On a Tokyo dump’s shantytown edge, interwoven vignettes follow residents scraping by: a boy who “drives” an imaginary trolley, a homeless father and son designing a dream house, a young woman brutalized at home, drunks, schemers, and saints of small kindnesses. Kurosawa crafts a ragged mosaic of hardship, fantasy, and flickers of grace that keep people moving forward.
The action takes place in a city where you can live on only 100 yen a day. The "General", who indulged in gambling with his henchmen all day, he was running his business and hitting him with a taxi turned out to be a trifle for him. A unique work, filled with tears and laughter, praising the beautiful human love that blooms at the bottom of life, focused on the genius “General” who lives in the troubled city of Kamagasaki.
Naruse Uta is a "unique" 13 year old child. She possessed the talent to read sheet music even before she could speak, but has now come to the point where she hates playing the piano. Her father was also a piano virtuoso, but mysteriously disappeared from her life at a young age. Because of her father's disappearance Uta's mother had to move out of their posh home and into a far modest working class neighborhood. In this working class neighborhood there is a local grocer. The grocer's son Kikuna Oto happens to be a budding musician, but lacks the drive to truly succeed. That is until Uta Naruse comes into his life...
A Japanese Class B war criminal sets out to take full responsibility for the execution of American Airmen.
An adaptation of the popular Sazae-san comic strip
The Kitao family is coping with the loss of the eldest daughter, Chizuko, who was killed in a freak accident the year prior. When the other daughter Mika is suddenly in a dangerous situation, Chizuko returns as a ghost to save her; reunited with her sister, Mika begins spending time with Chizuko again.
1962 Japanese movie
Aspiring to an easy job as personal physician to a wealthy family, Noboru Yasumoto is disappointed when his first post after medical school takes him to a small country clinic under the gruff doctor Red Beard. Yasumoto rebels in numerous ways, but Red Beard proves a wise and patient teacher. He gradually introduces his student to the unglamorous side of the profession, ultimately assigning him to care for a prostitute rescued from a local brothel.
Eight visually rich vignettes drawn from Kurosawa’s own dreams—fox weddings and vanished orchards, a soldier’s ghosts, a walk through Van Gogh’s canvases, nuclear nightmares, and a water-mill utopia—meditate on childhood, art, mortality, and humanity’s uneasy bond with nature.
In postwar Tokyo, beloved writer-professor Hyakken Uchida retires and is buoyed through hardship by the fierce devotion of his former students, who honor him each year with a raucous “Not yet!” birthday toast. Told in warm, gently comic vignettes, Kurosawa’s farewell celebrates aging, friendship, and the sustaining ritual of teacher and pupils refusing to say goodbye.
A divorced woman enters a marriage arranged by her mother in exchange for money to save the life of her seriously ill son.
Japanese film based on the life of sculptor Eikichi Takahashi, who died as a soldier on Guadalcanal.
Documentary made by Toho for the Masterworks reissue of all of its Kurosawa films. This one focuses on "Dodes'ka-den" (1970).
Hiroko, who has a weekly magazine reporter as her lover is assigned as a public health nurse in a remote village. However, there is widespread poverty and ignorance beyond her imagination.
Dramatic story of one man trying to make a difference.
Shakespeare's King Lear is reimagined as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan where an aging warlord divides his kingdom between his three sons.
A tragic love story set in a mountain village in the Showa era, waiting for a fiancé who died in the war, but it is more than that. It breaks through the existing concept of a film with a beginning, middle, and end, and like Fellini or Godard... Hara Masato's cosmic film philosophy on the theme of "human history and media" unfolds like a symphony.
15th entry in the Ekimae series, surrounding the then-insanely popular Weekly Shounen Sunday series Osomatsu-kun and Obake no Q-Taro.
A poor rickshaw driver finds himself helping a young woman and her son after the woman's husband dies suddenly.
Based on an anonymous letter, a powerful lumber merchant is arrested for arson, but not everyone is convinced. A young detective named Sashichi, known more for his striking looks than for cracking cases, unravels the web of conspiracy.
Shochiku movie, starring Yumi Kaoru
A soldier has been in the Japanese military for the entirety of WWII, and in that time, his dedication to the army has never faltered. However, as the war draws to a close, his commanding officers become increasingly desperate and push their men to ever more absurd extremes. The ridiculousness of the orders from above peak when the hero of the story is assigned to drive a one-man submarine straight into the hull of an enemy battleship.
Directed by Katsumi Iwauchi
In 1026, students in western China are shanghaied into the forces of crown prince Li Yuanhao of Xi Xia, who wants to control the length of the Silk Road. One student is Zhao Xingde, who becomes the favorite of his commander, Zhu Wangli. While sacking a fortress, Xingde discovers Tsurpia, princess of the Uighur. He hides her; they fall in love. When he's sent away to study Xixian, he leaves Tsurpia in Zhu's care, but returns to find her engaged to Li. Tragedy follows, and he and Zhu enter a pact to take revenge when Li arrives at Dun-Huang, the region's seat of learning and culture. Against overwhelming odds, they find a surprising way to leave a monument to their life and love.