"Actor: Hiroshi Kawaguchi"

• FLOATING WEEDS | Blu Ray | (03/12/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Towards the end of his career, Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu (Tokyo Story; Late Spring; Early Summer; An Autumn Afternoon; Good Morning) returned to a story he had made some 25 years earlier as a silent, Ukigusa monogatari [A Story of Floating Weeds], for a magnificent colour reworking, photographed by legendary cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa (Rashomon, Ugetsu monogatari).When a travelling theatre troupe brings their show to a seaside port, Komajuro (Ganjiro Nakamura), an ageing actor, is reunited with his former lover, sake bar owner Oyoshi (Haruko Sugimura), and his illegitimate son Kiyoshi (Hiroshi Kawaguchi), to the distress of his current mistress Sumiko (Machiko Kyo).From this simple scenario, Ozu builds, one exquisite image at a time, a saga of profound humanity and rich understanding. Encompassing a novelistic range of emotions and tones with the utmost delicacy, Floating Weeds stands tall even amidst a body of work as extraordinary as Ozu's. Making its worldwide Blu-ray debut, The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Floating Weeds in a beautiful new high-definition restoration.

• Giants And Toys | Blu Ray | (10/05/2021) from £9.39   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Giants and Toys is a sharp and snappy corporate satire revolving around the ruthless machinations of a group of admen working in the confectionary industry. As a new recruit to the marketing department of World Caramel, fresh-faced graduate Nishi (Hiroshi Kawaguchi) is eager to impress his ambitious and hard-nosed boss Goda (Black Test Car's Hideo Takamatsu), even if it strains his relationships with his college friend Yokoyama (Koichi Fujiyama) and budding love interest Masami (Michiko Ono), who work at the rival companies of Giant and Apollo. With World's lead over its competitors slipping badly, the two spot a chance to get back in the race in the shape of the pretty but unsophisticated 18-year-old, Kyoko (Hitomi Nozoe). Goda and Nishi get to work polishing this rough diamond as their new campaign girl, but as the three rival confectionary companies pitch themselves into an all-out advertising war that spills out onto the streets of Tokyo as it escalates to ludicrous extremes, Kyoko's newfound fame starts going to her head. Making its worldwide Blu-ray debut, this lurid adaptation of the award-winning 1957 novel by Ken Kaiko is considered a landmark in Japanese film history and a key work by Yasuzo Masumura (Blind Beast, Red Angel), one of the country's most highly acclaimed directors of his generation. Its absurdist and acidly cynical take on the excesses of the media and advertising worlds recalls the work of Frank Tashlin (Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?), as it presents a garish vision of a bold new postwar Japan where traditional company values come head-to-head with American-style consumer capitalism. Special Features High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation Original uncompressed Japanese mono audio Optional English subtitles Brand new audio commentary by Japanese cinema scholar Irene González-López Newly filmed introduction by Japanese cinema expert Tony Rayns In the Realm of the Publicists, a brand new visual essay by Asian cinema scholar Earl Jackson Original Trailer Image Gallery Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tony Stella FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collectors' booklet featuring new writing by Michael Raine

• Floating Weeds | DVD | (26/01/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Floating Weeds is one of the final films directed by the legendary Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu. A remake of one of his own silent features it tells the story of a travelling Kabuki acting troupe led by Komajuro who arrive in a small coastal town. There Komajuro is reunited with his former lover Oyoshi and their illegitimate son who is unaware that the itinerant actor is his father. But the reunion provokes the jealousy of Sumiko Komanjuro's current mistress who plots a devas

• Kisses | DVD | (23/07/2007) from £24.99   |  Saving you £-5.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Masmura's debut feature with its stripped down narrative and handheld camerawork sent a shock wave through Japanese cinema in much the same manner as Godard in Europe. With its liberated camera and even more liberated protagonists this is the film which caused Oshima to say of Masumura ""a powerful irresistible force has arrived in Japanese Cinema."" A young boy and girl meet while visiting their respective fathers in prison. The young lovers soon embrace both each other and their mu

• The Japanese Masters Collection | DVD | (09/10/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  Floating Weeds (Dir. Yasujiro Ozu 1959): Floating Weeds is one of the final films directed by the legendary Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu. A remake of one of his own silent features it tells the story of a travelling Kabuki acting troupe led by Komajuro who arrive in a small coastal town. There Komajuro is reunited with his former lover Oyoshi and their illegitimate son who is unaware that the itinerant actor is his father. But the reunion provokes the jealousy of Sumiko Komanjuro's current mistress who plots a devastating revenge. Beautifully composed and surperbly played 'Floating Weeds' is one of Ozu's most affecting poignant and powerful films. The End Of Summer (Dir. Yasujiro Ozu 1961): This penultimate film by Japanese master director Yasujiro Ozu examines the difficulties faced by the Kohayagawa family as they struggle to adapt their traditional values to a rapidly changing post-war Japan. As the family's generations-old sake making business begins to fail in the face of increasingly fierce competition Manbei the incorrigible elderly patriarch rekindles an affair with an old flame much to the disapproval of his daughter Fumiko. He is further distracted by his attempts to marry off his other two daughters: Akiko the eldest and a widow with a small son and Noriko the youngest who is still single. A sublime bittersweet elegy for a vanishing world The End of Summer is beautifully shot in muted colour elegantly acted and masterfully directed by one of the 20th Century's greatest filmmakers. The Lady of Musashino (Dir. Kenji Mizoguchi 1951): Mizoguchi's dissection of the Japanese reaction to the aftermath of war as a fastidiously moral woman faces upheaval with the changing times brought about by the new post-Imperial period... The Life of Oharu (Dir. Kenji Mizoguchi 1952): In feudal Japan the daughter of a samurai Oharu falls in love with a man below her station. Expelled from the castle in Kyoto her family tries to regain respectability but Oharu is forced into a new life as a concubine and then a fallen woman ever hoping to preserve some semblance of purity in a corrupt world...

• FLOATING WEEDS | DVD | (03/12/2012) from £22.93   |  Saving you £-5.94 (N/A%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Towards the end of his career, Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu (Tokyo Story; Late Spring; Early Summer; An Autumn Afternoon; Good Morning) returned to a story he had made some 25 years earlier as a silent, Ukigusa monogatari [A Story of Floating Weeds], for a magnificent colour reworking, photographed by legendary cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa (Rashomon, Ugetsu monogatari).When a travelling theatre troupe brings their show to a seaside port, Komajuro (Ganjiro Nakamura), an ageing actor, is reunited with his former lover, sake bar owner Oyoshi (Haruko Sugimura), and his illegitimate son Kiyoshi (Hiroshi Kawaguchi), to the distress of his current mistress Sumiko (Machiko Kyo).From this simple scenario, Ozu builds, one exquisite image at a time, a saga of profound humanity and rich understanding. Encompassing a novelistic range of emotions and tones with the utmost delicacy, Floating Weeds stands tall even amidst a body of work as extraordinary as Ozu's. Making its worldwide Blu-ray debut, The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Floating Weeds in a beautiful new high-definition restoration.