Mishima - A Life in Four Chapters

Four chapters in the life of homosexual Japanese writer and militarist Yukio Mishima.

Release Date: 2008-07-01, Rating R (Restricted),

MISHIMA: A LIFE IN FOUR CHAPTERS is director Paul Schrader's stunning film biography of one of Japan's most celebrated post-World War II writers--Yukio Mishima Ken Ogata. A fictionalized account in four segments three of the segments parallel events in Mishima's life with his novels THE TEMPLE OF THE GOLDEN PAVILLION KYOKO'S HOUSE and RUNAWAY HORSES while the fourth depicts November 25 1970 the last day of his life a day in which he committed two puzzling stunning acts--one political one deeply personal. MISHIMA is an amazing disturbing multidimensional character study whose stunning visual splendor is supported by a riveting score by Philip Glass. It is a daring film that explores an obsessed artist--and tries to understand him--through his own writing.

DVDs. Mishima - A Life in Four Chapters

Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters (2 Discs) (criterion Collection) (widescreen) (special Edition) - Dvd - Mami Okamoto","john Nathan","yosuke Mizuno","alan Mark Poul","tsutomu Harada","toshio Hosokawa"," tadanori Yokoo","shinichi Nosaka","yuichi Saito","ren Ebata","naoya Makoto","reisen Lee","roy Scheider"," sachiko Hidari","atsushi Takayama","eimei Ezumi","fumio Mizushima"," kazuo Kato","minoru Hodaka","sachiko Akagi","ken Ogata","masayuki Shionoya"," hiroshi Mikami"," yasosuke Bando","junya Fukuda","paul Schrader - Suicide"," writer's Life

Biographical Feature DVD - 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. - Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (DVD)