Drama

Shōgun – Ladies of the Willow World

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Shōgun – Ladies of the Willow World
  • IMDb: link

Shōgun - Ladies of the Willow World

While much of “Ladies of the Willow World” takes place in Lord Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), including the title which derives from Mariko (Anna Sawai) setting up John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) with another prostitute, in terms of events moving the larger story forward we must look to Osaka. Here we see the impact of Ochiba No Kata’s (Fumi Nikaidô) return in pushing Ishido (Takehiro Hira) to act bolder with the Regents beginning with replacing Toranaga’s open seat with a flunky and then murdering Lord Sugiyama (Toshi Toda) after the Regent refuses to go along with his plans.

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The Beautiful Game

/ / Home Video
  • Title: The Beautiful Game
  • IMDb: link

The Beautiful Game

Based loosely on real stories, The Beautiful Game follows the British football team to Rome for the Homeless World Cup (a real tournament that uses a football championship which features homeless players of various skills from countries around the world to bring awareness to homelessness). The tournament, which many likely know very little about, is certainly a heartwarming topic to build a movie around. The stories we get told with it as it’s backdrop, however, are a bit more hit-and-miss.

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Shōgun – The Eightfold Fence / Broken to the Fist

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Shōgun – The Eightfold Fence / Broken to the Fist
  • IMDb: link | link

Shōgun - The Eightfold Fence / Broken to the Fist

“The Eightfold Fence” and “Broken to the Fist” focus on John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) teaching Lord Toranaga’s (Hiroyuki Sanada) soldiers while continuing to struggle with cultural nuance of the foreign land. Blackthorne and Mariko (Anna Sawai) are drawn closer together only to be pushed apart by the miraculous appearance of her douchebag of a husband Buntaro (Shinnosuke Abe) who continues to struggle with his wife earning greater favor with their lord. In a forceful display of power, the samurai forces Mariko to explain to Blackthorne her past and unfortunate familial ties. That, along with Buntaro beating his wife that night, nearly forces a deadly confrontation between Buntaro and Blackthorne (who does witness an example of the samurai’s skill with a bow).

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Shōgun – Tomorrow is Tomorrow

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Shōgun – Tomorrow is Tomorrow
  • IMDb: link

Shōgun - Tomorrow is Tomorrow

“Tomorrow is Tomorrow” accomplishes two major tasks. The first is Lord Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis), and Mariko (Anna Sawai) and out of the clutches of those who want both Toranaga and Blackthorne dead. The second is it provides multiple opportunities for both Toranaga and Blackthorne to get a measure of each other. Blackthorne discovers the cunning of his rescuer/captor in getting out of Osaka while leaving his enemies at an empass unable to move forward with their plans without his presence. Toranaga gets a measure of the pilot who puts his own life on the line rather than be left behind. As so a friendship begins between the pair with Mariko cemented as the bridge between them.

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The Joy Luck Club

/ / Home Video
  • Title: The Joy Luck Club
  • IMDb: link

“I tell you the story because I was raised the Chinese way. I was taught to desire nothing, to swallow other people’s misery, and to eat my own bitterness. And even though I taught my daughter the opposite, still she came out the same way. Maybe it is because she was born to me and she was born a girl, and I was born to my mother and I was born a girl, all of us like stairs, one step after another, going up, going down, but always going the same way.”

Joy Luck Club

There are a handful of films that are guaranteed to always bring tears to my eyes. Based on the novel of the same name, 1993’s The Joy Luck Club centers around the lives of twenty-something Chinese-American women and the lives of their mothers, all of whom grew up in China, which are explored in flashbacks. After immigrating to America, these four women found each other and created the group playing mahjong and sharing stories for which the novel, and film, are named.

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