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SANSHO DAYU reaches back to a Japanese folk tale of the 12th century to depict the barbarism of 'a dark age, when people didn't know how to be human.' The film stars Yoshiaki Hanayagi as Zushi⌠, the young son of a provincial governor Masauji Taira (Masao Shimizu). A man of outstanding compassion and probity, he impresses on his son the notion that 'without mercy, a man is not a man.' When the governor's attempts to protect the rights of regional farmers clash with the goals of the feudal regime, he's sent into exile, and forced to leave his family behind. A few years later Zushio, his mother, Tamaki (Kinuyo Tanaki), and sister, Anju (Kyoko Kagawa), begin a long journey to reunite with Masauji, only to be waylaid be kidnappers en route. The bandits sell Tamaki to a brothel on an isolated island and the children to corrupt official Sansho (Eitaro Shindo) as slaves. As the years pass, Anju lapses into passivity while Zushio becomes hardened by the brutality that has become their lot. One day, while escorting a dying slave outside the confines of their camp, they plan an escape. In what may be his finest film, the director again uses the great cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa (UGETSU), shooting scenes of the most intense emotion from a distance in long, magnificently composed sequence takes, suggesting the transience of all worldly suffering, and fulfilling the Nabokovian dictum of art as 'beauty plus compassion.'<BR><BR><BR>In GION BAYASHI Ayako Wakao stars as Eiko, the 16-year-old daughter of a recently deceased geisha, who nonetheless harbours some romantic notions about what the profession entails. Miyoharu (Michiyo Kogure), an aging geisha, agrees to take on the younger woman, initiating her into the life. After a year of training, Eiko is prepared to make her debut, but in order to do so she must obtain a sizeable sum from Okimi, the madam who owns the teahouse from which she would operate. To provide the money, Okimi must get a loan from businessman Kusuda (Seizaburo Kawazu), a client of Miyoharu, who intends to trade the geisha in an illegal business deal, while retaining Eiko's services for himself. Although the geishas accompany the businessmen on their trip to Tokyo, they refuse to sleep with them, and Okimi, infuriated by their rebellion, refuses to use them. Ayako Wakao is superb in this sensitive, nuanced account of the relationship between women of different eras.