ACF 078: Early Postwar Japanese Films

"Pu San" copyright 1953 Toho Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved

The Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University

in conjunction with the

Donald Keen Center of Japanese Culture

presents:

OUT OF THE ASHES
Early Postwar Japanese
Movies

Defeated, occupied, and largely in ruins, the Japan of the years after the end of World War II was the subject of numerous films, both during those years and later. Some outstanding examples are featured in this series which has been curated by renowned translator Linda Hoaglund, who has subtitled some 200 Japanese films.

(Ms. Hoaglund also recently wrote and produced Wings of Defeat, a feature documentary about flyers trained to be suicide pilots who survived the war. Wings of Defeat will screen at Japan Society Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 8:00 PM. For info or to order tickets for it, click here.)

The five films that will be screened separately at Columbia University from February 26 to April 15, 2008 are:

Children of the Beehive (1948)

Directed by Hiroshi Shimizu
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Arledge Cinema, Columbia University
- Registration required. See below.

Battles Without Honor and Humanity (1973)

Directed by Kinji Fukasaku
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Davis Auditorium, Columbia University
- No registration required

Doctor’s Day Off (1952)

Directed by Minoru Shibuya
Monday, March 31, 2008
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Arledge Cinema, Columbia University
- Registration is required. See below.

Pu San (1953)

Directed by Kon Ichikawa
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Arledge Cinema, Columbia University
- Registration required. See below.

Black River (1957)
Directed by Masaki Kobayashi

Tuesday, April 15
6:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Arledge Cinema, Columbia University
Film followed by brief intermission and then a Panel Discussion
- Registration required. See below.

Fukasaku's Battles Without Honor and Humanity is the only film I've already seen. It's a gritty work about yakuza rivalries that stars Bunta Sugawara. It became the first in a lengthy series. It and four other films in the series are available on DVD, both individually and as a box set entitled The Yakuza Papers: Battles Without Honor & Humanity.

Admission for each screening is free, but for the four that require pre-registration, you must R.S.V.P. for each individual film.

For more information, film descriptions, or to R.S.V.P. click here.