Movies: Donald Richie

A documentary of an avant-garde theatre performance, presents an orgiastic rite of sex, degradation, and bloody sacrifice, performed by Zero-Jigen....

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....

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?...

Documentary on film maker Akira Kurosawa...

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 ...

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...

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...

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

A 2007 documentary examining the collaboration between Teshigahara and novelist Kobo Abe, featuring interviews with film scholars Donald Richie and Tadao Sato, film programmer Richard Peña, set designer Arata Isozaki, producer Noriko Nomura, and scre...

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

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

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....

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

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,...

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 ...

Love affair between an older European woman and a younger Japanese man....

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

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...

Short film taking place in Vienna‘s Central Cemetery....

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....