Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.
Ryutaro Otomo as the Edo magistrate Umon Kondo is out to solve a crime that centers around the murder of a jail guard & the escape of a criminal who is later himself killed. His dying words in Umon's arms were, "I didn't kill the guard." The murdered criminal had been a safe-cracker & only his girlfriend knows where he hid a fortune. She is kidnapped, so the plot gets thicker & thicker.
Young Lord Taihei goes to Edo to find the lost family treasure, a plover incense burner, under the disguise of a ronin.
A Yokohama shoe executive faces a wrenching choice when kidnappers mistakenly seize his chauffeur’s son but demand the ransom anyway.
The last Japanese soldier in 16 years who survived
A detective tries to outwit a jewel thief who has kidnapped the daughter of a jeweler to get to an exquisite diamond.
The story depicts the sorrows and joys of women in Shinjuku, centering on a daughter who became a hostess burdened with a large compensation payment after her father was imprisoned for causing a traffic accident while driving under the influence.
Loyal samurai Samanosuke is attacked, mutilated, and left for dead while carrying out a mission for his clan. He recovers but has lost an eye and an arm. Taking a new identity as Tange Sazen, he searches for a stolen urn which has hidden significance to his clan. But Tange Sazen has his own reasons for seeking the urn.
Assassination begins with the events of 1853 when "four black ships" anchored at Edo Bay, sparking civil unrest and the major political manoeuvring that saw the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate. At a time when assassination had become a disturbing political tool, Shinoda's film follows Hachiro Kiyokawa, an ambitious, masterless samurai whose allegiances drift dangerously between the Shogunate and the Emperor.
A director faces creative block while working on his latest film – a reimagination of his adolescence growing up in a mountain village in rural Japan.
In an isolated mountain resort, a woman gets involved in a love triangle between herself, her volatile lover and her ex-boyfriend, for whom she had platonic feelings.
The remake of Yoshikawa's novel continues with the second installment in which Takezo, soon to be Miyamoto Musashi, emerges from the Himeji Castle after three years of intense contemplation and philosophical study and starting on his epic quest to complete his skill in the Way.
In the third installment of Yoshikawa's novel Musashi, things continue from the 2nd film at the end of battle, where Miyamoto continues on a mission of learning; with the introduction of his arch-rival Sasaki Kojiro; and lastly the large cast of characters rendezvouses for a fateful finale.
In the fourth installment, Musashi's potentially greatest opponent Kojiro jumps in and out of the story at the oddest and most coincidental moments. As his great love Otsu has succumbed to madness. Musashi then sets off to beat the functionaries of a treacherous clan in an arranged duel. 73 against one. Boastful Kojiro watches, secure in the knowledge that only he is a worthy opponent.
The fifth and final installment with the build up of the epic battle between Sasaki Kojiro and Miyamoto Musashi. With all the familiar characters making appearances: Otsu (Musashi's great love), Akemi, Matahachi (his former fellow soldier), old lady Osugi (still doggedly trying to defeat Musashi), and even the return of Priest Takuan (the man responsible for his journey towards enlightenment). But most of all, the boastful, long-haired and long-sworded Sasaki Kojiro.
In this first episode, we are introduced to Takezo, what Musashi used to be before he became the man of legend. His beginning are not exactly auspicious. He sides with the Toyotomi at Sekigahara, and as a result finds himself on the losing side of the historic battle. He and his friend Matahachi manage to escape the slaughter although the latter is wounded in his leg. They stumble across the young Akemi who makes her living with her mother Oko by robbing corpses of their armor and anything else they can sell. Oko takes it into her head to seduce Matahachi, which she does first by skillfully sucking the gangrene from his blood, and then just by sucking.
A war widow with a young boy manages a farm with her bossy mother-in-law. When a reporter comes to interview her, the two begin an affair. He turns out to be married and won't leave his wife. Her older brother tries to marry off his children and hang on to/ extend his farm through an advantageous marriage in the face of threatened land confiscation and the desire of his children to get comfortable urban jobs instead of the backbreaking work in the paddy fields under parental control.
Masaki Kobayashi directs this romantic drama concerning a family of florists.
A headstrong young man seeks to join the Shinsengumi, but while his determination impresses his superiors, questions begin to arise as to his true identity and intentions.
An ethical, young tax collector new to his area encounters increasingly absurd individuals and groups coping with their post-war woes.
Provincial 14th century governor Moronao, attracted to the wife of a court magistrate, tries to seduce her and when she rejects his advances plots to send her husband into battle.
Hayata and his best friend Ushijima came to Tokyo to become champions. Hayata repeatedly sought to join Tamura's boxing club, but Tamura fell in love with Ushijima's punch. Then Hayata decides to become Ushijima's manager and make good money on his friend's talent. Ushijima himself is a peaceful, kind guy who doesn't really like boxing, but under the wise guidance of Hayata, he starts to defeat one opponent after another...
When two sisters fall in love with the same man, one must decide to look elsewhere.
Shizuka, Eiichiro, and Mineko, their father and son, live modestly in a certain suburb, leading a dreary but happy life. Eiichiro is troubled by Shizuka's desire to live together in familiar Tokyo. Mineko is the exact opposite of Eiichiro. A literary masterpiece depicting the fateful sorrow and humor of a mother and child
Anzukko (Little Peach) is the daughter of a successful writer. She turns down each one of her suitors, until she marries a beginning writer named Ryokichi. Their life quickly sinks into despair.
Just before the end of the war, Japanese soldier Kitani is released from prison, having served his term for theft. Told in flashback, viewers learn about Kitani's past and reasons behind his prison sentence.
Shingo and Ritsuko have a baby: Takashi. They happen to be a happy couple, but soon Ritsuko wants to know who is the true father of Takashi, born by artificial insemination.
In the early Edo period, among the pirate ships that roamed the seas near Ryukyu and Korea, there was a ship called the Sueyoshi, led by a man known as Misaki Shogoro, who was infamous for his devilish cruelty. Shogoro had a rule: he would kill all the men from the ships he raided, while the women would be distributed among the crew for their pleasure. However, he himself never touched any woman. Aboard the ship was a young girl named Kogane, who had been raised on the ship since she was a child and dressed as a boy. Unbeknownst to others, she had grown to secretly adore Shogoro.
Writer Jippensha Ikku hears Tsutaya Juzaburo, a wholesaler of picture books, mutter on his deathbed, "Where has Sharaku gone?" He begins to figure out the true identity of Sharaku, who disappeared after about 150 portraits of actors he created came out.
Onna Hitori Daichi wo Yuku (A Lonely Woman in a Lonely Land, Kinuta Production, 1953) was the second feature film directed by Kamei Fumio, who is known as a master of documentary films, and followed his “Haha Nareba Onna Nareba(Become a Mother, Become a Woman)” (1952).
A film about the construction of the Kasumigaseki Building, the first high-rise building in Japan.
Based on the Nobu Koito story
A college graduate falls in love with a woman during a business trip in Hokkaido
A bad day gets worse for young detective Murakami when a pickpocket steals his gun on a hot, crowded bus. Desperate to right the wrong, he goes undercover, scavenging Tokyo’s sweltering streets for the stray dog whose desperation has led him to a life of crime. With each step, cop and criminal’s lives become more intertwined and the investigation becomes an examination of Murakami’s own dark side.
Returning to their lord's castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the spirit's prophecy comes true, Washizu's scheming wife, Asaji, presses him to speed up the rest of the spirit's prophecy by murdering his lord and usurping his place. Director Akira Kurosawa's resetting of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" in feudal Japan is one of his most acclaimed films.
In this intricately layered Japanese film, the nature of actresses and what they gain from acting is explored. The lives of three actresses are laid bare, and scenes from their lives are woven in and out of interviews with each of them. Each of them has experienced a traumatic event which contributes to their particular enjoyment of becoming someone else in dramatic roles.
A successful textile industrialist from the provinces, who is beloved by his employees for his kindness, cannot find a wife because of a disfiguring birthmark on his face. Even the courtesans in Yoshiwara refuse to entertain him, until an indentured peasant prostitute, Tamarazu, takes the unsavoury assignment and treats him with brash tenderness.
As a young woman, Oriko condemned her widowed mother for openly pursuing relationships with younger men. After her mother passes away, she finds herself in an unhappy, loveless marriage and begins to understand her mother’s actions.
About the struggles of day labourers to achieve dignity and a standard of living above the starvation level. Utilising the Zenshinza theatrical troupe.
Among Yoshimura’s complex and political works, this episodic film, set in the early 1930s, follows the life of a young left-wing student activist disenchanted by the increasingly hawkish state of Japanese society.
The Angry Street includes a great deal of location shooting in the rebuilt city, including downtown streets, residential neighborhoods, the campus of the University of Tokyo, and the high life of jazzy dance halls. Sudo (Hara Yasumi) and Mori (Uno Jukichi) are two university students who make money by picking up rich girls in dance clubs and conning them into giving them cash. Mori is the brains of the operation, and Sudo is the suave dancer who picks up the girls. Over the course of the film, Sudo becomes involved with three different girls and is drawn into the gangster milieu, which he seems unable to resist even though he is responsible for his mother, grandmother, and sister, Masako (Wakayama Setsuko). In this world of bad boys and girls, Masako is the pillar of strength and moral virtue who finally enables Mori to straighten out.
Yoshie Nogami, a factory worker by day, works as a bar hostess at night. She begins a passionate affair with one of her regulars, but his changing demeanor and constant demands for money lead Yoshie down a dark path.
A math teacher loses his job while falling in love with a local girl.
A young man, convicted of a crime and imprisoned in the penitentiary, comes to believe that his wife is being unfaithful to him. He contrives his escape from the prison in order to seek her out and learn the truth, but the police give chase and he must flee into the mountains.
This movie is based on an immortal literary work "The Snow Country," a story about a life of geisha Komako who lives in a region with heavy snowfalls.
The troubled relationship between a writer and his ballet teacher wife, who has for years loved another man, finally leads to the breakup of the family.
A touching story depicting the harsh lives of farmers in Kasumigaura. An attempt to start a fishery business to revive an ailing farming community creates friction amongst the proud residents.
With most of his family already dead at Ogami Itto's hands, Retsudo launches one final plot to destroy him, and when that fails, unleashes the fury of every remaining member of the Yagyu clan.
After a salary-man's fiancée attempts suicide, he recounts his gruesome family history which saw generations of his ancestors suffer and sacrifice themselves for the sake of their cruel lords.
A story about the lives of four sisters and their manipulative mother who must come to terms with each of their decisions in life.
A gangster named Sagara killed a broker at the request of a friend named Oba, was arrested and spent eight years in prison. Now released, he wants to find out who squealed on him.
Japanese drama film.
Military doctor Leutenant Hanada deserts during the war in the Philippines with a local girl. The officer in command orders Lieutenant Uji to shoot Hanada. Uji takes a sharpshooter called Takagi and tracks him. At first Uji cannot forgive Hanada but as Uji is isolated from the main force he too starts to think of desertion.
Woman private eye Emiko goes undercover to reveal the truth of a murder case.
Documentary made by Toho for the Masterworks reissue of all of its Kurosawa films. This one focuses on "Stray Dog" (1949).
Japanese drama.
Satoko is a mistress by trade or fate: when her master, the silkscreen artist of the Kohoan Temple in Kyoto, dies, she is given to the temple's lascivious head priest Kikuchi. She is drawn to a melancholy young acolyte, Jinen, who has observed the profligacy of his cruel master and Satoko's utter dependence on the man. Jinen is both fascinated and disturbed by Satoko's interest in him; he is similarly caught between loathing of Kikuchi and of the dark circumstances of his birth and his own moral weakness. The story unfolds in a dreamlike manner—a flashback inspired by a now-infamous image on a silkscreen in the souvenir shop at the so-called Temple of the Wild Geese.
Based on the novel of the same name by Seichō Matsumoto.
Koharu, a flamboyant geisha, unexpectedly wins a trip to Sado Island in a TV contest. She is accompanied by three people. Koharu had been dreaming of a handsome young man, but when she gets into the first-class car, she meets Tashiro, a pretentious young man with rimless glasses, Sugimura, who has a mean look in his eyes, and Ryuta, a young man she had a scuffle with in a boxing match the other day and hated. After countless misunderstandings, Koharu vows to defeat Tomoe-gumi's leader, Yamada's gang...
Melodrama about a young factory girl who "chooses riches over chastity".
A movie adaptation of Funayama Kaoru's novel of the same name, which depicts the story of a modern youth who is attracted to the evil path. Saburi Shin, a well-known actor who also demonstrated his skill as a director in a bold social work, embodies a person with a complicated dilemma in a shadowy manner, and is a dramatic work that plays a part in the lead role.
Junai Monogatari AKA Story of Pure Love is about two poor youths, Mitsuko and Kando, rebelling against society in various ways, who are desperately trying to be together despite tortuous circumstances. The film depicts their lives as thieves, menial laborers who can get little pay, society outcasts, and of course, lovers. Junai Monogatari depicts, mostly, their struggles within the Japanese reformatory system and Mitsuko's worsening sickness.
A Hibari Misora musical about an impoverished girl and her brother in Postwar Japan.
Two obaachans become fast friends listening to music in front of a record store. They both boast about their loving sons but in reality, one had just escaped a retirement home and the other was looking for an escape from her son and daughter-in-law. With nowhere to go, the two wander around, befriending a cosmetics salesman and a kind waitress who give them beer. This biting social satire starring two memorable grandmothers, scripted by Yôko Mizuki, picked up on Japan’s aging population problem far ahead of its time.
A wealthy Japanese sugar factory manager in Hawaii finds his wife sinking into depression and madness.
A story of a passionate teacher and his great effort for the children in a poor village.
The stage director Shimamura, who is bringing western theatre to Japan, falls in love with the outspoken actress Sumako Matsui, and leaves his family to be with her, while trying to keep his Art Theatre solvent.
A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food.
A young yakuza, Yatappe, wanders around the country in search of his long-lost little sister, Oito. While traveling, he rescues a young girl, Osayo, whose father entrusts her to him with his dying wish. To honor his promise to Osayo's deceased father, Yatappe brings her to safety, and from a distance keeps a watchful eye on her well being.
Second delivery in the "Yakuza Hijoshi" series. The protagonist, played by Ando Noboru, is torn between the organization and his old friends.
Wataru Naohiko who has the prosecutor general as his father became a young composer and its symphony "saint" invoked the world echoed. But his disciple Uchiyama and his best friend prosecutor Daisuke Toki accused his music as a sesame of pause-only technique, not a truly heart-hungry art.
A movie that depicts the tragic fate of many Yokaren flight-academy pilots.
A great ambition to portray with sharp satire and humor the course of modern anxiety and love that is about to be driven to despair.
1960 Toei film.
1967 Japanese movie
1961 Japanese movie
A luxury car was stolen near a certain nightclub in Akasaka, and the owner of the car was shot and killed. The investigation by detective Nagata, head of the Metropolitan Police Department's Investigation Headquarters, revealed that the perpetrator shot a silenced gun, and that a film camera was taken away from the car he abandoned. Furthermore, fluids left at the scene indicate that the perpetrator was a tuberculosis patient...
1961 Japanese movie
Ammo scavengers make a living gathering the unexploded bombs and shell casings from the U.S. military training grounds. One of them, Zen, is their champion, a stingy but good-natured person. Based on the novel "Fuhatsudan" by Akae Yukio.
Outspoken student Noriko stands up to bullies and befriends pitcher Mitsuo. As their bond deepens, she impulsively declares she wants to marry him—then reconsiders, realizing both still have growing to do before love can truly begin.