....

In 1971, author and film scholar Donald Richie published a poetic travelogue about his explorations of the islands of Japan’s Inland Sea, recording his search for traces of a traditional way of life as well as his own journey of self-discovery. Twent...

Eight filmmakers collaborate with Teshigahara to create a "frantic, non-stop pop newsreel". Mixing cutout animation with color and black & white photography, this snapshot documents Tokyo in 1957-58, when it had eight and ½ million people and was the...

Experimental short film depicting the life, perhaps real, perhaps a dream, of a young girl named Emi. Emi travels to the city where she encounters her counterpart, Sari, and falls in love with…a vampire?...

Using rare archival footage and interviews with noted artists, philosophers, and scholars such as Huston Smith, this film examines the life and teachings of D.T. Suzuki, the celebrated Japanese religious philosopher who first brought Zen Buddhism to ...

Seven Samurai: Origins and Influences, a documentary looking at the samurai traditions and films that helped shape Kurosawa's masterpiece...

The homoerotic poetry of Mutsuo Takahashi sets the stage for these associated images based on male desire....

A young woman arrives at a resort and is soon pursued by a young man. Initially, he appears to be infatuated with her, but it becomes clear he simply wants to seduce her....

Filmed only a few months after Tatsumi Hijikata’s first explosive public butoh performance, “Gisei” features Hijikata and members of his Asbestos Hall Troupe in a brutal allegory of a closed society. Shot by noted Japanese film scholar Donald Richie,...

Short film for the "A Commercial for Myself" programme....

A group of boys playing near the seashore in Tokyo find a goat, kill it in a tug of war for ownership, bury it with ceremony, and, except for one boy, run off in heedless laughter ready for more games....

Donald Richie’s classic is, in the words of Yukio Mishima, an outrageous farce, and a pitiless indictment of all our false ‘human’ values. As an allegory of an ‘all-consuming’ Tokyo family cannibalizing each other in a Tokyo park, it attains the high...

A shot-for-shot reimagining of the opening credits and climax of Yasujirō Ozu’s Tokyo Story (1953). Re-setting the scene in Los Angeles and recasting Noriko and Kyoko with two Japanese actors performing in drag, the film interrogates notions of langu...

Fifteen years before Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Richie anticipated the animation of Terry Gilliam in this early 8mm film. He cut up Life magazine and animated the clippings through clever use of strings and editing. These “Four American Fables” of...

A cat's inquisitive look interferes with the pleasurable sensations of a boy while masturbating....