WHEN A WOMAN ASCENDS THE STAIRS (1960)

Keiko (played by Hideko Takamine) is lovingly referred to as Mama to everybody in her little world.  She's the hostess of one of the 700+ bars in the Ginza district of Tokyo that cater to well-to-do businessmen. It's not a whorehouse, but more like a laid back nightclub where men can come and relax and hang out with sexy chicks and, who knows, you might get lucky. At 30-years-old Mama is older than most of the girls, but because she's a widow and has never slept with a customer she has developed a kind of reverence among the customers and the other girls.

When we meet Mama she's at a crossroads in her life. Should she try to marry one of the rich customers or should she try to gather up enough money to open her own bar? That's the two main choices she has, but as we all know, life has a way of throwing you all kinds of unexpected twists.

To most people that probably sounds boring, but thanks to Naruse's masterful direction, the amazing screenplay by Ryuzo (THE HIDDEN FORTRESS, YOJIMBO, SANJURO) Kikushima and such wonderful acting by everybody, including Tatsuya Nakadai as the bar manager who secretly in love with Mama, I couldn't take my eyes off the screen.  Lovely music, good pace, beautiful photography...I cannot say enough wonderful things about this movie.  Highly recommended.  It gets even better with repeat viewings.

YOJIMBO (1961)

"...this town is full of men who deserve to die."

As a highly paid professional movie critic I'm required to say something profound and intelligent...wait, what? I'm doing this shit for free!? Then fuck it. YOJIMBO is awesome! Totally rad. Loosely based (in my stupid opinion) on Dashiell Hammett's brilliant "Red Harvest" and "The Glass Key", YOJIMBO tells the story of a drifter samurai who innocently wanders into a small village that's in the middle of a turf war between two equally bad gangs. He quickly accesses the situation and then takes turns going from one side to the other. Each step of the way, turning the gangs more and more on each other and secretly pushing them into mutual destruction.

Even at over 50 years old YOJIMBO is still really exciting and a lot of fun to watch. Toshiro is perfect as the nameless samurai and Tatsuya is a total badass as the main tough guy in town. Add to that the all star cast, Kurosawa at the top of his game and you have one the greatest and most influential Samurai movies of all time. I can't think of a single reason not to watch YOJIMBO and watch it often.

Highly recommended. Double feature it with it's sister film SANJURO.