Nihon made

The narrative unfolds sometimes before the beginning of the Meiji era; in the spotlight is a slight samurai and his family. The film presents accurately, but also with great sensitivity scenes from everyday life, so we are in a position to empathize with the samurai and his family and the hardships and deprivations they face almost heroically, making us think about what is in fact a hero.
The title has a double meaning, with clear reference to an era about to end, the hegemony of Shogun, but also referring to the character and our brave samurai.
The film is penetrating, with depth in story and characters, not focusing too much on fighting, there are two battle scenes in the whole movie, the main character trying to avoid both, but these scenes are presented with great realism.
The acting is exceptional, Hiroyuki Sanada undoubtedly doing his best role so far; his performance is subtle yet effective, he bears all the emotional weight of the movie on his shoulders.
Everything in this movie, from beautiful cinematography to appropriate music makes this movie memorable and one of my favorites

In the XVII century Japan, during Tokugawa era, samurai gradually lost their military function and, when the central government forced daymas to cut the seize of their army, unemplyed ronin (a samurai with no lord or master) became a social problem. To avoid the humiliation of poverty, many ronin would go to the clans and ask to commit seppuku. But many didn't want samurai to commit seppuku on their property so they would just pay them to go elsewhere.
Seppuku was a japanese ritual suicide performed by the samurai. According to the samurai code (Bushido), they rather deal with death by harakiri (stomach-cutting) then face situations in which their honor might be at risk.
The movie begins with such ritual, when a young samurai who was hopping for money for his family announces that he will take his life, even though he is not serious and was just bluffing, he is forced to go through it. The suicide scene is just brutal, one of the reason is that he he is using a bamboo blade (he sold the real one for money).
Later in the movie, an older samurai, comes to the same house under the pretense that he want to commit sucide too. Actually he want to revange the death of the young samurai that had tragic consequences upon his family.
This movie is about revange and honor or so it may seem at first, I liked because is nothing idealized, in fact it is a harsh criticism on feudal system.
"Seppuku" has the most painfuly slow start, at some point I was going to stop watching, I'm glad I didn't , there a tension that builds up culminating with a very interesting fight scene.
I will watch it again...

The movie follows a mothers struggles to raise her two daughters after her husband is imprisoned for opposing the war.
Some said "Kabe" was a tear-jerker, but I strongly disagree, it's true that has some sad moments, but the lighter moments are there, and the fact is that the story is told in such a delicate manner, that I doubt this could ever turn out to be too melodramatic. I liked that "Kabe" presents in a very interesting and truthful way the day to day life of a japanese family during WWII and the mentalities of that period.
On the negative side, the story could have been shortened a bit, some scenes could have been deleted altogether.
The acting is very natural, quite impressive, and I liked the characters.

This movie was a bit confusing and not really interesting in the first 1/2 h or so, but, as the movie progressed,it did got better. Who knew that I'll root root for some rather primitive robots?!

"Udon" was too long for my taste :)

I really tried to like this one, and I did, but I didn't see it as a masterpiece, though.
The plot is appealing, and the characters -interesting, but I got a little bored throughout.
The acting is fine, and the main character is pretty cool as the jaded ronin, a master in sword fighting, that unwillingly gives a hand to a bunch of samurai. There's a light tone and I don't don't know if it helps the story or not.
Anyway, I think I should have seen Yojimbo first, in order to appreciate this one more.

As a piece of cinema this movie has a lot to be admired, the cinematography was outstanding, I like how dark tones were pretty much fitted with bleakness of the story, and as someone already said, the music was really good, I particularly liked how they used fragments from Fantasy, it gave it a haunting and cool feeling. Also the movie is well acted, so it succeeds it obtain a reaction from the viewer. All in all, a technical excellent movie, but what bugged me was the outcome of the movie. I only saw the kids as victims rather than Satan's offspring and the teacher's revenge was uncalled for.

A movie about camaraderie, about passion, about food, unfortunately, and I feel bad saying this, I got really bored watching this.
The images from Antarctic region were gorgeous.

Maybe I'm too picky, but I just can't understand why is this so well regarded.
Sure, the story is told in an unique way and was innovative at the time ( I only guess, I don't know for a fact) but the rest of the movie didn't blow my mind. The acting in pretty terrible, Mifume's performance is embarrassing and I think is the director's fault.
The idea that humans are bad and they tend to lie a bit (!) is not new, but the movie isn't sure about it, as it changes during the end. So, I think this movie is dated, unconvincing and badly done.
I saw before a remake of this (The outrage) with Paul Newan, that wasn't great either.

I didn't exactly enjoyed this movie, to tell the truth I kinda needed it 3 days just to finish it. It wasn't particularly clever, or funny. And I think is just a bad idea to tell in a synopsis something like :"a movie where a punk song saves the world", because where is the surprise?, I begin watching this with that in mind, so the "great ending" wasn't all that great.
Oh, yeah, I think that guy who was raised to be a fighter of justice was cool though.

This starts really good, I was thinking this might be the best I've seen from Kurosawa, but then, as the movie progressed, I had the impression that the plot was going backwards. The movie loses momentum half way through and I had to make a real effort to see this till the end.

Beautiful animation with a environmental message, but the confusing plot and being English dubbed made it so I couldn't enjoy this movie.

I don't know, but an aging blond samurai that kills people for kicks is not all that impressive to me. On top of that, the actor in the leading role is embarrassing bad. The fight scenes are pretty bad too, considering the stories are not very well developed (the same can be said about the characters) the movie should have been at least filled with amazing fights. But the fight scenes are badly choreographed and badly made; the fake blood was splashing in the wrong direction... It was a parody?! It sure seemed that way, especially the final minutes, what was all that "lord of the dance" routine at the end?

A dull and pretentious movie with a healthy dose of symbolism for those that want to decipher it. Honestly, for me this was a great disappointment, after hearing so many great things about it from a friend of mine.
But "Dolls" is just weird for the sake of it. The acting is worse than an amateur play. Too bad, the visuals were fantastic.

Big man Japan or Dai-nipponjin is written and directed by Hitoshi Matsumoto, who plays Masaru Daisato, an ordinary guy, separated by his wife and daughter. A film crew is making a documentary about his life. But Masaru is not so ordinary as he seems, nooo...in his spare time he is a giant superhero and he comes from a long line of, now on the verge of extinction in contemporary Japan, tall superheros. The fighting scenes are ok, the weird looking monsters are interesting, but at the end of the movie I thought I've just watched Flux by Bloc Party...

Typical of this genre, but very well made, with good pace,and with good acting by Juri Ueno, whom I kinda disliked since Nodame Cantabile, I did like her here though, she shows a lot of emotions and she has good chemistry with Hayato Ichihara.
Oh, and I liked the soundtrack, but then again, the Japanese movies have good soundtracks.