Keisuke Kinoshita (1912 - 1998)
Keisuke Kinoshita's career has much in common with that of Akira Kurosawa. They made their debut in the same year (i.e., 1943), were most active in 1950s, were successful both commercially and critically in most cases, and directed movies only occasionally in and after middle 1960s. However, Kinoshita's style was regarded as contrasting or opposite to that of Kurosawa. While the latter has been often described with such words as "manly", "dynamic", and so on, Kinoshita's is generally considered to be characterized by lyricism or sentimentality. In other words, in most Kurosawa's movies, heroes (and few heroines) are ones who rages and fights against difficulties, while, in many of Kinoshita's, heroes and heroines endure hardships and sometimes fight a losing battle. Kurosawa described heroes of superior ability, while Kinoshita described ordinary people.
That is, Kinoshita stood for ordinary people without privileges, or the oppressed, and shared with them their joys and sorrows. However, Kinoshita never idealized them. Kinoshita had a keen insight for human nature, and well understood the cunning, cowardice, or cruelty of the ordinary people, which derive from their weakness. In spite of this understanding, Kinoshita loved "weak" ordinary people and cried for them. In fact, it is reported that Kinoshita himself often cried, and, also, the characters of his movies often cries. However, Kinoshita's keen insight prevented his movies from becoming a tearjerker.
As for the visual style, Kinoshita was distinguished by his remarkable sense of composition. In Kinoshita's movies especially in 1950s, you can frequently find a composition full of scenery beauty and deliberately designed so that an atmosphere or emotion, which the director wanted, may be generated.
(Filmography)
The filmography provides the items "Production year", "Japanese title", "English title", "Survival Status" (whether or not negative or positive exists), and DVD/Blu-ray availability. Titles of the movies ranked in Top_10 are in bold font.
(Note) All of Kinoshita's films are preserved, thus the item "Survival Status" is omitted.
(Note) Some of the available DVD/Blu-ray titles are out of stock. Never fail to check subtitles, as well as region codes and format (NTSC or PAL) of the disc and your player, before purchasing DVD/Blu-ray discs.
1943 Hana saku minato (A Blooming Port)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese, USA
1943 Ikite iru Magoroku (Magoroku Is Alive)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese, USA
1944 Kanko no machi (Cheering Town)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese, USA
1944 Rikugun (The Army)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese, USA
1946 Osone-ke no ashita (Morning for the Osone Family)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese, USA
1946 Waga koi seshi otome (The Girl I Love)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1947 Kekkon (Marriage)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1947 Fushichô (Phoenix)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1948 Onna (Woman)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1948 Shozo (The Portrait)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1948 Hakai (Apostasy)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1949 Ojôsan kanpai (Here's to the Lady)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1949 Yotsuya kaidan, Part I,Part II (Ghost of Yotsuya/The Yotsuya Ghost Story)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1949 Yabure-daiko (A Broken Drum)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1950 Konyaku yubiwa (An Engagement Ring)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1951 Zemma (The Good Fairy)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1951 Karumen kokyô ni kaeru (Carmen Comes Home)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese, FR, German
1951 Shônenki (A Record of Youth)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1951 Umi no hanabi (Fireworks Over the Sea)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1952 Karumen junjô su (Carmen Falls in Love)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese, German
1953 Nihon no higeki (A Japanese Tragedy)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese, German
1954 Onna no sono (Woman's World)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1954 Nijushi no hitomi (Twenty-Four Eyes)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese, USA, UK, FR
1955 Toi kumo (Distant Clouds)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1955 Nogiku no gotoki kimi nariki (My First Love Affair/She Was Like a Wild Chrysanthemum)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1956 Yûyake-gumo (Flaming Sunset)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1956 Taiyo to bara (The Rose on His Arm)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1957 Yorokobi mo kanashimi mo ikutoshitsuki (The Lighthouse/Years of Joy and Sorrow)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1957 Fûzen no tomoshibi (Hanging by a Thread)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1958 Narayama bushikô (Ballad of Narayama)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese, USA, UK, FR
1958 Kono ten no niji (The Eternal Rainbow/The Rainbow of This Sky )
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1959 Kazabana (Snow Flurry)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1959 Sekishun-chô (The Bird of Springs Past)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1959 Kyô mo mata kakute ari nan (Thus Another Day)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1960 Haru no yume (Spring Dreams)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1960 Fuefukigawa (The River Fuefuki)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese, FR, German
1961 Eien no hito (Immortal Love)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese, FR, German
1962 Kotoshi no koi (This Year's Love)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1962 Futari de aruita iku shunju (The Days We Spent Together/The Years We Had Together)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1963 Utae wakôdo-tachi (Sing, Young People!)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1963 Shitô no densetsu (Legend of a Duel to the Death)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1964 Kôge (The Scent of Incense)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1967 Natsukashiki fue ya taiko (Eyes, the Sea and a Ball/Lovely Flute and a Drum)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1976 Sri Lanka no ai to wakare (Love and Separation in Sri Lanka)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1979 Shodo satsujin: Musuko yo (Impulse Murder/My Son! My Son!)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1980 Chichi yo haha yo! (Oh Father! Oh Mother!)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1983 Kono ko wo nokoshite (Children of Nagasaki/These Children Survive Me)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese, FR
1986 Shin yorokobimo kanashimimo ikutoshitsuki (Big Joys, Small Sorrows)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
1988 Chichi (Dad/Father)
DVD/Blu-ray availability: Japanese
(Recommendations)
Kinoshita's films in 1950s are generally at a high level. In addition to the ones ranked in the "Top_10_Movies", "Shônenki" (1951), "Yûyake-gumo" (1956), and "Kazabana" (1959) are my recommendations.
In 1960s, Kinoshita gradually lost his sense of composition and keen insight. However, I recommend "Fuefukigawa" (1960) and "Eien no Hito" (1961). "Fuefukigawa" is a study on the stupidity of Japanese "ordinary people" who blindly obey to, and even die for, their "master".
Among the movies in 1940s, I recommend "Rikugun" (1944) produced during World War II. Its first 9 reels out of 10, "Rikugun" was a typical (and accordingly boring) war propaganda movie full of dialogues hypocritically praising the war and people's sacrifices for it. However, in the last reel, Kinoshita protests, "It's all a lie", in a visual manner, not by words. In this reel, there is only one dialogue. It is a name of a young soldier uttered by his mother.
In addition, "Yabure-daiko" (1949), as an example of Kinoshita's comedy movie, which is somewhat "Capra"-like.
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