Classic Japanese Cinema Discussion Thread

Kaneto Shindo, a master director and screenwriter, film producer, and author. He directed 48 films and wrote scripts for 238  Shindo was a pioneer of independent film production in Japan, founding a company called Kindai Eiga Kyokai. with fellow director Kōzaburō Yoshimura.  A prolific  active craftsman, Shindo continued working as a scriptwriter, director and author until his death at the age of 100 in 2012.
 Shindo made his debut as a director in 1951 with the autobiographical Story of a Beloved Wife, starring his mistress, life long collaborator, and future wife actress Nobuko Otowa
Throughout the 50s Shindo  made topical & political films that were social critiques with a focus on poverty & women's suffering in present-day Japan, Lucky Dragon Number 5 (1959) is based on a true story of a fishing crew irradiated by an American atomic bomb test at Bikini Atoll.
Even in his best known later works Shindo infused a subversive tone, in his masterwork Onibaba (1964)
a dark fable of a mother and daughter stuck on the lowest rung of the social ladder who subsist and only survive through desperation. 
The mother and the daughter-in-law, Shindo elaborates.. "They are people totally abandoned, outside society's political protection. Among these outcasts I wanted to capture their immense energy for survival...the tall, swaying reeds are my symbol of the world, the society which surrounds people... the world in which these commoners live and to which the eyes of lords and politicians do not reach"

Little known are many of his best works which surprisingly have had no official international release...some top rated recommendations include
Ningen , Human (1962)
Akutô , A Scoundrel (1965)  pictured 
Sanka , Hymn (1972)
Kokoro , The Heart (1973)
Hokusai manga (1981)