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Kobayashi Masaki

The Tokyo Trial (R2 Japan)

I can definitely confirm that the DVD release of Kobayashi Masaki's The Tokyo Trial, or International Military Tribunal for the Far East (Tokyo Saiban) has an english audio option which replaces the entire four hour plus documentary's Japanese narration with english. It's very reasonably priced for a Japanese disc, looks more than decent for something almost entirely stock footage, and is a fascinating later filim for this director (kind of a Chris Marker/early Resnais moment for Kobayashi.) Enjoy!

edit: also, here's a little history lesson.

Thanks for the info, Steven. I'm always yearning for more Kobayashi. Have you had a look at The Black River yet? I saw your screen caps but was hoping you'd write something on your blog...

Hopefully Criterion will put it out soon. It is a Janus title apparently.

FSimeoni wrote:Thanks for the info, Steven. I'm always yearning for more Kobayashi. Have you had a look at The Black River yet? I saw your screen caps but was hoping you'd write something on your blog...

Hopefully Criterion will put it out soon. It is a Janus title apparently.

It's a great film, and well worth jumping the gun and getting the french release. Nakadai and Arima are stunning just to have on screen and Atsuta Yuharu knows full well how to film them (and everything else for that matter, being Ozu's man behind the camera for the postwar era.) Actually, a lot of the visuals reminded me of Hen in the Wind, and they're set in a similar type of milieu. The music by Kinoshita Chuji, who was Kinoshita Keisuke's main composer (probably impressed Kobayashi while he was ADing for Kinoshita) is pretty unique among his films, very jazzy but less in that Bernard Herrman way Takemitsu scored the somewhat similar Crazed Fruit, and much more Duke Ellington, and DEFINITELY recalling The Mooche which is easily one of my favorite Ellington tunes. I've heard a thousand versions of The Mooche and still can't pick a favorite, its up there with I Cover the Waterfront for me.

I actually have a draft saved on my blog, but its from when I watched it without subtitles so I need to go back and revise some things. I really want to see The Thick Walled Room now (I've seen I'll Buy You without subtitles). Hopefully a copy of that will turn up somewhere soon (along with another leftist 50s Japanese film I'm dying to see, Imai Tadashi's Darkness At Noon.) There's to much stuff to track down out there!