Yoko Ran
Also Known As: 蘭妖子
Biography: Biography not available
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: Not available
Adult: No
Birthday: Not available
Age: Not available
Gender: Female
Popularity:
Known For:
Directions to Servants
Overview: A man claiming to be the heir of an estate in northern japan finds himself at the doors of his mansion, only to find it overrun by servants and maids playing pretend as master or mistress, while the real master is nowhere to be found. As he makes his way down the many rooms of the mansion and witnesses the staff's strange antics, he gradually loses his own role and sense of identity. In this subversive play performed by Tenjo Sajiki, the spectator is asked to question their own role as hierarchical structures are reversed and walls between character and actor, actor and audience gradually break down.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1978-01-01
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The Hunchback of Aomori
Overview: This is Shuji Terayama memorial performance of The Hunchback of Aomori from 1983 (featuring Akihiro Miwa). Terayama gathered dwarfs, circus freaks, itinerant magicians, acrobats and untrained youth for his burgeoning troupe, Tenjo Sajiki. The troupe's premiere offering, written and directed by Terayama, was Aomori-ken no Semushi Otoko (The Hunchback of Aomori, 1967).
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1983-01-01
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Boxer
Overview: In the midst of a match, a successful boxer - Hayato, has had enough of the sport. He lets himself get knocked, quits boxing, leaving his wife and start living alone with his mangy dog. One day a young mediocre boxer knocks at the door and wants to be Hayato's apprentice.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1977-10-01
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Grass Labyrinth
Overview: Akira is haunted by a "bouncing ball" song that he remembers his mother singing when he was a small child, and now on the verge of a sexually active adulthood, he wants to find the origins of the song. The young man ostensibly wanders into a time-warp in which aspects from his childhood and adulthood mix together. In this never-never land he comes across a beautiful woman/witch who is lost inside the labyrinth of her mansion, just as the young man is lost in the labyrinth of time — and on some levels, perhaps the labyrinth of his subconscious.
Genres: Drama Fantasy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1979-01-01
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Pastoral: To Die in the Country
Overview: A director faces creative block while working on his latest film – a reimagination of his adolescence growing up in a mountain village in rural Japan.
Genres: Fantasy Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1974-12-28
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Les chants de Maldoror
Overview: A “reading film” of delirious image and text, Les chants de Maldoror takes its title and inspiration from Comte de Lautréamont’s 1869 proto-Surrealist poetic novel which, for instance, describes beauty as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table. In the novel’s six cantos, a young misanthrope indulges in depraved and destructive acts. Unexpected encounters abound, with turtles and birds joining Terayama’s regular cast of snails and dogs to wander over books and bare torsos. Feverish video processing posterizes, inverts and overlays images that are further colored by sound—pushing the limits of his literary adaptation. Terayama wrote that the only tombstone he wanted was his words, but, as Les chants de Maldoror demonstrates, words need not be confined to carved monuments or bound hardcopies.
Genres: Fantasy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1978-02-02
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The Trial
Overview: An experimental short featuring people and nails.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1975-06-14
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The Eraser
Overview: Visions of characters by the seaside from one's memory are erased by the filmmaker's hand.
Genres: Fantasy Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1977-06-14
Popularity:
Smallpox Tale
Overview: The smallpox virus has created its own unique atmosphere in Terayama’s film where the skin of a bandaged adolescent and the surface of the filmic image are subjected to a bizarre ‘disturbance’ as snails cross the screen and nails are hammered into the skull of the ailing patient. Illness in this film is as much a psychic entity as a physical one and manifests itself in an array of theatrical tableaux from grotesque women rigorously brushing their teeth to a snooker game where the players in white face makeup behave like automata. A Tale of Smallpox uses a medical theme to chart the traumatic dream life of Terayama’s times, evincing deep-rooted concerns in the Japanese national psyche that hark back to the upheaval of Meiji modernisation and the devastation of World War Two.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1975-01-01
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Laura
Overview: Three showgirls playfully mock the audience for attending a projection of an art film.
Genres: Mystery
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1974-01-01
Popularity:
Shintokumaru
Overview: The film depicts the fatal, forbidden love between Nadeko, who is bought by a shop selling her mother, and her son-in-law, Jisumaru.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1997-10-15
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Butterfly
Overview: A dreamlike portrayal of a hangover after a decadent party.
Genres: Fantasy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1974-06-05
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The Lemmings
Overview: This second version of the play follows Wan and Tsu, two apprentice cooks who, as they eavesdrop on their neighbors one day, are shocked by the sudden disappearance of a wall separating them from the next flat. As they try to understand what happened and how to fix their wall, the line between reality and fiction begins to crumble, their endeavors continuously halted by weird and disrupting characters.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1983-01-01
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Shintokumaru
Overview: Shuji Terayama and J.A.Seazer's phantasmagoric folk-psych-symph-prog-rock opera. Historical Tenjo Sajiki performance from 1978.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1978-01-01
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