My Favorite Japanese Movies

MIYAZAKI & KUROSAWA

There are so many movies I like that it would be impossible to list them all, but this time I decided to choose two works each from Japanese directors MIYAZAKI Hayao and KUROSAWA Akira.

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MIYAZAKI Hayao

I haven't seen all of MIYAZAKI Hayao's films, but I think his 1986 work “天空の城ラピュタ (Laputa: Castle in the Sky)” has a good balance of message and entertainment value, and is full of appeal as an action-adventure story, similar to “Indiana Jones”.

But to be honest, the MIYAZAKI Hayao work I find myself watching over and over again is “カリオストロの城 (The Castle of Cagliostro)”, which he made in 1979, before he founded Studio Ghibli.

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KUROSAWA Akira

I've seen all of KUROSAWA Akira's works. Of course, I like “Rashomon”, “Seven Samurai”, and “Yojimbo”, but my favorite of his works is “椿三十郎 (Tsubaki Sanjuro)”, made in 1962. It's a samurai movie with a good balance of action and comical elements, and it's a movie I want to watch over and over again.

And if I had to pick another Kurosawa work, I'd choose “天国と地獄 (High and Low)” from 1963. This isn't a samurai period drama, but a crime suspense film set in the present day.

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