Shinoda's 'Silence' ('Chinmoku', 1971) from Masters of Cinema Soon.

Forgive me for not following it all in great detail, but this is the film from which Martin Scorsese will either directly remake or produce a spin upon during the next couple of years.

As it stands, the original film portrays Christian Missionaries spreading the word in Japan, and as far as I know, for those familiar with the idea that Japan's ruling classes closed down its borders to the outside world for a long time, it was as a direct result of the fear of loosing control over Japanese Culture (religion in particular, but overall the general influence) which gave us a huge slice of the countries identity as we see it today, although that period of banishment lasted between the late 16th century and the late 19th century and Christianity is now accepted. Scorsese seems to see parallels with the way in which American Culture spreads globally, potentially through military force or military activity it would seem given recent years happenings, “It raises a lot of questions about foreign cultures coming in and imposing their way of thinking on another culture they know nothing about" he says. [Source : Japan Probe, Japan Guide].

Although Shinoda has long been a figure well known to fans of Japanese film, I've passed alongside many of the releases we've seen in recent times -- a handful made it to Japan with English Subtitles (they include 'Buraikan', 'Hanare Goze Orin', 'Kaseke No Mori', 'Shokei No Shima', 'Shonen Jidai' and 'Silence' itself), classic and older films at that, which is unusual -- and one or two have made it out via Criterion ('Double Suicide', 'Samurai Spy') as well as a previous release from Masters of Cinema in the form of 'Assasination', as well as Homevision having released a yakuza film of his, 'Pale Flower'. I have, however, caught 'Samurai Spy' -- a few more have since appeared on my list to head back towards -- and they've proven to become gradually more popular as people bump into them along the way. No date seems to be set yet for this new Shinoda to appear in the west, but given MoC's reputation, this should be a very nice disc, likely to have been started from scratch and given a thorough treatment.

Shinoda Profile at Yale Website, Various Information at Answers.com.