THIRST
(Directed by Park Chan-wook, 2009, 133 minute, Digital, Korean Language with English Subtitles)

Friday, 7/30 @5:00pm & 7:40p

A beloved and devoted priest from a small town volunteers for a medical experiment which fails and turns him into a vampire. Physical and psychological changes lead to his affair with the wife of his childhood friend who is repressed and tired of her mundane life. The one-time priest falls deeper in despair and depravity. As things turn for the worse, he struggles to maintain what’s left of his humanity.

Tickets: General $10 only. No discounts apply.
EXPLICIT CONTENT/ R-RATED

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
(Directed by Park Chan-wook, 2002, 129 minute, Digital, Korean Language with English Subtitles)

7/31 Sat 1:30pm
8/1 Sun 6:30pm
8/2 Mon 4:30pm
8/5 Thu 7:00pm

The first film of Park’s “Vengeance Trilogy”. Unable to afford proper care for his sister dying from kidney failure, Ryu turns to the black market to sell his own organs only to end up cheated of his life savings. His girlfriend urges Ryu to kidnap the daughter of wealthy industrialist Dong-jin, who recently laid him off. Ryu agrees, but unforeseen tragedies turn an innocent con into a merciless quest for revenge. The two men are thrust into a spiral of destruction.

Tickets: General $10 only. No discounts apply.
EXPLICIT CONTENT/ R-RATED

Oldboy
(Directed by Park Chan-wook, 2003, 120 minute, Digital, Korean Language with English Subtitles)

7/31 Sat 4:00pm
8/1 Sun 3:30pm
8/2 Mon 7:00pm
8/3 Tue 4:00pm
8/4 Wed 7:00pm

Winner of the 2004 Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix. The second of the “Vengeance Trilogy” unfolds the life of Oh Dae-su, an ordinary Seoul businessman with a wife and little daughter who is abducted and locked up in a strange, private prison. No one will tell him why he’s there and who his jailer is and his fury builds to a single-minded focus of revenge. 15 years later, he is unexpectedly freed, given only 5 days to discover the mysterious enemy who had him imprisoned. Based on the Japanese manga of the same name.

Tickets: General $10 only. No discounts apply.
EXPLICIT CONTENT/ R-RATED

Lady Vengeance
(Directed by Park Chan-wook, 2005, 112 minute, Digital, Korean Language with English Subtitles)

7/31 Sat 7:00pm
8/1 Sun 1:20pm
8/3 Tue 7:00pm
8/4 Wed 4:30pm
8/5 Thu 4:30pm

The final of the “Vengeance trilogy”. After being blackmailed and wrongly imprisoned for 13 years a beautiful woman is finally set free. Now her brutally elaborate plan for vengeance against the true criminal can begin to unfold.

Tickets: General $10 only. No discounts apply.
EXPLICIT CONTENT/ R-RATED

White Light/Black Rain, by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Steven Okazaki, presents an unblinking look at the first time nuclear weapons were used in war. After 60 years, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, continue to inspire argument, denial and myth. Featuring interviews with fourteen atomic bomb survivors (known as hibakusha ), many who have never spoken publicly before, and four Americans intimately involved in the bombings, White Light/Black Rain provides a detailed examination of the bombings and their aftermath. Winner of 2008 Emmy® Awards.

“Compelling and compassionate… a stirring and heart-wrenching statement of the horrible powers that mankind holds in its fist.”
-The Hollywood Reporter

8/6 Fri 7:00pm : Tickets – $15 Premiere Night Event with reception and Q & A with Friends of Hibakusha.

8/7 Sat 12:15pm : Tickets – $10 Regular screening. No discounts apply.

★Part of the ticket sales will be directly donated to Friends of Hibakusha in Japantown. The U.S. does not currently offer free medical treatment programs for atomic bomb-affected individuals; Japan does.

Fires on the Plain
(Directed by Kon Ichikawa, 1959, 104min, 35mm, Japanese with English Subtitles)

8/7 Sat 2:15pm
8/8 Sun 6:00pm
8/9 Mon 4:30pm
8/10 Tue 7:00pm
8/11 Wed 7:00pm

An agonizing portrait of desperate Japanese soldiers stranded in a strange land during World War II, Kon Ichikawa’s Fires on the Plain is a compelling descent into psychological and physical oblivion. Denied hospital treatment for tuberculosis and cast off into the unknown, Private Tamura treks across an unfamiliar Philippine landscape, encountering an increasingly debased cross section of Imperial Army soldiers, who eventually give in to the most terrifying craving of all. Grisly yet poetic, Fires on the Plain is one of the most powerful works from one of Japanese cinema’s most versatile filmmakers.

Tickets: General $10 only. No discounts apply.

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence
(Directed by Nagisa Oshima, 1983, 123min, 35mm, Japanese with English Subtitles)

8/7 Sat 7:00pm
8/8 Sun 1:00pm
8/11 Wed 4:30pm
8/12 Thu 7:00pm

In this captivating, exhilaratingly skewed World War II drama from Nagisa Oshima, David Bowie regally embodies the character Celliers, a high-ranking British officer interned by the Japanese as a POW. Music star Ryuichi Sakamoto (who also composed this film’s hypnotic score) plays the camp commander, who becomes obsessed with the mysterious blond major, while Tom Conti is British lieutenant colonel Mr. Lawrence, who tries to bridge the emotional and language divides between his captors and fellow prisoners. Also featuring actor-director Takeshi Kitano in his first dramatic role, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence is a multilayered, brutal, at times erotic tale of culture clash that was one of Oshima’s greatest successes.

Tickets: General $10 only. No discounts apply.

Toyo’s Camera
(2008, 100min, HD, English Language)

Filmmaker Junichi Suzuki directs this documentary portrait of
photographer Toyo Miyatake, a Japanese-American who smuggled his
camera into an internment camp during World War II, and captured
images that captured the plight of his people in black and white.

Everyday between August 13 – 19, 12:50 pm & 5:00pm

442 – Live with honor, Die with dignity
(2010, 100min, HD, English Language)

442nd Regimental Combat Team in WW2 composed of Japanese American were at first looked as the problem because of the race but later they were looked as the problem solver because of their splendid achievement in the battle field. They had to fight for not only enemy but also the prejudice. This is the story of 442nd and their veterans now and then.

Everyday between August 13 – 19, 2:50 pm & 7:00pm

SEVEN SAMURAI
(Directed by Akira Kurosawa, 1954, 207min, 35mm, Japanese with English Subtitles)

8/20 Fri 7:00
8/21 Sat 1:00
8/22 Sun 3:30

One of the most beloved movie epics of all time, Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (Shichinin No Samurai) tells the story of a sixteenth-century village whose desperate inhabitants hire the eponymous warriors to protect them from invading bandits. This three-hour ride—featuring legendary actors Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura—seamlessly weaves philosophy and entertainment, delicate human emotions and relentless action into a rich, evocative, and unforgettable tale of courage and hope.

RASHOMON
(Directed by Akira Kurosawa, 1950, 88min, 35mm, Japanese with English Subtitles)

8/21 Sat 7:00
8/22 Sun 1:00
8/23 Mon 7:00
8/24 Tue 5:00
8/25 Wed 5:00

Brimming with action while incisively examining the nature of truth, Rashomon is perhaps the finest film ever to investigate the philosophy of justice. Through an ingenious use of camera and flashbacks, Kurosawa reveals the complexities of human nature as four people recount different versions of the story of a man’s murder and the rape of his wife. Toshiro Mifune gives another commanding performance in the eloquent masterwork that revolutionized film language and introduced Japanese cinema to the world.

YOJINBO
(Directed by Akira Kurosawa, 1961, 110min, 35mm, Japanese with English Subtitles)

8/23 Mon 4:30
8/24 Tue 7:00
8/26 Thu 7:00
8/27 Fri 4:30
8/28 Sat 1:30
8/31 Tue 4:30

The incomparable Toshiro Mifune stars in Akira Kurosawa’s visually stunning and darkly comic Yojimbo. To rid a terror-stricken village of corruption, wily masterless samurai Sanjuro turns a range war between two evil clans to his own advantage. Remade twice, by Sergio Leone and Walter Hill, this exhilarating genre-twister remains one of the most influential and entertaining films of all time.

THRONE OF BLOOD
(Directed by Akira Kurosawa, 1957, 109min, 35mm, Japanese with English Subtitles)

8/28 Sat 4:00
8/29 Sun 4:00
8/31 Tue 7:00
9/1 Wed 4:30
9/2 Thu 7:00

One of the most celebrated screen adaptations of Shakespeare, Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood reimagines Macbeth in feudal Japan. Starring Kurosawa’s longtime collaborator Toshiro Mifune and the legendary Isuzu Yamada as his ruthless wife, the film tells of a valiant warrior’s savage rise to power and his ignominious fall. With Throne of Blood, Kurosawa fuses one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies with the formal elements of Japanese Noh theater to make a Macbeth that is all his own—a classic tale of ambition and duplicity set against a ghostly landscape of fog and inescapable doom.

THE HIDDEN FORTRESS
(Directed by Akira Kurosawa, 1958, 139min, 35mm, Japanese with English Subtitles)

8/28 Sat 7:00
8/29 Sun 1:00
8/30 Mon 7:00
9/1 Wed 7:00
9/2 Thu 4:00

A general and a princess must dodge enemy clans while smuggling the royal treasure out of hostile territory with two bumbling, conniving peasants at their sides; it’s a spirited adventure that only Akira Kurosawa could create. Acknowledged as a primary influence on George Lucas’s Star Wars, The Hidden Fortress delivers Kurosawa’s inimitably deft blend of wry humor, breathtaking action and humanist compassion on an epic scale. The Criterion Collection is proud to present this landmark motion picture in a stunning, newly restored Tohoscope edition.