Be Happy, These Two Lovers

One of the last times Ishiro Honda would find time in his schedule of making monster movies to make something small again, Be Happy, These Two Lovers is the smallest film that Honda had made. It's more in line with the output of Yasujiro Ozu than anything Honda had made up to that point. It's…

Farewell Rabaul

This is obviously meant as a companion piece of Eagle of the Pacific. Where the earlier film told the story of the Pacific War from the Japanese and leadership perspective, Farewell Rabaul tells the story of the same theater of war from the grunt perspective. Well, not quite grunt. More like lower officers, the pilots…

Eagle of the Pacific

I wonder if the portrayal of Admiral Yamamoto in Ishiro Honda's Eagle of the Pacific represents an ideal for the Japanese dealing with their country's legacy after WWII. Honda makes a hagiographic portrait of the man in the years leading up to the outbreak of war with America, the debates about the Tripartite Pact, and…

The Skin of the South

Ishiro Honda's second feature film is a marked step down from his rather accomplished melodrama and freshman picture, The Blue Pearl. Also taking place in a remote corner of rural Japan, The Skin of the South, tries a similar balance between local flavor, concerns, and romance, but fumbles the last part rather starkly. Really the…

The Blue Pearl

Ishiro Honda followed the typical route of a Japanese director in being an assistant director for several years before receiving his first assignment. Most notably, he did second unit work on Akira Kurosawa's Stray Dog before Toho gave him his first chief directing job on The Blue Pearl, a small melodramatic love triangle given remarkable…