Quietly a remarkable film. Throughout the picture I kept thinking what qualities elevate this over other pictures of 1980 that critics would be so high on it at the time.
It is always great to see Takakura shed the outright tough guy quality while still smoldering on screen. Hokkaido location photography seems to be a sweet spot for Yamada. He gets the best vistas and loves working through each season.
On a base level the simple rhythms of farm life…
Nice conclusion to my 1979 film festival. Decades on the watchlist, hard to measure up to the 'importance' a single anime film is meant to have on the medium. The structure of the film makes it work much like the source material to be episodic in nature. Definitely encourages reading the manga, watching the anime, or at the least watching the other features in the series. Highest grossing film of 1979 topping even the Tora-san films of the year.
Each…
Very enjoyable Hitchcock spy/suspense film. Has shades of the later North by Northwest (1958). Look forward to watching again. One of the better British sound films he made.
