Shinichiro Ikebe

Sound

September 15, 1943 (82 years)

Mito, Ibaraki, Japan

Biography

Shinichiro Ikebe (池辺晋一郎 Ikebe Shinichirou; born September 15, 1943, in Mito, Ibaraki) is a Japanese composer of contemporary classical music. He has written the scores for many films by Akira Kurosawa and other Japanese film directors, including Kagemusha (1980), MacArthur's Children (1984), Kurosawa's Dreams (1990), Rhapsody in August (1991), Madadayo (1993), and Warm Water Under a Red Bridge (2001). He studied composition with Tomojirō Ikenouchi, Akio Yashiro, and Akira Miyoshi at the Tokyo…

Filmography

8.4

Future Boy Conan

After the great disaster of 2008, a war that destroyed the planet, the world is now largely ocean with the continents having sunk. Conan lives on a remote island with his grandpa and nature, never having seen another human being. But one day a mysterious girl, Lana, washes up on his beach. The two become quick friends, but she’s soon kidnapped and taken to Industria, a technological remainder from the world before. Conan leaves his island in pursuit, braving new lands and many hardships with new friends and enemies just beyond the horizon.

N/A

On-yado Kawasemi

At the end of Edo period, Shoji Rui hands over her birthright to her relatives with the death of her father and begins running an inn "Kawasemi" in Ōkawabata. And she settles the matters in their daily lives with her lover Kamibayashi Tōgo, doshin (a sort of constable) Une Genzaburō, physician Amanō Sotarō, and O-Kichi.

7.5

Kimi no na wa

A story of a man and a woman who meet amid the Great Tokyo Air Raid in 1945.

N/A

Toge no Gunzo

No description available

7.7

Dreams

Eight visually rich vignettes drawn from Kurosawa’s own dreams—fox weddings and vanished orchards, a soldier’s ghosts, a walk through Van Gogh’s canvases, nuclear nightmares, and a water-mill utopia—meditate on childhood, art, mortality, and humanity’s uneasy bond with nature.

7.8

Kagemusha

Akira Kurosawa's lauded feudal epic presents the tale of a petty thief who is recruited to impersonate Shingen, an aging warlord, in order to avoid attacks by competing clans. When Shingen dies, his generals reluctantly agree to have the impostor take over as the powerful ruler. He soon begins to appreciate life as Shingen, but his commitment to the role is tested when he must lead his troops into battle against the forces of a rival warlord.

N/A

Ōgon no Hibi

Luzon Sukezaemon is a merchant who imports vases from the Philippines. The vases are highly valued as tea utensils and he makes a huge profit. This was the first taiga drama to concentrate on the lives of commoners and the reviled merchant class of the Tokugawa period. It documents the rise and fall of the merchant city of Sakai, as seen by its most famous resident, the semilegendary Luzon.

7.5

The Ballad of Narayama

In a small village in a valley everyone who reaches the age of 70 must leave the village and go to a certain mountain top to die. If anyone should refuse they would disgrace their family. Old Orin is 69. This winter it is her turn to go to the mountain. But first she must make sure that her eldest son Tatsuhei finds a wife.

6.9

The Eel

A businessman kills his adulterous wife and is sent to prison. After his release, he opens a barbershop and meets new people, talking to almost no one except for an eel he befriended while in prison.

7.3

Madadayo

In postwar Tokyo, beloved writer-professor Hyakken Uchida retires and is buoyed through hardship by the fierce devotion of his former students, who honor him each year with a raucous “Not yet!” birthday toast. Told in warm, gently comic vignettes, Kurosawa’s farewell celebrates aging, friendship, and the sustaining ritual of teacher and pupils refusing to say goodbye.

7.2

Rhapsody in August

An elderly Nagasaki hibakusha spends a summer caring for her four grandchildren, whose curiosity about the 1945 bombing stirs buried memories and moral questions. When an American nephew from Hawaii visits, the family confronts grief, guilt, and the possibility of reconciliation across generations.

7.0

Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees

A mountain man beheads his many wives to prove his love to an alluring woman he meets in an enchanted forest.

6.6

Warm Water Under a Red Bridge

A down-and-out businessman travels to a seaside town, where he meets a woman with unusual sexual powers.

7.6

Vengeance Is Mine

A thief, a murderer, and a charming lady-killer, Iwao Enokizu is on the run from the police.

5.0

Labyrinth Romanesque

A serial killing occurs at a port town brothel.

5.0

Fujin no Mon

It has been twelve years since the Battle of Sekigahara. The Toyotomi family was sealed in Osaka Castle with a huge amount of gold by Tokugawa Ieyasu. The calm before the storm, there were behind-the-scenes secret spying activities between the Tokugawa and Toyotomi. At that time, Iga Ninja leader, Kirigakure Saizo, was attacked by someone by mistake. The vortex of the times captures those that began to seek the truth. A group of Koga led by Sarutobi Sasuke pledges loyalty to Sanada Yukimura. Saizo puts his life on the line in a ninjutsu battle with the legendary Fuma (Kotaro) Clan who freely use mysterious techniques. Eventually, these actions lead to the demise of the Warring States period.

6.2

Eijanaika

The film depicts carnivalesque atmosphere summed up by the cry "Ei ja nai ka" ("Why not?") in Japan in 1867 and 1868 in the days leading to the Meiji Restoration. It examines the effects of the political and social upheaval of the time, and culminates in a revelrous march on the Tokyo Imperial Palace, which turns into a massacre. Characteristically, Imamura focuses not on the leaders of the country, but on characters in the lower classes and on the fringes of society.

N/A

Keshin

Daizaburo Akiba, a music critic, sets up Kiriko, a young hostess, and refines her to become his ideal woman.

6.6

Spy Sorge

A foreign spy using the Sorge alias is assigned to Tokyo the capital of Japan just prior to the outbreak of World War II and in the midst of the Japanese imperial ambitions in Eastern Asia. The spy becomes acquainted with a sympathetic communist who like he is attached to the ideals of freedom and rule of the masses. Sorge is able to feed the Soviet Union useful information regarding the Axis allies and their movements in Asia and beyond.

7.2

Murder on D Street

Detective Kogoro Akechi is faced with a peculiar murder case involving forgeries of classic pornographic artworks.