#mikio mori

[kenpiercemedia]

Anime NYC Honored by the Consulate General of Japan in New York

Anime NYC Honored by the Consulate General of Japan in New York

The Press Release: Anime NYC Powered By Crunchyroll, the second-largest Japanese popular culture festival in the United States, was proudly honored by the Consulate General of Japan in New York at a ceremony and reception at Ambassador Mikio Mori’s residence. Anime NYC Event Director MK Goodwin and Anime NYC Founder Peter Tatara received a special commendation from Ambassador Mori in recognition…

[sacredwhores]

Mikio Naruse - Floating Clouds (1955)

[maggiecheungs]

Hideko Takamine as Keiko in When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960) dir. Mikio Naruse

[tourneurs]

“Humans only live for themselves.”

As a Wife, As a Woman (1961) dir. Mikio Naruse

[docgold13]

Profiles in Villainy 

Zoltar

Berg Katse was created by the alien entity known as Sōsai X so to act as the leader of the terrorist organization called Galactor. Berg was tasked with marshaling the forces of Galactor in an effort to conquer and subjugate the entire planet.

Berg is a mutant entity created through the genetic fusion of a pair of fraternal twins while they were still in the womb. As a composite being, Berg possess greatly enhanced strength, speed and intellect.  An odd byproduct of the process that created Berg causes him to alternate biological sexes on a roughly annual basis.  Berg identifies as male and he has hid his alternating physical sex under a uniform and mask.  

As the leader of Galactor, answering only to Sōsai X, Berg regularly matched wits with the Gatchaman Science Ninja Team (or G-Force).  G-Force has been able to thwart Berg’s dastardly schemes yet they have never been able to apprehend him as Berg manages to always slip away at the last moment.  

Actors Mikio Terashima and Hiroko Mori provided the voice for Berg Katse in the original anime series.  In the English language dub, where Berg is renamed ‘Zoltar,’ actor Keye Luke provided the character’s voice.  The Villain first appeared in the debut episode of Kagaku Ninjatai Gatchaman, airing on October 1st, 1972. 

[davidhudson]

Masayuki Mori, January 13, 1911 – October 7, 1973.

With Hideko Takamine in Mikio Naruse’s Floating Clouds (1955).

[byneddiedingo]

Hideko Takamine and Daisuke Kato in When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (Mikio Naruse, 1960)

Cast: Hideko Takamine, Tatsuya Nakadai, Reiko Dan, Masayuki Mori, Daisuke Kato, Keiko Awaji, Ganjiro Nakamura, Eitaro Ozawa, Chieko Nakakita. Screenplay: Ryuzo Kikushima. Cinematography: Masao Tamai. Production design: Satoru Chuko. Film editing: Eiji Ooi. Music : Toshiro Mayuzumi.  

If I ran a revival house, I'd like to program a series of double features of American and Japanese "women's pictures." It would give us a chance to compare not only directors like Douglas Sirk and Mikio Naruse but also the actresses most associated with the genre: Joan Crawford, Jane Wyman, and Lana Turner on the one hand; Kyoko Kagawa, Setsuko Hara, and Hideko Takamine on the other. Takamine is the woman who ascends the stairs in Naruse's film, only to hit something like a glass ceiling. She plays Keiko (at first a little confusingly, at least to Western audiences, called "Mama"), a Ginza bar hostess whose job it is to bring in paying customers, especially rich ones, who will while away their after-office hours flirting with her and the fleet of bar girls. She doesn't sleep with the customers -- even the younger women aren't expected to, but sometimes do -- and though she drinks with them, she doesn't particularly like alcohol. But Keiko is on the brink of turning 30, and when the bar starts losing customers to a younger hostess named Yuri (Keiko Awaji), who has left Keiko's establishment to start her own, she begins to see what a dead-end she faces. She doesn't own the bar where she works, and the woman who does is beginning to blame her for losing customers and for not wearing flashier kimonos. She supports her mother and somewhat feckless brother, who has a son who needs an operation to correct a defect left by polio.She begins to hate climbing the stairs to the bar every night and the stress brings on a peptic ulcer, but she can see only three options for her life: Marry, become the mistress of a wealthy patron, or buy her own bar. Each of these opportunities presents itself during the course of the film, only to end in disappointment, and at the end she is climbing the stairs again. Takamine is marvelous, so expressive that we hardly need her voiceover narration to know what she's feeling and thinking, and she's well-supported by Reiko Dan as the younger, more carefree bar girl; Tatsuya Nakadai as the bar's handsome young business manager, who's in love with Keiko; Daisuke Kato as the chubby customer who proposes a marriage to Keiko that she accepts before learning that he's already married and a constant philanderer; and Masayuki Mori as the potential wealthy patron with whom, in a moment of drunken abandonment, she sleeps, only to learn the next morning that he's moving to Osaka. When a Woman Ascends the Stairs is a beautifully made account of problems specific to a time, a place, and a gender, yet universal in its depiction of the frustrations of the working life.  

[thelucindariver]

There's no correspondence if we put together what Keiko aspires to in modern Tokyo society (that isn't visionary but quite reachable) and the need to be filled with human warmth. Does it not follow that the main character will act irrationally, or worse desperately, since the director has his eloquent way of capture pain and anxiety: plain, terse, below a properly intimistic threshold.

★★★★☆

[hiddenbyleaves]

Floating Clouds (Mikio Naruse, 1955)

[365filmsbyauroranocte]

Floating Clouds (Mikio Naruse, 1955)

[shihlun]

Mikio Naruse

- Floating Clouds

1955

[sacredwhores]

Mikio Naruse - Floating Clouds (1955)

[fieldcinema]

Onna ga kaidan wo agaru toki, 1960 Dir. Mikio Naruse

[picturessnatcher]

[oldfilmsflicker]

Ukigumo, 1955 (dir. Mikio Naruse)

[davidhudson]

Masayuki Mori, January 13, 1911 – October 7, 1973.

With Hideko Takamine on the set of Mikio Naruse’s Floating Clouds (1955).