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With November 20th 2015 being the centenary of director Kon Ichikawa's birth, quite a lot of restored Ichikawa films are making the rounds in festivals, TV and Blu-rays.

I just watched the 4K remastered print of "Enjo" AKA "Conflagration", based on the novel "Kinkakuji" by Yukio Mishima, which surprisingly hasn't had a DVD release in the west, will be released on Blu-ray next month in Japan, along with "Ototo" AKA "Brother" and "Yukinojo henge" AKA "An Actor's Revenge".

Kon Ichikawa 4K Remaster Box
The boxset seems to be in Japanese only without subtitles, and the box exclusively comes with a bonus DVD and bonus CD.

I was also fortunate enough to see the 1970 documentary short by Ichikawa "Japan and the Japanese", which was made for the Osaka Expo, which was screened on 8 screens with 8 projectors running simultaneously showing a collage of Japan, sometimes all 8 screens showing a singular image, or half the screen with one image and half with 4 individual images, and various other combinations. Sadly the soundtrack is lost (who would lose such a thing?).

But in addition, I saw "Yowamushi Chinsengumi", a 1935 animated film which was lost for many years but found 2 years ago in California of all places. This is now the earliest film surviving in Kon Ichikawa's filmography, him being one of the key animators. Thankfully the UCLA restored print looks great.

I envy you. ;-}

I am a big fan of Kon Ichikawa during the period that he was aided and abetted by his wife, the wonderful screenwriter Natto Wada. However, I have not been (strongly) impressed with any of the films he made after she retired and he was on his own cinematically.

Really? Not even the Kindaichi series? I'm still surprised Criterion or any other companies never released "The Inugami Clan" or the other movies.

Post-Wada, my familiarity with Ichikawa is spotty. But nothing I've seen would have made me anxious to see any of his other work. Which is not the case for his Wada-period work -- where I would like to see virtually everything.

Belated but here are DVD reviews with screenshots of The Story of Kon Ichikawa and Style of Kon Ichikawa.

Currently "Style" is ￥1523 or part of the 2 for ¥3000 sale at Amazon Japan.

And come on Criterion/Arrow/Eureka or whoever. Release the Ichikawa directed Detective Kindaichi 6 film series in a fully loaded Blu-ray box already!

Enjo / Conflagration (1957)

I kept waiting for a really good home video release -- and it has never arrived. However, Criterion Channel now offers a gorgeous looking streamed version -- so, at long last, I've managed to see this.

I'd have to say that, like many Ichikawa-Wada films of this period, this is a masterpiece. The widescreen black-and-white cinematography is stunning. The main performances (Raizo Ichikawa, Ganjiro Nakamura, Tatsuya Nakadai) are excellent. The story -- mostly shown in flashbacks (and at least one flashback within a flashback) -- is well-scripted. If you've subscribed to CC and haven't seen this yet, you should check it out.

I feel it loses something in the adaptation, especially with all the internal monologue from the story. But it still works quite well.

I haven't read the original story yet. I thought an attempt was made here to give _some_ sense of interior monologue.

Michael Kerpan wrote: Wed May 15, 2019 9:27 pm Enjo / Conflagration (1957)

I kept waiting for a really good home video release -- and it has never arrived. However, Criterion Channel now offers a gorgeous looking streamed version -- so, at long last, I've managed to see this.

I'd have to say that, like many Ichikawa-Wada films of this period, this is a masterpiece. The widescreen black-and-white cinematography is stunning. The main performances (Raizo Ichikawa, Ganjiro Nakamura, Tatsuya Nakadai) are excellent. The story -- mostly shown in flashbacks (and at least one flashback within a flashback) -- is well-scripted. If you've subscribed to CC and haven't seen this yet, you should check it out.

In fact, Kadokawa in Japan has an excellent Blu-ray edition I've just purchased (but it's not English-friendly). It comes with a facsimile of Ichikawa's shooting script, heavily annotated by the director (again, Japanese only).

The photography in this film is, as you say, gorgeous. Miyagawa does it again.

A lot of excellent Ichikawa films came out on unsubbed DVDs -- but never managed to catch the attention of Western distributors (despite an excellent traveling retrospective long ago).

For the record -- news from 2015:
Her Brother (Ototo, Kon Ichikawa, 1960) was restored in 2015 in 4K:
https://group.kadokawa.co.jp/global/sus ... ntain.html
https://www.criterionchannel.com/direct ... er-brother

So this has been hidden away for 11 years!!!

Not exactly hidden away. Her Brother was released in that 2015 4K restoration box set by Kadokawa, along with two other Ichikawa, Conflagration and An Actor's Revenge. BFI and Criterion both elected to port over only An Actor's Revenge for their own Blu-ray releases.

I assume the Japanese set did not have subtitles. If it did, I guess I blew it....

Only Japanese subs.