A Hundred Years of Japanese Films: A Concise History, with a Selective Guide to DVDs and Videos (Paperback)

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"Be warned: Read it and you may never want to leave the TV room again." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
"What Boswell was to Johnson, what Gibbon was to ancient Rome, Donald Richie is to the Japanese cinema." -Premiere Magazine
"[An] essential study."-The New York Times, "Arts and Leisure"
"The guide to DVDs and videos includes the names of the principals and capsule-summaries of the films and it alone worth the price of the book. A Hundred Years of Japanese Film is both illuminating and thought-provoking." -The Bloomsbury Review
"Richie's sense of both future and past remains as sharp as ever." -Film Comment
"Donald Richie is the leading U.S. authority on Japanese film." -American Cinematographer
"Donald Richie, whom we may call the 'Emperor' of Japanese film history, has done it again! This is probably the best, extensive 'digest' on all aspects of Japanese cinema to be available today in English." -Cinemaya
"Superb." -In These Times
"A concise, beautifully realized guide to the expansive history of Japanese film." -A Magazine: Inside Asian America
"Richie's expertise is hard to miss; surely he overlooks no aspect of these films." -Library Journal
"The impressive amount of information ... and Richie's enthusiasm and critical acumen make this essential for film studies and collections." -Booklist
"Richie's awareness of various film theories and criticism and his sensitivity to historical specificity and to new trends in Japanese film make this book an extremely inspiring one." -Persimmon
"A new book by Richie is always a welcome event ... He writes with an insider's view of Japanese culture. ...Both funny and refreshingly critical. He is the perfect guide to little-known styles, directors, and studios of his adopted land... For allcollections." -Choice
"Monumental. Tracing the roots of Japanese film while exploring artistic and industrial intricacies of the business, A Hundred Years of Japanese Film is encyclopedic and laced with wonderful insights." -Tucson Weekly
"Richie's journey through a century of Japanese cinema is designed to fascinate. Like a master tour guide, he uses his encyclopedic knowledge of Japanese art, theater and history to show us how and why this national cinema is so fundamentally different from others." -Pacific Reader
"A Hundred Years of Japanese Film is a well-informed, insightful, and accessible (not loaded down with jargon) product of a lifetime devoted to the study and appreciation of his subject." -Hawai'i Herald
"For a scholarly, thoughtful, in-depth analysis on just about every classic Japanese movie, as well as a meaningful overview about the genre as a whole, A Hundred Years of Japanese Film is clearly and justifiably the principle reference to consult!" -Midwest Book Review
.,."Through classic works by Akira Kurosawa, Shimizu Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi, and into modern day films by Takeshi Kitano, Hirokazu Kore'eda and Hayao Miyazaki. A selective guide for film aficionados of all ages." -Rafu Shimpo
"A gorgeous book, written out of love by an obsessive film fan, and its only potential drawback is that it's likely to convert readers into equally obsessive fans." -Bookreporter.com
"A fitting coda to a lifetime of work from a writer who, to no small degree, helped to save the Japanese cinema from what might have easily been one hundred years of obscurity." -Japan Times


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First Sentence
Film began in Japan, as in most countries, during the last few years of the nineteenth century. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover

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2 Reviews 5 star:  (1) 4 star:    (0) 3 star:  (1) 2 star:    (0) 1 star:    (0)           Average Customer Review 4.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews   3 of 3 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars The Best!!, 18 Jan 2009 By  Swansea Dog (UK) - See all my reviews This review is from: A Hundred Years of Japanese Film: A Concise History, with a Selective Guide to Videos and Dvds (Hardcover) Anyone who knows anything about Japan and Japanese cinema knows Donald Richie is unsurpassed as a commentator on Japan's arts/culture, and its cinema in particular. This book is as brilliant an overview of Japan's postwar film history as you can get - and forget what the anime geeks say about him not paying enough attention to their field, because Richie is and always has been interested in pure cinema, not all the anime and CGI stuff which, despite what its supporters say, IS watched by vastly greater numbers of kids than adults in Japan (and anyone who claims otherwise has not lived in Japan long enough, if at all...) Anyway, there are more than enough specialist books out there for anime-otaku types without them needing to attack Richie for not giving their beloved 'artform' enough attention here. His strength has always been J-cinema from the postwar Golden Era through to roughly the end of the century. He's in his eighties now, and still churning out weekly articles (mostly book reviews, not cinema) for the Japan Times - always of a quality writers like Bryan Appleyard or Clive James would be proud of. Interested in real Japanese film? Then start here. Anime? Move along, nothing to see here - there's lots of specialist stuff available elsewhere. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   26 of 46 people found the following review helpful: 3.0 out of 5 stars Great, but...(and it's an animated but), 26 Jan 2002 By A Customer This review is from: A Hundred Years of Japanese Film: A Concise History, with a Selective Guide to Videos and Dvds (Hardcover) Most of this book is highly recommended - having lived in the country for more than 50 years, Donald Richie's knowledge of Japanese live-action cinema is unrivalled. But on page 246 Richie turns his attention to animation, and soon finds space for the reactionary opinions of critic Kenji Sato (who bemoans "the thin, insubstantial reality of animation" - I wonder if he's seen The Mummy Returns?), as well as several mistakes: Hayao Miyazaki's elegiac blockbuster Princess Mononoke is set in the Muromachi period (1392-1573), not "pre-history" (p.277); its American release was in 1999, not 2000 (p.251); and the original comic-book version of Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira runs to six volumes, not four (p.250). I don't want to make a mountain out of a molehill, but facts matter, and Miyazaki - whose critical and commercial success in Japan is at least comparable to that of Spielberg in the West - deserves better. There's at least one spelling mistake, too: "slogun" instead of "slogan", near the bottom of page 9! Five out of five for the first 245 pages, minus two stars for what's after that: it's Richie's knowledge that's thin and insubstantial, not Japanese animation. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this) Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review › See all 2 customer reviews...		Ad feedback   Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews

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