The Castle of Sand
(1974)
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The Castle of Sand
(1974)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
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Tetsurô Tanba | ... |
Detective Imanishi
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Gô Katô | ... |
Eiryo Waga
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Kensaku Morita | ... |
Detective Yoshimura
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| Yôko Shimada | ... |
Reiko
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Karin Yamaguchi | ... |
Sachiko
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Ken Ogata | ... |
Miki
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Seiji Matsuyama | ... |
Miki's Son
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Yoshi Katô | ... |
Waga's Father
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| Chishû Ryû | ... |
Kirihara
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Shin Saburi | ... |
Ex-Finance Minister Tadokoro
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Kiyoshi Atsumi | ... |
Movie Theater Manager
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Kazuhide Kasuga | ... |
Motoura Hideo
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Junko Natsu | ... |
Akiko, hostess at Cabaret Bonuru
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Taketoshi Naitô | ... |
Search section chief
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Masumi Harukawa | ... |
Naka Sumie, woman at fan shop
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I just saw this movie for the first time last night at the Japanese Film Festival held in Melbourne. It was a re-mastered print and on the huge screen it was magnificent. The flashback scenes with the father and son set to the stunning musical score seemed like a completely different movie to what had preceded. But to me, final scenes are important - a skillful movie ending turns a good film into a great film. A bad ending turns an average to good film into a piece of rubbish. As far as Castle of Sand is concerned, what started out as an interesting detective story ended as a sweeping piece which left me walking out of the cinema thinking "That was incredible!!".
Japanese cinema rarely fails to impress me. I keep discovering more and more gems, usually from years gone by when I was too young to experience them at the time.