Rating: R
Genre:
Drama
Release Date: 07/01/2008
SubTitles: English
Dubbed: Japanese
Sound: DD2
Run Time: 120 Minutes
Distributor/Studio: Criterion
In
Paul Schrader's unusual biopic,
Ken Ogata stars as
Yukio Mishima, perhaps the most celebrated Japanese novelist of the last five decades. The film begins with Mishima's youth, then moves forward in episodic fashion to his 1970 suicide, symbolically committed at a military site. Originally titled
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, the film is neatly divided into a quartet of acts, and the screenplay does not flinch in its depiction of Mishima's hyperactive sex life. Among the many neat directorial touches is the decision to offer the narrative in black-and-white, while depicting scenes from Mishima's novels in vibrant color. Written off as self-indulgent by those impatient with
Schrader's fragmentary technique,
Mishima was produced in Japan by
Francis Ford Coppola and
George Lucas, an offshoot of
Coppola's involvement with Japanese director
Akira Kurosawa's
Kagemusha.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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