Ikki Sawamura has 2 titles in the CriticCrunch catalog across a career spanning the 2000s through the 2010s. 2 rank in the Top 10%, led by Grave of the Fireflies.
A bravado period action film set at the end of Japan's feudal era in which a group of unemployed samurai are enlisted to bring down a sadistic lord and prevent him from ascending to the throne and plunging the country into a war-torn future.
Dir. Takashi Miike · With Koji Yakusho, Takayuki Yamada, Yūsuke Iseya
Hisako loses her home in Tokyo to Allied bombing. With her husband fighting somewhere in Asia, she and her two children evacuate to a suburb of Kobe, where they share a house with Hisako's cousin, Kyoko. Kobe is bombed and Kyoko is killed. Hisako is forced to take care of Kyoko's two children in addition to her own, but there is not enough food for everyone.
Dir. Tōya Satō · With Hoshi Ishida, Mao Sasaki, Ikki Sawamura
