TOKYO — As I said earlier I am not a professional movie critic, I am just an inveterate movie lover. These are my top 10 favorite Japanese films of all time. I think you will enjoy them as much as I did.
Drunken Angel (醉いどれ天使, Yoidore Tenshi 1948) Slum doctor Takashi Shimura forms an unlikely friendship with rough but tubercular yakuza Toshiro Mifune, in the film that launched his career. An early Akira Kurosawa masterpiece. Known for skirting U.S. Occupation era censorship rules which forbid the showing of English signs, American GI’s, and “pan pan” street girls who service them. Toxic waste is a theme. A visual treat. The first of 16 films Kurosawa made starring Mifune who later became an international star.
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