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Birthday:
06-01-1930
Deathday:
05-23-2007 (76 years)
Birthplace:
Nagano Prefecture, Japan
Biography
Kei Kumai (熊井 啓, Kumai Kei, 1 June 1930 – 23 May 2007) was a Japanese film director from Azumino, Nagano prefecture. After his studies in literature at Shinshu University, he began work as a director's assistant.
He won the Directors Guild of Japan New Directors Award for his first film, Nihon rettō, in 1965.[2] His 1972 film Shinobu Kawa was entered into the 8th Moscow International Film Festival.[3] His 1973 film Rise, Fair Sun was entered into the 24th Berlin International Film Festival.
Sandakan No. 8 received widespread acclaim for tackling the issue of a woman forced into prostitution in Borneo before the outbreak of World War II. The film was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 48th Academy Awards.
He won the Directors Guild of Japan New Directors Award for his first film, Nihon rettō, in 1965.[2] His 1972 film Shinobu Kawa was entered into the 8th Moscow International Film Festival.[3] His 1973 film Rise, Fair Sun was entered into the 24th Berlin International Film Festival.
Sandakan No. 8 received widespread acclaim for tackling the issue of a woman forced into prostitution in Borneo before the outbreak of World War II. The film was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 48th Academy Awards.
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Their works
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What's a Director?
event2006
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Works commemorating the 70th anniversary of the founding of Japan mapping Supervision Association
Cape of the North
Director
event1976
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A Swiss nun falls in love with a Japanese engineer.
Sandakan No. 8
Director
event1974 star_border 7.7
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A young journalist interviews an elderly woman about being forced into prostitution in Borneo at a brothel called Sandakan No. 8.
Death of a Tea Master
Director
event1989 star_border 5.4
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Years after the death of legendary tea master Rikyu, his disciple Honkakubo attempts to resolve the mystery of the master's death.
The Long Darkness
Director
event1972 star_border 6.8
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A delicate study of the relationship between two disillusioned young people, shot in atmospheric monochrome among Tokyo's decaying lumberyards and the inhospitable snowscapes of the north.
Hiroshima
First Assistant Director
event1953 star_border 7.5
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The film shows the bombing of Hiroshima and the horrific aftermath following the detonation of an atomic bomb on humans for the first time in history.
The Sea Is Watching
Director
event2002 star_border 5.9
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O-Shin is a young brothel worker who, one night, helps a young samurai escape from his pursuers. Against the warnings of her fellow workers, particularly Kikuno and the brothel's owner, O-Shin falls in love with the samurai.
Deep River
Screenplay
event1995 star_border 7.2
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A group of Japanese tourists try to forget their pasts and find themselves in India.
To Love
Director
event1997 star_border 5.5
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Mitsu works in a factory and has a crush on Tsutomu, a young man she met on the Tokyo streets. One day the two go out, and after some deception, Tsutomu manages to have his way with her. Coming from a broken home, he is frightened by love, so he cruelly allows her to wake up alone. A month passes and a more grown-up Tsutomu returns. The lovers joyously reunite and move in together. All is blissful until both notice a strange sore on Mitsu's arm. The doctors diagnose it as leprosy. Without telling Tsutomu, Mitsu checks into a leper sanitarium. Hanging out with society's pariahs gives her much insight. She discovers the old lepers to be wonderful people. In turn, Mitsu becomes their source of joy and renewed hope. Still, she misses her Tsutomu. One day, the doctors inform her that they erred and that the sore is not leprosy. Happily she heads back to her true love until she realizes with a guilty pang that to return to him would mean unhappiness for her newfound friends
The Sea and Poison
Director
event1986 star_border 6.9
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Two interns and a nurse are interrogated by American MPs for their involvement in an atrocity during the war: the vivisections of a downed American air crew.
Apart from Life
Writer
event1970 star_border 5.8
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A film set in Nagasaki examining prejudice against atom bomb victims.
The Sands of Kurobe
Director
event1968 star_border 6.2
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Kitagawa is an engineer charged with construction of a gigantic tunnel through the Japan Alps for the transportation of equipment in the building of the massive Kurobe Dam. The tunnel crosses an earthquake fault and Kitagawa is beleaguered not only by cave-ins and flooding, but by strife between management and the workers's union. Adding to Kitagawa's stress is the knowledge that as his attention is pulled inexorably toward the tunnel construction, his youngest daughter is dying from leukemia.
Luminous Moss
Director
event1992 star_border 5.5
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A headmaster and a novelist, looking for inspiration, regard a strange natural phenomenon before sharing stories of their own.
Sun and stars
Screenplay
event1962
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It's a thrilling, action-packed entertainer with sparks of men versus villains in an up-and-down tale of brothers burning with masculine will and passion.
Darkness in the Light
Director
event2001 star_border 5.8
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A middle-aged salaryman with a typical family, living quietly in a provincial city (Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture), wakes up one morning in the summer of 1994 to find himself the prime suspect in the biggest mass-murder case of the decade.
Love and Faith
Director
event1978 star_border 6.3
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Sen Rikyu is a ceremonial tea master who advises warlord Hideyoshi in sixteenth-century feudal Japan. His daughter, the beautiful Lady Ogin, has an unrequited love for Lord Ukon, who has angered Hideyoshi by becoming a Christian convert. Ogin's father Rikyu also displeases Hideyoshi by opposing the warlord's plan to invade China and Korea. When the animalistic Hideyoshi is rejected by Ogin, he threatens her and her father with arrest and worse.
A Chain of Islands
Director
event1965 star_border 6.4
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When a US army sergeant is found drowned in Tokyo Bay, an investigation is launched to determine how and why he lost his life. The investigation uncovers a black market scheme involving counterfeit money, murder, and conspiracy.
Rise, Fair Sun
Director
event1973
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Though a farmer and his fellow villagers in this Japanese film resist the effort to turn the unspoiled region in which they live into a land development, they are ultimately unsuccessful.
The Cards Will Tell
Screenplay
event1960
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A 1960 crime film
Pursuit
Screenplay
event1961
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Tsuiseki is a 1961 crime film.
An Ocean to Cross
Director
event1980
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Set in Japan's Tenpyou era (729-749 CE), four young monks are sent to China to study Buddhism and bring a high priest back to Japan with them. The film tells the tale of the four monks' youth and the life and times of the high priest Ganjin.
Hitoribotchi no futari daga
Screenplay
event1962
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1962 Japanese movie
Wounded Beast
Screenplay
event1959
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A tense action game that skillfully intertwines the human love between a criminal, his sister and his lover, and the desperate pursuit of a detective who is trying to catch a fleeing young criminal.
The Long Death
Director
event1964
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On January 26, 1948, a robbery of the Teigin bank took place in Tokyo - the criminal poisoned the bank employees and fled the scene with a large amount of money. In parallel with the investigation conducted by the Japanese police, journalists are also trying to find the culprit. Based on a true incident.
Otoko to otoko no ikiru machi
Screenplay
event1962
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1962 Japanese movie
Fantasia
Director
event1973
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A 1973 musical film released by Toho-Towa, directed by Masanori Hata, Shôhei lImamura, Kei Kumai, Jun'ya Satô, Isao Takahata, Takeshi Kitano & Akira Kurosawa. A series of eight famous pieces of classical music, conducted by Leopold Stokowski and interpreted in Toys and Plush by Diecast Stories team of artists.
Love in Ginza
Screenplay
event1962 star_border 5
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Hanjiro is a struggling painter that shares a tiny apartment in the back streets of Ginza with his jazz pianist friend who works at a bar. When he and his sweet heart, Hisako decide to get married, Hanjiro is faced with a tough decision. Needing to buy a ticket back home to tell his mother the good news, he compromises his creative principles for love and sells his portrait of Hisako. Hisako heads to the station to see him off, but gets hit by a car...
The Call of the Foghorn
Writer
event1960
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A sailor is stuck in harbor due to an engine failure in his boat, and he learns that a friend of his has died, reportedly from suicide. He begins to investigate the matter himself, and finds there may be more to the story...
Shikibu monogatari
Director
event1990 star_border 1
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Toyoichi Otomo suffers from psychological and spiritual troubles after a horrific industrial accident. He lives with his elderly mother and wife near Mt. Aso in rural Kyushu. He seeks solace in a small religious group run by Buddhist nun Chishu-bo who claims to be the 68th descendant of famed 11th century poet Izumi Shikibu. The members of her sect regard her as a living saint. Yet instead of balming his soul, she riles his libido by playing a sexual cat-and-mouse game with the fragile Toyoichi. When she does bed him, it leads to a miracle healing -- followed by a terrible calamity.
Willful Murder
Director
event1981 star_border 7.3
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The president of the Japanese National Railways is found dead during a period in which train service is plagued by numerous layoffs, strikes and shutdowns. The government says that the president was murdered; the police claim it was a suicide. A quizzical reporter follows the case for years, but the basic question remains unanswered: was the victim killed by members of the burgeoning Communist movement in Japan, or was the death stage-managed by the authorities in hopes of discrediting the Communists?
Taiheiyō no katsugiya
Screenplay
event1961
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Tetsuji Tachibana was fired as a pilot after Jim gave false testimony in an accident caused by Captain Jim's intoxication. Only Junpei Nambu, the editor-in-chief of “Kokuikai” (Aviation World), was on Tetsuji's side. Tetsuji questions Jim, but Jim refuses to tell him anything, and the atmosphere turns sour. At that moment, Yosuke Sugie, a former classmate of Tetsuji's at the Civil Aviation College, enters the office.
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