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The Roof of Japan

This film was touted as its country's first full-length "nature documentary." Following the tradition established by Disney's "True-Life Adventures," the film transports the viewers to the loftiest heights of Japan's mountain ranges. Here, the hardy residents struggle for survival against the elements, and do a pretty good job of it (after all, they've been there longer than the audience has!) Especially well handled are the sequences involving the animal denizens of the snow-capped regions.

The Roof of Japan

9.0 1957
It So Happens to a Woman

Hung Sin Nui plays a mother of three who is burning with desires to serve society. Working as a journalist, she stays out for long hours, resulting in negligence of her children and her husband’s suspicions of infidelity. The twist, at once ironic and realistic, is that her unsupportive husband had actually written in his youth a book on gender equality. On the verge of divorce, the couple reconciles after the husband’s mother, sympathetic to the difficulties faced by women, rises to the occasion with timely and prudent advice. Hung’s character, a woman stuck between cultures of old and new, was tailor-made for the star by screenwriter Chu Hak. Director Li Pingqian portrays her struggles with realist and humanistic touches, extending gentle critiques of social prejudices without fanning the ire of resentment.

It So Happens to a Woman

NR 1955
Sacrifice

Filmed only a few months after Tatsumi Hijikata’s first explosive public butoh performance, “Gisei” features Hijikata and members of his Asbestos Hall Troupe in a brutal allegory of a closed society. Shot by noted Japanese film scholar Donald Richie, “Gisei” still conveys the shock that Japanese audiences in 1959 must have felt at the birth of Hijikata's ankoku butoh, or "dance of darkness". Richie met Hijikata through mutual friend Yukio Mishima. They decided to collaborate on a film about segregation. Richie memorialized the film in his diary: “It is more than ever about the death of an individual, a distinct kind of human sacrifice.”

Sacrifice

NR 1959
As You Desire

This rare gem features the extraordinary stellar cast of two comedy giants on the same screen and the two Ma's (Ma Si-tsang and Sun Ma Si-tsang) performing together. Leung Sing-por as the wealth-feigning Au and Ma Si-tsang as penny pincher Ma already set the stage for laughter. Ma Si-tsang dons a hilarious moustache and adds panache to the character whenever he complacently twists his moustache, making his greediness almost lovable. The film features a zany plot 'twist' when the two Ma's, as father and son, try to attend a charity gala by having Sun Ma Si-tsang teach Ma Si-tsang to sing ‘Yu Hap-wan Expresses His Inner Feelings', one of the elder Ma's most popular repertoire. Ma Si-tsang gives a commanding seven-minute solo performance that captures the heart of the audience now and forever.

As You Desire

NR 1952
The Battle of Love

Yeh Wei-fang, a rich young lady, flirts with her suitors and hopes it would make Shi Rongsheng, the cousin she loves, angry. But Rongsheng doesn’t pay attention to that, and lectures her for lacking self-respect. Tao Wen-ping, Rongsheng's friend, gets to know Wei-fang. He invites her to go to the resort house borrowed from Rongsheng, but is fooled by her. Wen-ping gets to know Fang's sister, Wei-ling, by chance. Sharing common interests, Wei-ling grows a secret love for him. Wei-fang's home has a JP’s son as a guest. Rongsheng invites Wen-ping to join. Wei-fang knows that Wei-ling likes Wen-ping, but she shows intimacy towards him. Another guest, the antiquary Prof Ho Chi-hua, arrives, he is infatuated with Wei-fang. Wei-fang shows zeal for both, who in the end quarrel and fight. Wei-fang finally declares her love for Rongsheng under the pressure from Wen-ping and Chi-hua, who had a fight over her. Rongsheng's evasiveness proves weak for Wei-fang's quest for his love.

The Battle of Love

10.0 1957
The Shadowless Pagoda

On the eighth of April of King Gyoeng-deok's 10th year of the reign of the Unified Silla Period, Guseulagi, a daughter of Yu Jong, joins the king's parade to Bulguksa Temple, where she meets a stonemason named Asadal from Buyeo. Having a crush on him, she visits Sakyamuni Pagoda, a masonic site; only to find that Asadal had broken down from exhaustion. While she takes care of him, her love for him grows. But Asadal misses his wife who is waiting for him in Buyeo. Meanwhile, Geum Seong who has a crush on Guseulagi, asks his father, Geum Ji, to propose on behalf of him. But Yu Jong is so dissatisfied with Geum Ji because he is a treacherous subject, that he turns down the proposal, instead of hurrying up his daughter's marriage with Gyeongsin, a faithful subject. Asanyeo who has been waiting for her husband Asadal in Buyeo goes to Bulguksa Temple after her father-in-law had died.

The Shadowless Pagoda

6.3 1957
Calendar Girl

Musician Sun Ping is estranged from his wife. Second daughter Yinzheng lives with Sun while eldest daughter Jinliu follows her mother. By coincidence, the sisters both enter the 'Calendar Girl' pageant but Jinliu deliberately lets her sister win the contest. Later, the sisters and Liu Bucheng perform in Sun's musical show. Though the show is a success, Yinzheng decides to quit in order to get married. Not wishing to disappoint their father, Jinliu devises a plan to make Yinzheng stay on, but the plan misfires. Yinzheng leaves angrily. She is at last brought back to the show due to Liu's mediation. The elders also reconcile as the sisters perform together on stage.

Calendar Girl

8.0 1959
Caisson

The film is a promotional film, recording the construction of a pressurized lockbox at the Hachinohe power plant in Aomori. Matsumoto's official first directorial debut at the Shinriken Motion Picture, the film found a 16mm film print stored in a civil library and digitized. His official credit is the assistant director in Silver Ring, commonly known as Matsumoto's first work. Matsumoto challenged to objectively capture the image of the worker in camera in spite of the limitations of promotional films where the records of the construction site were prioritized.

Caisson

NR 1957