East Asian Studies 

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S

•  Saikaku ichidaionna = 西鶴　一代女 = Life of Oharu
Media Collection PN1997 .S247 1996
Feature Film; 1 VHS, 137 minutes; 1952
Dir. Mizoguchi Kenji
In Japanese with English subtitles.

•  Sanma no aji = 秋刀魚の味 = An autumn afternoon
Media Collection PN1997 .S1726 1991
Feature Film; 1 VHS, 112 minutes; 1962
Dir. Ozu Yasujirō
In Japanese with English subtitles.
"This serenely beautiful film tells the timeless, moving tale of a father giving up his only daughter in marriage."

•  Sanshō dayū = 山椒　大夫 = Sansho the bailiff
Media Collection PN1997 .S173 1988
Feature Film; 1 VHS, 132 minutes; 1954
Dir. Mizoguchi Kenji
In Japanese with English subtitles.
Two children set off with their mother to find their father, a noble banished for protecting farmers. Their guide separates them and sells the children as slaves to Sansho, a tyrant. After years, they escape. The daughter commits suicide; the son becomes a great lord, displaces Sansho, and sets out to find his mother.

•  Seishun zankoku monogatari = 青春　酷　物語 = Cruel story of youth
Media Collection PN1997 .S3234 1992
Feature Film; 1 VHS, 96 minutes; 1960
Dir. Ōshima Nagisa
In Japanese with English subtitles.
A teenage girl and her criminal boyfriend perform sexual shakedowns on well-to-do middle-aged men.

•  Semishigure = 蟬しぐれ
Media Collection PN1997.2 .S466 2004
Feature Film; 2 DVD, 333 minutes; 2004
In Japanese.
Romance in the late Edo period between a samurai’s son, Bunshirō, and a neighboring girl named Fuku is complicated by family circumstances and political issues.

•  Sensanbyakunen go onki: En no gyōja shinpen dai bosatsuden : shinbutsu zaisu seichi = 1300年御遠忌: 役行者神変大菩薩 : 神仏在す聖地
Media Collection BQ8829.E557 A15 2000
Documentary Film; 1 VHS; 2000.

•  The seven samurai
Media Collection PN1997 .K8513 1984
Feature Film; 2 VHS, 197 minutes; 1954
Dir. Kurosawa Akira
In Japanese with English subtitles.
For years, a 16th century Japan farm village has been constantly at the mercy of bandits. Anticipating a raid, the community hires professional warriors for protection.

•  Seven samurai = 七人の侍 = Shichinin no samurai
Media Collection PN1997 .S47247 2006
Drama; 3 DVD, 207 minutes; 1954.
Dir. Kurosawa Akira
In Japanese, with optional English subtitles.
Tells the story of a sixteenth-century village whose desperate inhabitants hire seven out-of-work warriors to protect them from invading bandits.

•  Shall we dansu?= Shall we ダンス?
Media Collection PN1997 .S53 2000
Feature Film; 2 VCD, 118 minutes; 1995.
Dir. Suō Masayuki.
In Japanese with Chinese and English subtitles.
Shohei was a typical Tokyo "salary man" who had a nice family, steady job, cozy suburban house, but very little joy of life for himself. One night on his way home from work, he glimpses a melancholy young woman standing by a window of a ballroom dancing school. Eventually, he opens the door to the whole new world of balldancing. A comedy about the mid-life crisis and regaining the self-confidence.

•  Shall we dansu = Shall we ダンス? = Shall we dance?
Media Collection PN1997 .S53 2007
Feature Film; 1 DVD, 119 minutes; 1995
Dir. Suō Masayuki.
Japanese dialogue, English subtitles.
Romantic drama about a middle-aged Japanese office worker who takes up ballroom dancing, which is still considered slightly daring in Japan. The film contains numerous scenes of dance lessons, rehearsals and competitions, including footage shot at the prestigious Blackpool Dance Festival in England.

•  Shiko funjatta=シコふんじゃった
Media Collection PN1997 .S5556 2005
Feature Film; 1 DVD, 103 + 28 minutes;1992
Dir. Suō Masayuki.
In Japanese with optional Japanese subtitles
Comedy about a group of students in a sumo club

•  Shin Heike monogatari = The Taira clan saga
Media Collection PN1997 .S4735 1980
Feature Film; 1 VHS, 100 minutes; 1955
Dir. Mizoguchi Kenji
In Japanese with English subtitles.
Set in the 12th century, film recounts the history of a samurai son who cannot endure to be treated as an inferior and is willing to risk all in defense of life’s fundamental values.

•  Shinjuku boys
Media Shelf HQ77.2.J3 S55 1996
Documentary; 1 VHS, 53 minutes; 1996
Dir. Kim Longinotto & Jano Williams
In Japanese with English commentary and subtitles.
A documentary about three onnabes who work as hosts at the New Marilyn Club in Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo; the club is patronized almost exclusively by heterosexual women. Onnabes are women who live as men and have girlfriends, although they don’t usually identify themselves as lesbians. Follows them at home and at their jobs, where all three discuss their lives, and views about women, sex, transvestitism, and lesbianism.

•  Shinjū ten no Amijima = 心中天網島
Media Collection PN1997 .S4737 2000
Feature Film; 1 DVD, 104 minutes; 1969
Dir. Shinoda Masahiro
In Japanese with optional English subtitles
In this stylized dramatization of a bunraku puppet theater play, Jihei, a paper merchant, abandons business, family and self-respect for a passionate love affair with a geisha whose freedom he cannot afford. As the world closes in upon him, he finds his only course of action to be death together with the lover he is unable to obtain in life

•  Shinto festival music
Arts Library, Music Service Desk ML340.S55 1993
Documentary/Performance; 1 VHS, 30 minutes; 1993
Dir. Eugene Enrico & David Smeal
An overview of the Shinto religion via festivals at three Tokyo shrines. Highlighted are the roles of the various instruments used, and the music accompanying the attendant rituals, in its local setting.

•  Shiro Toyoda’s Snow country = Yukiguni
Media Collection PN1997 .S6171 1992
Feature Film; 1 VHS, 134 minutes; 1957
Dir. Shiro Toyoda
In Japanese with English subtitles.
An artist travels to the snow country to rediscover himself. While there he becomes involved in an ill-conceived love affair.

•  Silence broken: Korean comfort women
Media Collection D810.C698 S585 2000
Documentary; 1 VHS, 57 minutes; 1999
Dir. Dai Sil Kim-Gibson
In Korean, Japanese and English with English subtitles.
A documentary on Korean comfort women who were forced into sexual servitude by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II.

•  The stonecutter
Curriculum Lab, Juvenile Media PZ8.1 .S863 1980z
Juvenile/Animated; 1 VHS, 6 minutes; 198-?
Retells a Japanese folktale asserting that not even the mightiest mountain is immune to a determined stonecutter. Animated.

•  Strawberry fields
Media Collection PN1997 .S7766 2000
Feature Film; 1 DVD, 86 minutes; 1997
Dir. Rea Tajiri
Tells the story of 16-year-old Japanese American Irene Kawai, whose rebellion explodes in the wake of the death of her younger sister. After a clash with her mother, Irene flees her home and meets up with ghost of her sister who leads her to the desert where she makes some important discoveries about her family’s past in the internment camps during World War II.

•  Sugata Sanshirō = 姿三四郎 = The Judo saga
Media Collection PN1997 .S828 1996
Feature Film; 1 VHS, 79 minutes; 1943
Dir. Kurosawa Akira
In Japanese with English subtitles.
Story of a handsome, bumptious young man who wishes to learn judo as a path to philosophical knowledge, rather than a mere set of self-defense techniques.

•  Sukiyaki and chips: the Japanese sounds of music
Arts Library, Music Service Desk ML340.S85 1994
Documentary; 1 VHS, 60 minutes; 1994
Dir. Jeremy Marre
"Sukiyaki and Chips is a giddy kaleidoscope of the Japanese music scene." It deals with all of the influences on the country’s music, from the traditional to the music of the teenybopper.

•  Suna no onna = 砂　の　女 = Woman in the dunes
Media Collection PN1997 .S8328 1998
Feature Film; 1 VHS, 127 minutes; 1964
Dir. Teshigahara Hiroshi
In Japanese with English subtitles.
An entomologist is tricked by villagers into spending the night in a shack in a sandpit with a widow whose task is endlessly to haul away sand. He finds he cannot escape and gradually accepts his fate.

•  Suwarōteiru = スワロウテイル
Media Collection PN1997 .S887 2000
2 DVD, 148 minutes;  60 minutes;1996
Dir. Shunji Iwai
In Japanese, with Japanese and English subtitles
After a young girl’s mother dies, she is cared for by Griko, a hooker, who gives the girl the name "Ageha" (Butterfly). Griko and her buddies are all "Yentowns" immigrants who’ve come to Japan looking for fortune and fame. They live in a shantytown on the outskirts of Tokyo. Ageha transforms from a shy girl into a well-rounded woman through trials

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•  Takamure Itsue: fudan no shuppatsu = 高群逸枝  : 不断の出発
Media Collection DS834 .G35 1997 v.19
Biography; 1 VHS, 45 minutes; 1997
Dir. Kano Masanao
In Japanese.

•  Talking history
Media Collection E184.O6 T356 1984
Documentary; 1 VHS, 30 minutes; 1984
Dir. Spencer Nakasako
In Chinese, Japanese and English with English subtitles.
A film that combines oral histories and historical footage of Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, and Laotian women, featuring their unique immigration stories.

•  Telemusik
Arts Library, Music Service Desk ML410.S667 S764 2007
Lectures; 1 DVD, 58 minutes; 1974.
Karlheinz Stockhausen discusses his composition, Telemusik, and the trip to Japan that inspired it; the recording of Telemusik played at the end of the lecture has been edited out.

•  Tengoku to jigoku = 天国　と　地獄 = High and low
Media Collection PN1997 .T3956 1998
Feature Film; 1 VHS, 143 minutes; 1963
Dir. Kurosawa Akira
In Japanese with English subtitles.
A complex crime thriller in which a wealthy shoe manufacturer’s chauffeur’s son is kidnapped in mistake for his own, and he faces a moral dilemma -- should he pay the ransom anyway and risk losing his position?

•  To Heart : koishite shinitai = To Heart : 恋して死にたい 
Media Collection PN1992.77 .T6 1999
Television Play; 12 VCD; 1999
In Japanese with Chinese subtitles.
A young girl working in a crepe shop falls in love with a boxer who works part-time in a flowershop. She persists in pursuing him while his heart belongs to the owner of the flowershop. Her persistence eventually pays off.

•  Tokyo girls
Media Collection HD6197 .T6455 2000
Documentary; 1 VHS, 58 minutes; 2000
Dir. Penelope Buitenhuis
In English and some French with English subtitles.
This program explores the phenomenon of attractive women from the West who work as nightclub hostesses in Japan. A cheaper version of the geisha, a hostess is hired to talk and flirt with her customers. Although she is well paid, sex is usually not part of the transaction. The film traces the stories of several Canadian women.

•  Tōkyō monogatari = 東京物語 = Tokyo story
Media Collection PN1997 .T595 1989
Feature Film; 1 VHS, 134 minutes; 1953
Dir. Ozu Yasujirō
In Japanese with English subtitles.
An elderly couple visit their grown-up children in Tokyo, but find themselves a burden to the family. They return home, and the mother dies, leaving the father to face the future alone.

•  Tokyo pop
Media Collection PN1997 .T59175 1988
Feature Film; 1 VHS, 99 minutes; 1988
Dir. Fran Rubel Kuzui
In English and some Japanese with English subtitles.
A Tokyo rocker with dreams of fame meets a spunky American who says she knows how to turn his dreams into reality.

•  Tora no o o fumu otokotachi = 虎　の　尾　を　踏む　男逹 = Men who step on the tiger’s tail
Media Collection PN1997 .T63 1990
Feature Film; 1 VHS, 60 minutes; 1953
Dir. Kurosawa Akira
In Japanese with English subtitles.
An elderly couple visit their grown-up children in Tokyo, but find themselves a burden to the family. They return home, and the mother dies, leaving the father to face the future alone.

•  Torii Ryūzō: fīrudo ni kaketa shōgai = 鳥居龍蔵  : フィ一ルドに賭けた生涯
Media Collection DS834 .G35 1997 v.16
Biography; 1 VHS, 45 minutes; 1997
Dir. Akazawa Takeru

•  The tradition of performing arts in Japan: the heart of Kabuki, Noh and Bunraku
Media Collection PN2921 .T733 1989
Documentary/Performance; 1 VHS, 38 minutes; 1989
Dir. Hajime Funatsu
With English subtitles and narration.
Presents a variety of traditional Japanese theater, including seldom-seen backstage preparations and performances by some of Japan’s most illustrious performers.
•  Tsunoda Ryūsaku: Amerika ni okeru Nihongaku no so = 角田柳作  : アメリカにおける日本学の祖
Media Collection DS834 .G35 1997 v.3
Biography; 1 VHS, 39 minutes; 1997
Dir. Satō Yoshimaru


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U

•  Ugetsu monogatari = 雨月　物語
Media Collection PN1997 .U37 1990
Feature Film; 1 VHS, 94 minutes; 1954
Dir. Mizoguchi Kenji
In Japanese with English subtitles.
"[The motion picture is based] on two stories from Ueda Akinari’s Ugetsu monogatari and a short story by Guy de Maupassant, ’La Décoration’. Set in 16-century Japan [during the Warring States period, 1467-1568], Ugetsu monogatari tells of two brothers-in-law, Genjuro and Tobei, who set out for Kyoto to take advantage of the unsettled conditions in the war-torn capital. ... Genjuro, formerly a potter, returned to his now-ruined home to find the spirit of his wife, killed by soldiers. Tobei, once a farmer, discovered his wife in a brothel."--Japan, an illustrated encyclopedia.

•  Ukigusa = 浮草 = Floating weeds
Media Collection PN1997 .U42 1988
Feature Film; 1 VHS, 119 minutes; 1959
Dir. Ozu Yasujirō
In Japanese with English subtitles.
An aged actor with a hidden past returns with his Kabuki theatre company to a small Japanese town. There his secret is uncovered and his troupe disbands due to lack of funds, but the actor finds the strength to continue living.

•  Uri hakkyo = 우리학교 = Our school
Media Collection LC3501.K6 U75 2007
Documentary Film; 1 DVD, 131 minutes; 2006.
Dir. Kim Myŏng-jun.
In Korean with optional subtitles in Korean, English, French, Spanish, and Japanese.
This documentary is about the 3rd and 4th generation Korean residents of Japan who are students of the Chosen Elementary, Middle, and High school in Hokkaido, Japan. It follows the students through one year of the eleven-year national education program. Rather than focusing on special occasions or issues, it reveals what it is like to live in Japan as Korean-Japanese by describing their everyday lives.

•  Uri hakkyo = 우리학교 = Our school
Media Collection LC3501.K6 U752 2008
Documentary Film; 2 DVD, 287 minutes; 2007.
Dir. Kim Myŏng-jun.
In Korean with optional subtitles in Korean, Japanese, English, French, and Spanish (Disc 1); Korean Japanese and English (Disc 2).
This documentary is about Korean residents of Japan who are students of the Chosen Elementary, Middle, and High school in Hokkaido, Japan. It follows the students through one year of the eleven-year national education program. Rather than focusing on special occasions or issues, it reveals what it is like to live in Japan as Korean-Japanese by describing the students’ everyday lives.

•  U.S. bombs Japanese from new base in the Aleutians
Internet Resource
http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS69872

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V

 •  Visas and virtue
Media Collection D804.66.S84 V58 1997
Short Film; 1 DVD, 26 minutes; 1997
Dir. Chris Tashima
Adapted from a fact-based play, Consul General Chiune Sugihara defies his own government and risks his career by issuing life-saving transit visas to Jewish refugees outside the Japanese Embassy in Lithuania in 1940.


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W

•  Waga seishun ni kuinashi = わが　靑春　に　悔なし
Media Collection PN1997 .W246 1999
Feature Film; 1 VHS, 111 minutes; 1946
Dir. Kurosawa Akira
In Japanese with English subtitles
A drama of self-discovery set against the backdrop of prewar Japanese society. An idealistic young woman marries one of her father’s students, a leftist activist who publishes illegal antiwar pamphlets. After his arrest and execution, she takes his ashes to the farming village of his parents. There she finds a new sense of strength and independence, working the land and helping the community

•  Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru = 悪い奴ほどよく眠る
Media Collection PN1997 .W34 2006
Feature Film; 1 DVD, 150 minutes;1960
Dir. Kurosawa Akira
Japanese dialogue, with optional English subtitles
A young executive hunts down his father’s killer. A tale about corruption in the boardrooms of postwar corporate Japan as seen through the rising executive eyes

•  When Mrs. Hegarty comes to Japan
Media Collection DS822.5 .W455 1992
Documentary; 1 VHS, 58 minutes; 1992
Dir. Noriko Sekiguchi
In Japanese and English with English subtitles.
When filmmaker Noriko Sekiguchi attended school in Australia she was befriended by "second parents" Jack and Joyce Hegarty. In this program Joyce Hegarty visits Japan, and is hosted by Noriko’s family. Viewers will see an examination of cross cultural existence and exchange during the three week visit.

•  The world at war
Media Collection D743 .W635 1990z
TV Series; 9 VHS, 156 minutes each; 1973
Prod. Jeremy Isaacs
Examines the events of World War II using documentary footage, photographs, and reminiscences of individuals involved in the conflict.

•  World peace now.jp
Media Collection JZ5584.J3 W67 2003
Documentary Film; 1 DVD, 24 minutes; 2003.
Documentary of demonstrations against U.S. invasion of Iraq in Japan in spring, 2003.

•  World War II
Curriculum Lab, Juvenile Media D743 .W675 1984
Documentary/Juvenile; 1 VHS, 80 minutes; 1972
Covers the highlights of World War II from the rise of Hitler to the surrender of Japan. Includes the personalities, battles, politics, and treaties.

•  Writers & revolutionaries
Media Collection DS735 .W75 1992
Documentary; 1 VHs, 60 minutes; 1992
Prod. Alix Gibney & Steven Talley
Shows influence of intellectuals in China and Japan on the emergence of their societies from domination by poverty, despots and the West.

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Y

•  Yanagi Muneyoshi: bishi ichinyo =柳宗悦: 美信一如
Media Collection DS834 .G35 1997 v.12
Biography; 1 VHS, 42 minutes; 1999
Dir. Mizuo Hiroshi

•  Yanagita Kunio: minzoku no kokoro o saguru tabi = 柳田国男 : 民族の心を探る旅
Media Collection DS834 .G35 1997 v.9
Biography; 1 VHS, 42 minutes;1998
Dir. Okumura Ikuzō

•  Yoidore Tenshi = 醉いどれ　天使 = Drunken angel
Media Collection PN1997 .Y518 2000
Feature Film; 1 VHS, 98 minutes; 1948
Dir. Akira Kurosawa
In Japanese with English subtitles.
The story of a physician who tries to be a healer in a world of hoodlums.

•  Yojimbo = the bodyguard
Media Collection PN1997 .Y5184 1987
Feature Film; 1 VHS, 110 minutes; 1961
Dir. Akira Kurosawa
In Japanese with English subtitles.
Two warring clans vying for power bid for the services of a wandering samurai-for-hire. He becomes embroiled in the dispute and orchestrates the town’s self-destruction. A humorous parody of a classic western.


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Z

•  Zangiku monogatari = 菊　物語 = The story of the last chrysanthemum
Media Collection PN1997 .Z3434 1997
Feature Film; 1 VHS, 115 minutes; 1938
Dir. Mizoguchi Kenji
In Japanese with English subtitles.
"When Kikunosuke, a mediocre actor from a famous kabuki family, falls in love with a maid, he is cast out. The faithful Otoku supports her husband as he struggles to perfect his art. In the end, she is quite ill, yet willing to leave her husband so that he may take his rightful place at the head of the Kabuki community."--Videocassette container.

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Back to East Asian Studies

Most of the films are on DVD although some are still on cassette.  They are located in the Media Collection on the first floor of the Davidson Library.  The Media Collection is in the rear right corner as you enter the Goverment Information Center.  All films are circulating on a 7-day loan period and can be renewed online if no one puts a hold or a request on the item.