Chikamatsu monogatari (The crucified lovers) 1954 - An essential tale of tragic romance

IMDB Link
IMDB Rating: 8,2

Director: Kenji Mizoguchi
Main Cast: Kazuo Hasegawa, Kyoko Kagawa, Eitaro Shindo, Eitaro Ozawa

"In the 1950s, Kenji Mizoguchi was on a roll. He won two successive Golden Lions at the Venice Film Festival - an unprecedented feat - and produced three unqualified masterpieces: Life of Oharu, Ugetsu, and Sansho Dayu. The Crucified Lovers, made the same year as Sansho, stands as Mizoguchi's last great film. For this film - about star-crossed lovers, based on a puppet play by Monzaemon Chikamatsu - he returns to familiar themes: avaricious, duplicitous men; pious, long-suffering women; and the cruel vagaries of fate. Unlike his previous postwar films, the lead male character, Mohei, does not seem consumed by greed, vengeance, or vanity. Yet compared to the purity and devotion of lead female - a near constant in Mizoguchi's oeuvre - Mohei still seems weak in comparison. The film unfolds with marvelous fluidity, gathering momentum until the lovers' gruesome end. The blissful smiles on the faces of Osan and Mohei as they are led to crucifixion is one of the most striking images in Mizoguchi's long catalogue. Technically, Mizoguchi fills this film with striking photography and elegant camera movement. Though perhaps lacking the lyricism of Ugetsu and the grandeur of Sansho Dayu, The Crucified Lovers is a breathtaking work." - www.allmovie.com

Download links:

Sansho dayu (Sansho the bailiff) 1954 - An unforgettably sad story of social injustice, family love, and personal sacrifice

IMDB Link
IMDB Rating: 8,3

Director: Kenji Mizoguchi
Main Cast: Kinuyo Tanaka, Yoshiaki Hanayagi, Kyoko Kagawa, Eitaro Shindo

"On its French release in 1960, Sansho the Bailiff was ranked by Cahiers du cinéma as the best film of the year, topping such classics as Breathless, L'avventura, and Psycho. Critics were struck by the film's gorgeous photography, elegant camerawork, and exotic settings and by Kenji Mizoguchi's signature use of imagery that quietly evokes a spiritual transcendence above the suffering of the material world. Unlike Akira Kurosawa's frequent use of close-ups and fast-paced editing, Mizoguchi, here as elsewhere, keeps his camera distant and his takes long, resulting in a contemplative style in which the characters' suffering and pain seem vivid, yet small compared with the immutability of the landscape. The result is a film that is thoroughly engaging up to its devastating finale. Though it was initially more popular in the West than in Japan, this masterpiece has since been widely recognized as one of Mizoguchi's most beautiful works.
The subjugated plight of women in Japanese society was always a subject close to Mizoguchi's heart--never more so than in Sansho Dayu, one of the towering late masterpieces of his final years. Its intensity, compassion, dramatic sweep and breathtaking formal beauty place it among his greatest films. The story is set in the harsh feudal world of 11th-century Japan. A provincial governor is demoted and exiled for showing too much clemency to those he rules; travelling to join him, his wife is kidnapped and forced to become a courtesan and her children are sold into slavery. They grow up under the harsh regime of the bailiff Sansho while their mother (the great actress Kinuyo Tanaka, in a performance of heartbreaking desolation) yearns hopelessly for them. Working with his favourite cameraman, Kazuo Miyagawa, Mizoguchi films this tragic story in long, intricate takes, rarely resorting to close-ups. The visual elegance and formal restraint of his style make the film all the more emotionally harrowing, and the final scene, on a desolate and windswept island, must be one of the most unbearably moving endings in all cinema."

Download links:

Ugetsu monogatari 1953 - A subtle blending of realistic period reconstruction and lyrical supernaturalism

IMDB Link
IMDB Rating: 8,1

Director: Kenji Mizoguchi
Main Cast: Masayuki Mori, Machiko Kyo, Kinuyo Tanaka, Mitsuko Mito

"Based on a pair of 18th century ghost stories by Ueda Akinari, the film's release continued Mizoguchi's introduction to the West, where it was nominated for an Oscar and won the the Venice Film Festival's Silver Lion award (for Best Direction). Displaying all of the hallmarks of Kenji Mizoguchi's quietly affecting style, this landmark film has been one of the most highly praised Japanese movies, garnering the admiration of such directors as Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Rivette. Mizoguchi's fluid camerawork expands this otherworldly tragedy into a profound meditation on the transience of human life. In one of the film's most noted scenes, Genjuro relaxes in a hot spring as his beautiful spirit-lover disrobes. The camera coyly pans away, tilts downwards, and tracks along the ground. The barren ripples of ground dissolve to a Zen rock garden; then the camera tilts up to reveal the couple picnicking at a lakeside park. In this one elegant device, Mizoguchi evokes not only the passage of time but also emptiness and impermanence, as he passes the viewer through an unpeopled space. His signature lyricism frames unfolding human dramas as one small part of life's immutable ebb and flow. A brilliant summation of Mizoguchi's motifs and visual poetry, Ugetsu remains one of the masterpieces of world cinema." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

Saikaku ichidai onna (The life of Oharu) 1952 - The film that brought Mizoguchi a belated international fame

IMDB Link
IMDB Rating: 8,1

Director: Kenji Mizoguchi
Main Cast: Kinuyo Tanaka, Tsukie Matsuura, Ichiro Sugai, Toshiro Mifune

"Though maybe not director Kenji Mizoguchi's most perfect film (Ugetsu and Sansho the Bailiff usually garner this title), Life of Oharu is arguably his most important work. When it won the 1952 Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival one year after Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon did the same, Oharu not only solidified the reputation of Japanese cinema but also ended Mizoguchi's decade-long artistic tailspin and freed him from studio constraints, allowing him to create his later masterpieces. Yet the film was almost not completed thanks to cost overruns and Mizoguchi's fanatical perfectionism. Based on a 17th century farcical classic by libertine playwright Sakiku Ibara, both the play and the film details the fall of a woman from imperial courtesan to untouchable. Yet while Sakiku uses Oharu's decline as a means to satirize Japan's rigid feudal culture, Mizoguchi strips away all parodic elements and views her tortured life as noble and sacred. As in his other works, Mizoguchi presents a woman's suffering vividly and sympathetically, framing it in long takes and fluid camera movements in a coolly contemplative style. The result is a film that seems aloof yet packs a remarkably strong emotional punch. Quiet and profound, Life of Oharu is a masterful work by a filmmaker reaching the pinnacle of his creative powers." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

Genroku chushingura (The 47 ronin) 1941 - An epic tale about the legendary Japanese vendetta

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 7,5

Director: Kenji Mizoguchi
Main Cast: Tokusaburo Arashi, Yoshizaburo Arashi, Daisuke Kato

"Director Mizoguchi abandoned his usual fascination with modern-day social problems in favor of epic patriotism that he shows here. Produced over a two-year period, the stylistic elements are all in place in The 47 ronin: elegant composition, minimal cutting, subtle but telling use of a tracking camera, and concern with psychology rather than action. This is not, in fact, an easily accessible film for Westerners, as it is concerned with ritual and customs that aren't always made explicit. It is a movie of long takes of formal conversation, as the ronin loyal to their late master wrestle with how they will respond to his humiliating death. Even if the reference points aren't always clear, the emotions expressed are universal, and it's fascinating to imagine Japanese theatrical audiences in the early days of World War II watching this tale of men of honor willing to give up everything, including their lives, to uphold their principles." - www.allmovie.com

Download links:

(720p, 4 GB):

http://uploaded.net/file/brb43hdp/Japanese_The_47_Ronin_1941_720p_WEB_DL_H264_KG_4LMXEyS37TnYRT.part1.rar 
http://uploaded.net/file/jrlbouja/Japanese_The_47_Ronin_1941_720p_WEB_DL_H264_KG_4LMXEyS37TnYRT.part2.rar 
http://uploaded.net/file/znq9p1es/Japanese_The_47_Ronin_1941_720p_WEB_DL_H264_KG_4LMXEyS37TnYRT.part3.rar 
http://uploaded.net/file/9gesaxxx/Japanese_The_47_Ronin_1941_720p_WEB_DL_H264_KG_4LMXEyS37TnYRT.part4.rar

Naniwa ereji (Osaka elegy) 1936 - One of Mizoguchi's first true masterworks

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 7,5

Director: Kenji Mizoguchi
Main Cast: Isuzu Yamada, Seiichi Takegawa, Chiyoko Okura, Yoko Umemura

"At a time when heartwarming family dramas were the norm, Osaka Elegy (1936) delivered an unprecedented dose of hard reality to Japanese cinema. Considered Kenji Mizoguchi's finest pre-war work, along with Sisters of the Gion, this drama is a searing critique of social hypocrisy that moves the viewer without stooping to sentimentality. As in much of Mizoguchi's work, women suffer at the hands of men who are portrayed as vain, callous, and weak. Yet there is little room for the sort of wistful transcendence found in such later masterpieces as Life of Oharu (1952). Instead, there is an accusing finger pointed at society. The commentary in this film proved too sharp for some, and in 1940 the Japanese militarist government banned it as too pessimistic. Actress Isuzu Yamada delivers a stunning performance as the perpetually unfortunate Ayako, while Minoru Miki's cinematography deftly captures the glitz and squalor of Tokyo in the 1930s. For Mizoguchi, Osaka marked a significant turning point in his long and illustrious career: it was his first of many collaborations with screenwriter Yoshikata Yoda and his first film to showcase the elegant visual style made famous in such later classics as Ugetsu (1953) and Sansho the Bailiff (1954). Osaka Elegy is a devastating work by a master approaching the pinnacle of his abilities." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

Zangiku monogatari (The story of the last chrysanthemum) 1939 - A powerful look at the depersonalization of women

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032156/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 7,8

Director: Kenji Mizoguchi
Main Cast: Shotaro Hanayagi, Kokichi Takada, Gonjuro Kawarazaki, Kakuko Mori

A mid-career masterpiece from the great Mizoguchi, whose focus on the mistreatment of women in Japanese society was filtered through the experience of his sister's prostitution, it's known in Japan as a shinpa tragedy, one concerned with a woman who endures her fate in tears. Here, the forbidden love between a young man from a powerful family of kabuki actors and a low-caste wet nurse forms the basis for one of the director's most moving works. When the talented but undisciplined young actor Shotaro Hanyagi is banished from the family for refusing to abandon the woman, on her advice, they leave their native Tokyo that he might perfect his technique, far from his family's influence. The first film that the director felt was truly his own, it employs the fluid sequence takes and crabbing, or diagonal tracking shots, of which he was one of the medium's masters. Forced to shoot the 40-year-old actor in long shots to make him appear younger for the earlier scenes, the director was so impressed by the detached, meditative quality they afforded, that they would become a mark of his style. - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/story-of-the-late-chrysanthemums-v47122/

DVD links:

Gion no shimai (Sisters of Gion) 1936 - An early Mizoguchi masterpiece

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0027672/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2
IMDB rating: 7,7

Director: Kenji Mizoguchi
Main Cast: Isuzu Yamada, Yoko Umemura, Benkei Shiganoya, Eitaro Shindo

"Along with Osaka Elegy (1936), Sisters of the Gion is widely considered one of Kenji Mizoguchi's finest prewar films. The movie takes a realistic look at the life of a geisha in Kyoto's Gion district. Omocha is a geisha with 'modern girl' sensibilities; she resents the way that men callously treat women, and she is inclined to ignore the traditions and expectations of her profession. She sets out to beat men at their own game, jumping from patron to patron (a no-no in the geisha business) in order to attain money, nice clothes, and fancy meals. In the process, she deceives and ruins a bumbling, though sincere, store clerk. Her sister Umekichi, on the other hand, possesses all the qualities of the legendary geisha. In spite of Omocha's mockery, she remains devoted to her bankrupt former patron. Eventually, the wronged store clerk exacts revenge against Omocha, landing her in the hospital, while Umekichi's patron abandons her, returning to his wife.
As in much of his oeuvre, Mizoguchi shows a deep sensitivity towards the plight of women in society and, as in much of his postwar work, he emphasizes the inevitability of fate. Neither Omocha's guile nor Umekichi's loyalty can do much to alter their cruel predicaments; however, this acknowledgement of their fate yields little of the transcendence seen in such later films as Life of Oharu (1955)." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/sisters-of-the-gion-v44923

DVD links:

Taki no shiraito (The water magician) 1933 - A popular silent movie of Kenji Mizoguchi

The director with his leading lady

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024641/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 7,5

Director: Kenji Mizoguchi
Main Cast: Takako Irie, Tokihiko Okada, Nobuo Kosaka

"Early Japanese filmmaker Kenji Mizoguchi directs the black-and-white silent drama Taki No shiraito, based on the tragic novel written by Kyoka Izumi during the 19th century. (The title has been translated into both The Water Magician and White Threads of the Waterfall.) This tale of tragic love realistically depicts the beauty and strength of the women of the Meiji Era. Takako Irie (who was one of the greatest stars of Japanese cinema in that period, and a symbol of glamour and dignified beauty) plays Takino Hiraito, a strong-willed water magician in a circus. Popular entertainers of the time, water magicians used paddles to sculpt streams of water into different shapes. She travels around the Hokuriku district with her act until she meets a timid boy named Kinya Murakoshi (Tokihiko Okada). His boyish sensitivity is very attractive to the independent Takino. They must part ways, but she sends him money so he can go to law school. Like many of Mizoguchi's heroines, Takino sacrifices her own happiness in order to provide for the man she loves."

Download links (with English subtitles):