Welcome to Japan, seen through the world of movies.
Of course this limits the time frame, since the first Japanese feature film in Japan (The Captain’s Daughter) was made in 1917.
in the 1920s we see the the development of major studios such as Nikkatsu and Shochiku, and
in the 1930s the emergence of directors such as Yasujirō Ozu, Kenji Mizoguchi, and Sadao Yamanaka,
often regarded as the beginning of Japan’s classical cinema.
In the 1940s–1960s (‘Golden Age‘) we see directors like Akira Kurosawa, Mikio Naruse, Keisuke Kinoshita and Kon Ichikawa.
From the 1960s onwards (‘Japanese New Wave‘) we see Nagisa Ōshima, Nagisa Ōshima and Seijun Suzuki.
In the modern era we see Jūzō Itami, Takeshi Kitano, Hayao Miyazaki and Hirokazu Kore-eda.
I have been working extensively with 1940s–1960s Japanese films, especially
– Hi no ataru sakamichi (1958) AKA A Slope in the Sun, a romantic b/w movie about a girl dealing with two brothers
– Hatsu Haru Tanuki Goten (1959) AKA The Enchanted Princess, a delightful hidden pearl among Japanese musicals
– Hadaka no Jūyaku (1964) AKA The Naked Executive, a wonderful insight into the world of Japanese companies with a romantic touch
– Genroku Chūshingura (1941, 1942) AKA The 47 Ronin, the b/w movie by Kenji Mizoguchi about the Kira attack in Edo castle
–