From Kwaidan to Lady Snowblood. Japanese cinema offers many of film historyâs most memorably snowy movies.
17 December 2020
Samurai Assassin (1965)
As apocryphal festive stories go, the one about the crucified Santa Claus in the window of a Japanese department store is a doozy. Urban legend has it that in the years following the American occupation of Japan, an eager window-dresser got his cultural wires crossed and mounted a life-size effigy of Father Kurisumasu (or santa-san) on a wooden crucifix in a bid to import some western seasonal flavour to the ailing store.
The commercialised Christmas as itâs known in the west is a relatively recent import to Japan, a country in which the religious connotations of the season hold little cultural value, with festivities usually saved for the busy 3-day period of new year (Oshogatsu)Â celebrations.