It was the first time in six years that I was able to step on the land of my homeland, the land of my nostalgia. It was Tokyo that had turned to burnt earth. A Tokyo with no one to rely on.
After a passenger ship sinks in 1954, Go Akutsu devises a life-saving project in the form of a tunnel under the Tsugaru Strait. While working on this project Akutsu becomes involved with Tae Makimura leading to his estrangement from his wife.
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.
Mitsuo goes to Nagoya to visit Izumi, whose father left Izumi’s sad, bar hostess mother for another woman, so together they decide to confront him in Oita. Meanwhile, Izumi’s mother befriends Tora-san and together they travel to Oita to meet them, with Tora-san quickly falling for her en route.
When Izumi can't stand seeing her mother flirt with other men, she leaves home. She sends a letter to Mitsuo and Mitsuo goes looking for her. But Izumi unexpectedly meets Tora-san.
Chiaki Onoda a young assisstant sound mixer is unhappy with his job, but otherwise he is enjoying life. He loves his cat, his friends, hunting for girls and breakdancing in discos. A funeral forces him to return home and meet his familiy, which (espicially his father) disapprove of his lifestyle.
Noriko is perfectly happy living at home with her widowed father, Shukichi, and has no plans to marry -- that is, until her aunt Masa convinces Shukichi that unless he marries off his 27-year-old daughter soon, she will likely remain alone for the rest of her life. When Noriko resists Masa's matchmaking, Shukichi is forced to deceive his daughter and sacrifice his own happiness to do what he believes is right.
A young salaryman and his wife struggle within the confines of their passionless relationship while he embarks on an extramarital affair.
Yasuichiro Isa, who works in the labor section of Sone Mining Tokyo Headquarters, paid a monthly fee for his younger brother, Reiji, who was in trouble because he had a bonus of 10,000 yen more.
A woman and her daughter are each forced to contend with an increasing pressure to marry, particularly from three men who knew her late husband.
In this loose adaptation of "Hamlet," illegitimate son Kôichi Nishi climbs to a high position within a Japanese corporation and marries the crippled daughter of company vice president Iwabuchi. At the reception, the wedding cake is a replica of their corporate headquarters, but an aspect of the design reminds the party of the hushed-up death of Nishi's father. It is then that Nishi unleashes his plan to avenge his father's death.
A mother and her daughter who run a quiet mountain hotel, and guests who visit the hotel. A girl who does not know what a broken heart is, the attractive joy of first love, and separation is like parting with life. The mother-daughter duet with Isuzu Yamada attracted a lot of attention at that time. Haruko Wanibuchi, demonstrated rare attractiveness and pure charm by playing a heroine living in a beautiful and pure first love.
Shuhei Horikawa, a poor schoolteacher, struggles to raise his son Ryohei by himself, despite neither money nor prospects.
After the Japanese defeat to the Russians, Kaji leads the last remaining men through Manchuria. Intent on returning to his old life, he faces great odds in a variety of different harrowing circumstances as he and his men sneak behind enemy lines.
Part one of Shin Saburi's Theater of Life adaptation.
In the movies of those times, you can see young boys in the company scene often. Those boys were called kyuji (給仕), which means “waiter” literally. They are doing odd jobs in the company including serving tea, ushering visitors, buying tobacco, etc. Ordering lunch for the individual requests was also an important job. Those boys were hired often as soon as they graduated from elementary school.
Wataru's outwardly liberal views on marriage are severely tested when his daughter declares her love for a coworker and is adamant to live her own way, instead of agreeing to an arranged marriage. Outwitted by his female relatives, Hirayama stubbornly refuses to admit defeat.
A lighthearted take on director Yasujiro Ozu’s perennial theme of the challenges of intergenerational relationships, Good Morning tells the story of two young boys who stop speaking in protest after their parents refuse to buy a television set. Ozu weaves a wealth of subtle gags through a family portrait as rich as those of his dramatic films, mocking the foibles of the adult world through the eyes of his child protagonists. Shot in stunning color and set in a suburb of Tokyo where housewives gossip about the neighbors’ new washing machine and unemployed husbands look for work as door-to-door salesmen, this charming comedy refashions Ozu’s own silent classic I Was Born, But . . . to gently satirize consumerism in postwar Japan.
The family of an older man who runs a small sake brewery become concerned with his finances and his health after they discover him visiting an old mistress from his youth.
Kempeitai fights American spies in Japan
Three daughters have graduated from the music school and have gone their separate ways. On the day of the outbreak of war, the three girls meet again for the first time since their graduation ceremony. This film was made at the end of the war to promote the military song “Song of the Annihilation of the United States and Great Britain” and to raise the will to fight.
Mikio Naruse’s final silent film is a gloriously rich portrait of a waitress, Sugiko, whose life, despite a host of male admirers and even some intrigued movie talent scouts, ends up taking a suffocatingly domestic turn after a wealthy businessman accidentally hits her with his car.
When Wabisuke's father-in-law unexpectedly dies, the family goes through a series of random events and occurrences as the funeral unfolds over three days in their home.
A touching story of pure love and tears between a boy and a girl, drawn by the innocent duo of Chieko Baisho and Shinichiro Mikami, based on "Nagashi bina", which absorbed the customs of the Tottori region.
From 1928 to 1946, the lives of 12 young people and their school teacher in a poor Japanese village are profoundly affected by historical events and personal circumstances.
A poor rickshaw driver finds himself helping a young woman and her son after the woman's husband dies suddenly.
1962 Japanese movie
1962 Japanese movie. Remake of the 1939 movie
33-year-old poor writer Ogata was able to endure his miserable life cheerfully thanks to Yoshie, a 19-year-old innocent young wife. After graduating from a girls' school in Hokuriku, she immediately moved to Tokyo to meet and marry Ogata. After neatly writing Ogata's manuscript, he would buy dorayaki as a gratuity and devour it.
Japanese war movie.
Following the detonation of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese military and the government clash over the demand from the Allies for unconditional surrender. Minister of the Army Anami leads the military officers who propose to fight on, even to the death of every Japanese citizen. Emperor Hirohito, however, joins with his ministers in asking the unthinkable, the peaceful surrender of Japan. When the military plots a coup to overthrow the Emperor's civilian government, Anami must face the choice between his desires and loyalty to his Emperor.
A theater troupe master's visit with his old flame unintentionally sets off a chain of unexpected events with devastating consequences.
Shinichi is not only poor, he is also deaf, and leads a joyless life with his sick mother. His one happiness is his friendship with a girl who works in a bar nearby. Then, one day, his mother dies after drinking the medicine that Shinichi himself gave her. It is discovered that the pills contained poison. He is apprehended on suspicion of murder and taken away for interrogation, unable to defend himself - being deaf and dumb - or even to proclaim his innocence.
The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko, the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.
In Depression-era Japan, a man commits a robbery to save his critically ill daughter and escapes with the funds, but complications arise.
Widower Shuhei Hirayama's caretaker is his 24-year-old daughter, Michiko. Gradually, he comes to realize that Michiko should not be obliged to look after him for the rest of his life, so he arranges a marriage for her.
In postwar Tokyo, Noriko lives with her extended family. Although she enjoys her career and her social life, her more traditional family worries about her single marital status at the advanced age of 28. 40-year-old business associate Takako proposes, Noriko's family press her into accepting, but when her widowed childhood friend Kenkichi returns to the neighborhood, she finds her heart leading in another direction.
A rural widow sends her only son to Tokyo to receive a better education. Years later, she visits him and finds he has become a night school teacher struggling to support his wife and son.
A hard-hearted old woman in a bombed-out Tokyo neighborhood reluctantly takes in an abandoned boy, leading to a heartwarming bond between them.
Two sisters find out the existence of their long-lost mother, but the younger cannot accept the fact that she was abandoned as a child.
The arranged marriage between a capricious woman from Tokyo high society and a quiet and rustic man is tested by a marital crisis.
Setsuko is in an unhappy marriage to Mimura, an unemployed, alcoholic engineer. She had always been in love with Hiroshi but both failed to propose when Hiroshi left for France a few years ago. But now he's back and Mariko tries to reunite them, although she too is secretly in love with Hiroshi.
German director Wim Wenders tries to explore the Tokyo that was depicted in the films of Yasujiro Ozu and finds a very different city.
After the death of her husband, an elderly woman and her youngest, unmarried daughter are forced to sell their house to cover his debts and decide to move in with one of the former's children, each of whom is scarcely happy to accommodate.
A lost film by Masahiro Makino
A 1959 Yoshiaki Bansho adaptation of an Osaragi Jiro story.
A Japanese family is torn apart by the tensions of an avoidable nuclear world war between the superpowers.
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.
A rural village elder plans an event on the return of a farmer's daughter from the city, unaware that she has become a Westernized burlesque artist.
Japan and Russia clash in what comes to be known as the Russo-Japanese War. An attempt by the Japanese fleet and army to take Port Arthur fails, and a Russian fleet bears down on the Sea of Japan. Admiral Heihachiro Togo sends his fleet to confront the Russians, with results which stun both nations. Meanwhile, Major Genjiro Akashi makes secret negotiations with the Bolshevik revolutionaries in Russia, negotiations that have repercussions far beyond the conflict at hand.
Ryoichi and Chikako, brother and sister, live together. Chikako toils during the day and, at night, prostitutes herself to fund his college tuition.
When a family has to relocate due to the war, they are ostracized by their new community.
A Japanese mountain inn patron's foot is cut by an ornamental hairpin accidentally left behind by a former patron, leading to much curiosity among the other patrons regarding her identity.
On the way back to his childhood home, a septuagenarian man recalls his childhood and adolescence, in particular his love for a young woman.
A historical drama that depicts the touching beauty of world obsession and human love in the style of light comedy, in the center of which is a young man who has a master license menkyo kaiden in the art of swordsmanship, but weak against lies and women. A remake of Bungaku no Issue, shot by Sadao Yamanaka in 1933.
A rivalry sparks between two teenage brothers when they discover the attraction of girls.
In Depression-era Tokyo, a struggling middle-aged single father with a young son comes across a homeless young lady and convinces a bar owner to take her in.
A young man discovers that the woman who raised him is his stepmother. His stepbrother, who is unaware of the revelation, resents his mother for always punishing him more severely than his stepsibling.
Tora-san arrives in Shibamata on Mitsuo's first day of school only to find that on his account, Mitsuo was embarrassed. After a fight with his family, he goes to a bar to drink, then brings home a surly old man with a sad story, whose identity will surprise everyone. Later, Tora meets Botan, a geisha.
After winning big at the races, Torajiro Kuruma wants to take his aunt and uncle on a trip to Hawaii to partly pay the great filial debt he feels he owes them, but the plan hits a snag. Also, a pretty kindergarten teacher rents a room at Toraya.
After surviving the double suicide pact she made with her lover, a woman gives birth to their child.
Though plagued by ill health all his life, a young Japanese man is obligated to fulfill his family's longstanding military tradition.
On a beautiful island in Seto Inner Sea, Seichi and Minko make their living by transporting rocks to construction sites by boat. They cherish the deepest affection for this piece of land they call home, and the simple life they lead. But rapid industrial growth makes it all but impossible to continue their chosen living style, and they are forced to leave their beloved hometown in search of a brighter future. But their hometown lingers on their hearts, and they dream of a time when they may once again return.
A headmaster and a novelist, looking for inspiration, regard a strange natural phenomenon before sharing stories of their own.
A masterpiece depicting the true feelings, grief and joy of a woman. An adaptation of the novel of the same name by Yasushi Inoue.
Shinpachi Morimura, who was born in a fusuma craftsman's house, wants to join the Japanese navy. However, his father wants him to continue in the family business and refuses to accept it.
On vacation's eve, a boy is sent to the countryside to live with his uncle after his father is imprisoned and accused of embezzlement.
Tora-san visits brother-in-law Hiroshi's hometown to attend a memorial service for his late father. When the local temple priest becomes intoxicated, Tora-san wearing the priest's robe delivers the memorial speech, much to his family's surprise. Thinking he's found his true calling, Tora-san decides to join the order, and falls for the priest's divorced daughter.
Two men at an ironworks encounter roadblocks: the first does not have the grades to get a job, while the other finds himself falling for a co-worker.
During college military training exercises, the bond between two friends and athletic rivals is tested when one of them becomes involved with a woman who may be a prostitute.
Story of two close friends who long to become pilots in the air corps. Only one succeeds in entering the service, while the other finds a job in civilian aviation through his instructor's good offices.
The narrative is about a woman who faces hard times, when her husband is arrested for a crime committed by his boss. The woman also has a child to look after, and they end up meeting several colorful personalities.
When a wealthy, selfish family decides to take care of an elderly hobo who collapsed near their home, they are beset by visits from his numerous friends.
A man and his girlfriend work for a cosmetics company, but would like to open their own store. The company is planning to send someone to Paris for special training and the man tries to get the general manager to send his girlfriend since this training would help them to start their own business. The general manager selects another woman and the trouble begins.
While Sakura and Hiroshi struggle to save funds to build a house, Torajiro befriends three young women on vacation during his travels.
Based on the original work by Fumiko Hayashi, this is a story about a woman and two men. The lust is restrained and indifferent. The story even has an elegance to it, which is the charm of the 30 year old Kinuyo Tanaka. There was a time when Tanaka was adorable... Shin Saburi was young and Chishu Ryu was young too. It is a promise of melodrama that the rival or friend is prettier than the heroine Kinyo.
Most of the students studying Ikebana with Kozoe Iemoto are daughters of rich Tokyo families. Kozoe meets and grows close to a doctor who proposes marriage but whose mother harbours ill feeling towards her because of an incident in the mountains where a child got into difficulties. Kozoe rejects the proposal but falls ill and when she recovers, decides to devote herself entirely to the world of flower arranging.
Amusing masterpiece from director Yoshimura Kazusabu divided in two parts taken from the newspaper serial novel of Shishiko Shishi. Like in "Warm Current", Shin Saburi, Mieko Takamine and Mitsuko Mito are appearing, but this is a fresh comedy very unusual for wartime.
Taking a message from Hiroshi's father to heart, Torajiro attempts to give up his wandering ways.
1962 Japanese movie
A tea master and his daughter Ogin are both Christians in feudal Japan. Ogin falls in love with a married feudal prince who shares her faith. When the Shogun bans Christianity, the situation worsens.
The story is set in 1970 during the time of the first EXPO in Japan. The film’s main figure is a miner who suddenly becomes unemployed because the mine he worked in was shut down. He decides to resettle with his whole family to Hokkaido in northern Japan and start a new life as a farmer.
After Torajiro's latest attempt to find a bride goes awry, he starts traveling again and runs into Utako (last seen in Tora-san's Dear Old Home), now a widow.
Pu Zhe, the younger brother of the Emperor of Manchukuo, marries Ryuko the daughter of an aristocratic family. To the surprise of all, a deep love between Pu Zhe and Ryuko develops and is put to the test when Japan loses the war.
Mokichi is the widowed father of three daughters, with whom he lives on the premises of a temple since the war. All three daughters become involved in some sort of complicated relationships.
After Hiroshi is injured in a workplace accident, Torajiro gives Sakura the money he has saved and leaves to work as a traveling salesman once again. During his travels, Torajiro meets a father who shares a drink with him. In the morning, Torajiro is shocked to learn that the man has left his baby behind and a note asking Tora to take care of the child.
Chikuzen, a ronin named Yoh Daisuke, after pacifying some ruffians at the theater of Onna-Kata Ogino Sawanojiki, formed a bond with the theater's bodyguard, Maruhashi Tadayasu, and Kaku, a priest. He ended up settling at the Kasugaya, the house of Oko, whom he had saved. When Oko decided to go to Edo, where her biological father lived, Daisuke accompanied her. Along the way, at Suruga Abe River, they encountered Sawanojiki's theater group, which had departed from Osaka earlier heading to Edo. A scuffle initiated by Tadayasu over a ferry boat with the students of Yui Masayuki but was amicably resolved through Masayuki's intervention.
Tora-san is inspired to pursue an education after a visit to the grave of a woman he met years ago. When he returns to Shibamata with the intent to study, he falls for Toraya's new tenant instead.
The film is set during the days of the scarcity of food after World War II, during which five men ate an elephant that died in a zoo. The elephant's corpse however, was infested with deadly bacteria and the men have only 30 hours left to live...
When Tora-san's infatuation with his nephew's school teacher causes family turmoil, he leaves on his travels again. When he returns, he falls in love with the teacher's mother.
Tora-san befriends the descendant of a feudal lord. The man asks Tora to locate his deceased son's wife who resides somewhere in Tokyo.
One day a company executive learns that his younger brother, whom he recommended, embezzled company funds. To save the situation he withdraws his life savings and gives money to his younger brother. He then suddenly disappears…
A Japanese screwball comedy about the battle between the sexes: two timid men, egged on by their wives, end up in a bitter duel over an expensive lace handkerchief.
A father and son are both heavy drinkers. However, the son dies in an accident at a bar, leaving behind a fiance…. A unique social satire that focuses on why people drink alcohol.
Japanese war film.
Tora-san becomes friends with Toraya's newest tenant, a pachinko-playing electrician that goes by the nickname Watt. Tora attempts to match Watt with a young waitress.
Pre-war Asakusa was a riotous district of cabarets, dance-halls and brothels - a striking backdrop for Shimazu's story of innocence and experience. Pretty, young Reiko is the new dancer in an infamous theatre troupe, and her fellow performers try to protect her virtue in a land of vice. Meanwhile, an ageing actor wants to be a hero off stage as well as on, and the troupe matriarch Marie has to keep them all together.
The Dai-bosatsu toge trilogy is based on Kaizan Nakazato's unfinished long series of novels (41 books, written from 1913 to 1941). Set in the last period of the Tokugawa Shogunate, Daibosatsu Toge tells the story of Ryunosuke Tsukue, a nihilistic swordmaster who doesn't hesitate to kill anyone, bad or good.
The Ueki family may not be wealthy, but smiles are never in short supply. The father is awarded prize money for 25 years of service to his workplace, but has it stolen on the way home from the ceremony...
Three beautiful daughters grew up in a dog and cat care clinic. The eldest was named Takako (Keiko Tsushima), the second was Tsugumi (Keiko Awaji), and the third was Mihato (Hibari Misora). Mihato was still a pretty seventeen-year-old girl, but she considered herself as mature as her older sisters. Mihato knows that Tsugumi is friends with Ippei Yaguchi (Masao Wakahara) and acts as a love messenger between them, but she didn't know that Takako is also in love with Ippei...
The timid first love of high school students! A whisper of love between a young man and a girl! The experiences of a middle-aged couple with a child! A cheerful work depicting the problems between three generations of men and women in a bright and healthy manner.
Based on a story by Akiyuki Nosaka.
Goto Tamiko starred in TV commercials and her father, Keisuke, was a powerful financier who is now fallen on hard times. Tamiko wants to marry her boyfriend Sanpei, an aspiring composer, but her father wants her to marry a young company president.
A widowed high-school teacher tries to raise his four children alone.
Tora-san's nephew Mitsuo is exchanging letters with Izumi, a former classmate whose parents divorced and took her out of Tokyo.
The sweet but naive denizens of a charming port town are hoodwinked by a couple of con men at the outset of World War II. But the hustlers’ plan backfires when they come down with severe cases of conscience. Keisuke Kinoshita’s directorial debut is a breezy, warmhearted, and often very funny crowd-pleaser that’s a testament to the filmmaker’s faith in people.
Tora befriends a pretty barbershop owner and runs into Izumi. When Tora twists his ankle, Mitsuo comes to care for him and see Izumi. Meanwhile, Izumi must choose between her new job in Tokyo and returning to Nagoya to care for her mother.
Minamimura, who had always wanted to be free, suddenly quits his job. His hardworking wife is surprised and angry, and throws him out of the house. Confused by his sudden freedom, Iosuke ends up living as a vagrant under a bridge. His wife, Komako, also finds herself freed and is unable to ignore her confusion.
Tora-san leaves Shibamata once again after an argument with his family and finds himself at an inn where he meets Tomekichi, a young man who looks up to Tora-san.
After the plans of a group of college students to cheat on their final exams goes awry, they're left to reassess their lives and educations and get back on track.
The movie depicts the youth of kamikaze pilots who scattered young lives in the sky.
When a young man inherits his father's lucrative business, he cheats the system to set up three of his college friends with jobs.
A gangster tries to find redemption with the inadvertent help of an innocent shop girl and his jealous girlfriend will do anything to keep him.
After a chance encounter with Hiroshi's father on a bus, Tora decides to get serious and reflect on the mortality of man. His plans are derailed when a beautiful lady starts working at Toraya.
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.
Tora-san, an itinerant peddler who is thrown out of his father's house twenty years before but reconnects with his aunt, uncle and sister Sakura. Tora wreaks some havoc in their lives, like getting drunk and silly at a marriage meeting and ruining Sakura's chance to marry someone, as well as just being a real pain to those around him. There is a sentimental side to him also, and the best way to describe him is that he grows on you.
A rural high school takes part in a mountain-climbing exercise and are caught in a sudden typhoon.
Tora-san helps out a runaway bride.
Graduate Okajima finds his old-fashioned beard makes life difficult in a comedy exploring the tension between tradition and modernity.
An old man who has spent his life being respectful, honest and married for 35 years suddenly has thoughts of cheating with a young girl. He goes on a trip with the girl, but they are followed by a yakuza and all hell breaks loose.
Tamio Moroi, a young university graduate, works at a large brewery where he is taught to do nothing but look busy. When his father goes insane, he is told to send money for medical research into the condition. This prompts him to pay his father a visit, leading to a series of mishaps that leaves him at the bottom of the heap in what he once expected to be a promising lifetime career.
The fourth instalment in the Salaryman Mejiro Sanpei series.
A masterpiece of life sketches overflowing with heartwarming affection and laughter that portrays the modern common people with humor and pathos, focusing on the daily life of Sanpei Mejiro, a salaryman for over twenty years who finds a little happiness in life in his poor but joyful home.
Sanae is left a widow after her prestigious husband dies, but holds the proceeds of a million yen insurance policy. Being childless, her former in-laws have no objection to her return to her own family.
An old man has to move to his son's new house. His wife is hospitalized and cannot move together. A few days after moving, he decides to go back to see his wife, though being opposed by his son.
1945 Japanese movie
Living with her son and aging father-in-law, the beautiful widow is bewildered by the passionate love of a middle-aged man who forcefully enters her heart, but she eventually opens up to him, as depicted in the beautiful images of Kamakura from fall to winter and then to early spring.
An old man cashes in all his possessions and sets off on a journey to the Tohoku region in late autumn. Along the way, he visits a friend on his deathbed and develops a faint affection for an elegant old woman, but the purpose of his journey is actually to find a place to die. He gives a large sum of money to a young couple, who are poor but have a dream for the future, and tries to throw himself into the sea. The movie depicts the loneliness of an old man who has lost his wife.
In this comic sequel to Yoshimura Kozaburo's original, Minami no Kaze, ex-baron (Saburi Shin) is in Singapore where he meets an old friend who proposes a scam to make some quick cash. It involved inventing the story that Saigo Takamori didn't actually die in the Satsuma Rebellion but escaped to Southeast Asia to start a new religion and in the process fathered a son who is now the founder. But when they bring the supposed heir and his aide to Japan, chaos ensues...
Shochiku melodrama about the loves of the humble people living in the poor tenement called the Ryuheiso.
Two detectives are tasked to investigate the murder of an old man, found bludgeoned to death in a Tokyo rail yard.
In 1999, a woman's life is forever changed after she survives a car crash with two bank robbers, who enlist her help to take the money to a drop in Paris. On the way, she runs into another fugitive from the law — an American doctor on the run from the CIA. They want to confiscate his father's invention – a device which allows anyone to record their dreams and visions.
Machiko and Haruki’s drama continues. Two meet again in Hokkaido only to be separated again.
Machiko Ujiie and Haruki Atomiya first meet and fall in love on Ginza’s Sukiyabashi Bridge during the Great Tokyo Air Raid in March 1945. Machiko and Haruki pledge to meet again at the bridge in six months but part without asking each other’s names.
Machiko and Haruki’s drama continues. Machiko is not allowed to see Haruki. They finally meet again, but Haruki departs to Europe.
A fishing union depends on two brothers to make up the losses caused by the dishonest captains they replaced.
With World War II is coming to its end and Japan nearing defeat, Japanese military leaders step up suicide attacks on Allied ships. Toei legend Koji Tsuruta stars as a Kamikaze squad leader who has second thoughts about suicide runs. He becomes torn between his own morality and his duty to his country when he must deal with a pilot under his command who refuses to complete his mission.
A comedy about Hikoichi, a mediocre train conductor who falls in love with a beautiful widow Sayuri.
The wife of an elite government official left her husband, and a young journalist is sent to investigate the case. But his boss has a hidden agenda.
Five longtime friends get back together, but are disappointed to find that their bonds are not as strong as they once were.
A sad and troubled man finds a new job five years after the end of WWII, where he writes love letters for other people.
Portmanteau film about young lovers.
Drama about the lives of the five daughters and daughter-in-law of a store owner.
An unemployed Japanese man and his two sons wander the industrial flatlands of Depression-era Tokyo, until he chances upon an old friend and befriends a woman and her daughter, who are in a similar predicament.
On the road again, Torajiro meets a kindred spirit in Lily, a lounge singer.
In his travels through Japan, Tora-san meets and falls in love with a female doctor, however he is afraid of committing to a relationship.
During his travels, Tora-san comes across a traditional theater he used to visit, and discovers that one of his old friends has died. Tora-san and his family help the friend's daughter, who becomes romantically involved with an aspiring artist.
A playboy-gambler friend of Tora-san’s dies and, abandoned by his mother, his little boy suddenly turns up in Shibamata. Searching for the boy’s mother, Tora-san meets a cosmetics saleslady and the three become a surrogate family, with Tora-san as “daddy”.
During his travels, Tora-san gets drunk with an old man in Kyoto. Though Tora-san never fully comprehends his importance, the old man is a Living National Treasure ceramist. At his home, Tora-san makes a good impression on the old man's maid, who apparently falls in love with Tora-san.
When his travels bring him to Osaka, Tora-san falls in love with a local geisha. He helps her to track down her estranged brother, and informs his family that he plans to marry her. His plans are foiled when the geisha informs Tora-san that she is engaged.
Tora-san returns to his family's home to attend an elementary school class reunion. After he embarrasses himself by getting drunk and insulting all his ex-classmates, he resumes his travels. In Kyushu he meets an outspoken 18-year-old girl who becomes enamored of Tora-san and follows him around. One of Tora-san's old friends is terminally ill and makes Tora-san promise him to marry his wife once he is gone.
In Nagasaki, Tora-san and an acquaintance help an old woman who has fallen and injured herself. She invites them to her home where the three share a night of eating and drinking. The old woman's health deteriorates and she dies. At her funeral, Tora-san falls in love with the old woman's daughter, but winds up acting as a go-between for her and a young law student.
Tora-san gets into an argument with his uncle and sets out on the road again. In Kyushu he meets a young woman named Keiko and the shy zoologist Saburō, and attempts to play matchmaker between the two when they all return to Tokyo.
Tora-san's family's neighbor, Akemi, who had been married in Marriage Counselor Tora-san (1984), runs away from her husband, who is only interested in work. Tora-san follows her to Shikinejima, and attempts to bring her back to her home. In doing so he encounters a school-reunion group who are traveling to meet their elementary school teacher, which is a reference to the film Twenty-Four Eyes by Keisuke Kinoshita. Tora-san joins them and falls in love with the teacher.
Tora-san returns to his family home to learn that his brother-in-law cannot go to Mitsuo's (Tora-san's nephew) athletic event. Tora-san volunteers to take his place, but gets into an argument with his brother-in-law's boss and returns to the road. He meets a young woman in Niigata who, unbeknownst to him, is a popular enka singer.
After a friend and business colleague dies, Tora-san visits the man's daughter, then takes her to Tokyo so she can study for a night school exam.
A young man longs to travel to Hawaii, the birthplace of his deceased father, against the wishes of his family, who are estranged from those relatives in Waikiki.
1955 Toho adaptation of Natsume's novel.
Japanese comedy film.
Documentary about the life and career of Japanese actor Chishu Ryu.
In 1730, the Tokugawa Shogunate orders the Yagyu Clan to repair a huge shrine. Since it cannot refuse the Shogunate's request, the impoverished Yagyu Clan tries to raise funds by obtaining a sword which holds the key to a wondrous, hidden treasure. After learning the sword's secret, Tange Sazen sides with the Yagyu Clan, but his motive seems to be more than just pure interest in the treasure...
During his summer holiday, Kawasaki Ryuichi (Ryuzaki Ichiro), a handsome engineer in his late twenties, visits his teacher and mentor, Professor Inagaki (Sugai Ichiro), at his seaside home. There he meets the professor's lovely young wife, Sachiko (Hamada Yuriko), and is unsettled by the striking resemblance she bears to his wife, who died three years earlier. Attracted to Sachiko, he does his best to hide his feelings. The couple, however, senses a deep-seated melancholy in him. Attributing it to the loss of his wife, they urge him to marry their niece, Kaoru, but he is not interested. Shortly after, Fumiko , Sachiko's older sister, realizes that Sachiko and Kawasaki have feelings for each other, but she keeps her counsel. One day Kawasaki, Sachiko, and Kaoru go boating when a storm forces them to stay overnight at a hotel. Unable to sleep, Kawasaki takes a walk along the beach where he finds Sachiko, also unable to sleep. He declares his love for her.
In the autumn of 1945, Petty Officer Tadashi Yamaji is among the numerous war crimes suspects facing death on the gallows for maltreatment of Allied women and children interned in camp Kampili. Kampili is located some ten kilometers outside Macassar on the island of Celebes. Eighteen-hundred Allied women and children were interned for the duration of the war. Yamaji's iron rule for camp administration is : No violence; hands off internees; He also endeavors to establish self-administration by internees while aiming at a self-supporting camp economy within six months. His ingenuity gains the camp numerous pigs to enrich their diet, and sewing machines with to make fatigue uniforms for the military. The internees are grateful for what little aid he can give them. As the tides of war changes, Allied planes bomb the camp in error. But the surrender of Japan changes everything, and the internees join forces to save their former camp commander from the gallows.
A penniless orphan loses the woman he loves, when her family arranges a marriage to a wealthy playboy. He believes she was blinded by greed, and becomes a miser.
University friends Ben and Shūichi unknowingly vie for the attention of the beautiful Chieko while on a skiing trip.
Three men fall in love with the same young girl who works in a tonkatsu restaurant in the Shitamachi district of Tokyo.
Young female teacher Kyoko Miyake relocates to a small seaside town with her runaway little sister, but their new life is complicated by hoodlum-like Jiro Yamazaki (the black sheep of the title) who is related to the family hosting them and whom they keep running into, but can't help but to feel sympathy for. Of course, rumours start fast in a small town, but delightfully she doesn't really care at all. This is another very solid Shogoro Nishimura film.
A story about the lives of four sisters and their manipulative mother who must come to terms with each of their decisions in life.
Japanese youth film.
Tsutomu (Kensaku Morita), an orphan who once stabbed a man, is released from a reformatory and goes to Tottori, on the Japan Sea coast, to enter a high school. On the beach, he meets a young fisherman, Yusuke (Norihiko Yamamoto) also a student of the same school. They become friends and Tsutomu is offered free board at Yusuke's home.
An extremely lovely tribute to Ozu, on the 20th anniversary of his death. It uses a combination of footage from vintage films and new material (both interviews and Ozu-related locations) shot by Ozu's long-time camera-man (who came out of retirement to work on this). Surprisingly (or perhaps not), it focuses less on Ozu's accomplishments as a film-maker than on his impact on the lives of the people he worked with..
A Chinese medical student named Gan Shosho finds himself cut off from his homeland as he is studying in Japan during the outbreak of the war. Despite his difficult circumstances, he finds love in the form of Sachiko and the two marry. They later travel to Nanjing to live a new life together where Sachiko and Shaochang cooperate with the Japanese-backed government. Their ultimate hope is to secure peace but their idealism is not enough to keep them together through brutal times and with the end of the war the two find themselves facing a divorce... --Osaka Asian Film Festival
In Part I we see the young would-be swordsman setting out to achieve greatness in war, achieving nothing because fighting on the losing side, & then beginning his long period of wandering & training, with the goal always in mind of his duel with Kojiro. Part II builds toward that great duel on Ganryu Island, with considerable focus on Musashi's planning & forethought as to how to gain an advantage.
The story of a Japanese man who as a 16-year-old went to Maui to work in the sugar cane fields in order to support his family back in Japan. Now 89 and still living in Hawaii he is visited by his granddaughter who brings him a letter from his disinherited and recently dead son. This brings back memories of his life with his wife and family following the attack on Pearl Harbor, in particular of his son who had gone off to join the war for the Americans.
Kingoro Tamai moves with his wife and son to the port city of Wakamatsu. He organizes the Tamai-gumi, a stevedore group, to vie for work with two other powerful groups. Gingo is Tamai's chief rival who falls in love with the latter's wife and tries to kill Tamai.
Before a young woman can be sold to a geisha, she becomes pregnant.
Tora-san spends several days at the home of a hard-working salaryman ("salaried worker"), who abruptly disappears. When the man's wife asks Tora-san to help find him, he falls in love with her, and secretly hopes the husband will not be found.
A 1948 Japanese film.
Episode in the life of a composer of a popular Japanese song.
A small-town boy with a learning disability attempts to fit in with his classmates.
Shunji Mitamura's wife died very early and left him a young son. Shunji's sister Hideko decided to fulfill her sisterly duty and moved to the main character to take care of the boy and the house. Time passes and Shunji marries Mieko Takamine. But since her father is often ill, she spends a lot of time in his dental clinic to do his work.
A notorious abortion doctor fell down from a night train and he was dead. A man who knows the truth of this accident starts to chase a up-and-coming model.
Coming of age/high school sports drama.
When cabaret singer Lily writes Toraya about her illness, Tora-san rushes to Okinawa to be by her side.
On a post-war peaceful day in Japan, Toyomatsu Shimizu, a barber as well as a good father and husband, is suddenly arrested by the Prefectural Police as a war criminal and sued for murder.
In a Tokyo boarding house a group of students and recent graduates struggle to complete their studies and find jobs. Considered a lost film.
A hen-pecked man works as his artist wife's model and a house-husband. When her patron flirts with her and humiliates him, he decides to get revenge by trying his own hand as a painter. Considered to be a lost film.
When a woman unfairly suspects her husband of flirting with a shop assistant, she decides to flirt with their landlord to get revenge. Considered to be a lost film.
Comedy about a young man juggling several girlfriends. Considered to be a lost film.
A married man falls for a dancer and his wife's uncle hires a private detective to spy on him. Considered to be a lost film.
Kuruma Torajiro is discovered looking around Kyoto for someone special to him.
A young woman is attacked by a serial rapist and murderer whom her detective father is investigating. Though she survives, the impact of the event creates increasing discord and agony for her and her loved ones.
Traveling salesman Kuruma Torajirō falls in love with an inn manager as New Year's approaches.
Gen is a lonely orphan boy. His sole sense of companionship comes from an imaginary friend, the god Prince Fudo-Myo. Prince Fudo-Myo comes to the boy's rescue in times of difficulty.
In Shibamata, Tokyo, Tora-san's family prepares for a wedding. Meanwhile, the traveling Tora-san meets an old acqaintance in Iwate Province. Tora-san refuses to drink with him, afraid that the acquaintance, now settled and married, will again become attracted to Tora-san's wandering existence. Tora-san becomes attracted to a female barber, but must break off their relationship so that she too can live a secure life. She instead gets into an abusive relationship with a motorcyclist.
Daisuke is supposed to be out looking for a respectable job and equally respectable wife. He is 30 years old and devotes his attention to music and literature; his family is wealthy and can support his interests. When his friend Hiraoka returns with his wife Michiyo, problems arise.
A reformatory in the remote countryside houses 200 delinquents and problem children. The teachers and caretakers face much trouble. The school is often short on water, and one day, the well runs dry.
The eldest daughter of a noble family is in love with an aviator while being courted by a fellow aristocrat she thinks is a dullard. This part is told from the perspective of Akemi.
After an encounter with a dying yakuza's son and at his sister Sakura's urging, Torajiro attempts to change his vagrant lifestyle and become an honest worker with a steady job.
Masako is a humble waitress who has a chance encounter with playboy Tamotsu. With the aid of his sister, Tamotsu seeks to win Masako's affection despite the disapproval of his wealthy parents and Masako's own feelings towards the working-class cabbie Noro.
A young girl knows that she is going to die and in this she is supported by the devotion of the boy who loves her. They originally met at the hospital. There it transpired that the only way to save her life was to sacrifice an eye and part of her face. The operation seems a success. Later, however, her other eye becomes affected. She feels she must let the boy go, and yet she depends so much upon his devotion.
Remake of classic samurai film of 1932
Tokiko patiently awaits her husband's return from WWII when her four-year old son falls ill. She takes him to the doctor but has no means of paying, so she resorts to prostitution. A month later, her husband returns to find his desperate wife, who tells him the truth. Together, they must deal with the consequences.
Ryōko Itakura returns as the tough-as-nails government taxing agent. This time she must figure out a way to expose a fanatical religious cult lead by a corrupt sociopath.
A documentary which follows director Wim Wenders and Sean Naughton, the high-definition-video designer on UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD, in Tokyo, and details the creation of the film’s groundbreaking high-definition sequences.
A father gives his four daughters his substantial retirement allowance on the stipulation that they leave him alone, as he wants some freedom. Each of the daughters has a romantic interest and it's noticeable that the father, too, has someone in mind.
Lost silent film
Tora-San returns to Shibamata just before his family leaves on a trip for Kyushu. Later, he encounters an old school chum and begins to have feeling for his artist sister.
Tora-san visits Hokkaido and is reunited with Lily. Now divorced, she plans to resume her singing career and renews her unusual relationship with Tora-san.
Tora-san's opinions about Americans get challenged when another wandering peddler Michael Jordan stops by Shibamata.
The tale of a feudal swordsman who cynically takes no responsibility for anything, relegating it to others, and then taking the credit.
A man who works late hours at a deadening job lives together with his wife and his younger sister. The younger sister's a modern girl who's starting to receive romantic attention from one of her co-workers.
When Tora-san returns to visit his family, he is surprised to find an arrogant professor occupying his room. The professor and Tora-san become rivals for the affection of Chiyo.
After a quarrel with his mother, Torajiro sets off to find a bride.
Torajiro becomes homesick during his travels after watching a television report about his hometown and meeting a young woman that reminds him of his sister Sakura. Meanwhile, a new tenant moves into Toraya restaurant.
When his travels take him to rural Hokkaido, Tora-san helps a cantankerous old veterinarian (Mifune) in his relationships with his estranged daughter, and a woman in whom he is secretly interested.
During his wandering throughout Japan, Tora-san meets a suicidal man. He travels with the man to Vienna, but winds up homesick for Japan.
A 1937 Japanese film.
Eiko is an innocent young lady born into a wealthy family with nothing to offer. She was good at singing, and lived her life playing around with her cronies, organizing music concerts and so on. However, things change when her father's business fails and she was suddenly thrown out into the world without any foundation. Eiko has no one to support her after she loses her social status, and her only tutor, Shinnosuke (Natsukawa Daijiro) was the only one who was sincere. Eiko is a stickler for using everything she can get her hands on, and she quickly moves into Shinnosuke's house.
Chiyomatsu under the hill, also known as Choromatsu. He is a young man whose occupation is an approach shop, that is, a phony business of sex brokerage. Choromatsu is partnered with Umekichi, whom he calls "big brother," in this business. They live on the second floor of the aka-chochin (red lantern) owned by Takeko, where boys and girls who were abandoned at the abandoned children's temple on Mukojima also live together, making up a family of people who are not related to each other.
Motoko Fujikawa works in the Seisen Church as an assistant to pastor Maki Inokichi. Motoko falls in love with Inokichi's virtuous character and devotes herself to the rehabilitation of a delinquent girl, gradually finding her job at the institution more worthwhile than the marriage recommended by her parents. Meanwhile, inside Inokichi's heart a flame of unknowing love for the single-minded Motoko begins to burn...
A family story in the year of 1943 during the war. The director is Shunkai Mizuho, who worked on "Hibari no Circus Sad Kobato" starring Hibari Misora after the war. Previously, there is only a 6-minute short version in the National Film Archive, therefore, the full version is this movie is very valuable. This is considered a masterpiece that depicts a happy family of 7 (a father, a mother, 3 sons and 2 daughters).They care about each other, and also trust each other. Father started to ask all the children "what do you want to be in the future?" since an early age. Boys said they want to go to college, they want to be painters, and when it comes to the girls, although they wanted to be generals, their answer was "become a bride, a wife, and a good mother." Brothers and sisters get along well and occasionally fight, but they all discuss the cause, and would apologize to each other. The story was so gentle that it is hard to believe it was during the war.
Inochi uruwashi
Jie attended a women's university with the financial support of her geisha sister Oha and became a lawyer. The aim. Michiko, one of the seven best friends from the same women's college, is getting married. The man she's marrying is her sister's lover.
A film dealing with the comings and goings of individuals in the immediate postwar period.
Heinosuke Gosho evokes in this film the family conflicts engendered by the eternal problem of a father who projects his professional desires on the life of his son. The sister Machiko is the essential link that will allow everyone to apologize to each other and achieve reconciliation.
The university professor Ozeki Hitoshi (Ryu Chishu) is regarded as an eccentric by people in his surroundings. When his daughter Tokiko is asked to marry a colleague, she and her mother are overjoyed, but Hitoshi is not satisfied with the situation.
An epic drama depicting the lineage of a military family that lived for three generations before, during, and after World War II, against the backdrop of the turbulent history of the Showa period and the magnificent nature of Hokkaido.
A film adaptation of Seicho Matsumoto's novel of the same title, starring Muga Takewaki and Yoko Shimada. Set in Japan at the end of the war, the film depicts the fate of a diplomat who abandoned his country, his wife and children, and risked everything to save his country from ruin, and the bond between father and daughter.
Kita Ippei (Atsumi Kiyoshi) became a security officer in the Metropolitan Police Department's Security Division after catching a thug who attacked a writer living in the area while working at a police box. His dream is to become a bodyguard (BG) for the Prime Minister, just like his senior, Detective Inspector Takagi (Ryu Chishu). Kita Ippei is very successful in both work and love, getting attacked while guarding a female minister, getting some perks as a BG for a foreign princess, and becoming friends with a woman at his favorite bar.
1945 Japanese movie
A movie-loving nanny lives and works in the home of a university professor and eventually becomes the family's support system, leading a bright and joyful life.
1961 Theater of Life adaptation.
Part two of Shin Saburi's Theater of Life adaptation.
1955 Japanese movie
1964 Japanese movie
1961 Japanese movie
A sequel to Ohana han.
Japanese war movie.
Romantic drama about three beautiful sisters, based on the acclaimed play.
Romantic melodrama about the loves and adventures of Kageyama (Takarada) and his fellow oarsmen at Meikyo University.
Carrying a bag full of samples, Mitsuo makes rounds to shoe stores in remote cities. While staying at budget hotels, his thoughts turn to Tora-san.
Daisuke is supposed to be out looking for a respectable job and equally respectable wife. He is 30 years old and devotes his attention to music and literature; his family is wealthy and can support his interests. When his friend Hiraoka returns with his wife Michiyo, problems arise.
Brothers Keiji and Ryoichi move to a new neighborhood in the Tokyo suburbs after their father, an office clerk, is promoted. The boys join the local gang as lowly new kids and emerge as natural leaders after defeating a bully. While visiting the home of their father's boss, the brothers witness the ridicule their father endures to please his superior. Angry and embarrassed, the boys find their naive ideas about power being challenged.
Director Ogata discovers a new female star in Koharu Tanaka, who works selling candy at a studio theater and she is given a part as a bit player. After the studio's top leading lady is embroiled in a scandal, Koharu is suddenly thrust into the limelight when she replaces her in a film and gains instant fame and fortune. But the going is not always easy, and she soon seeks help from unexpected quarters.
An aging actor returns to a small town with his troupe and reunites with his former lover and illegitimate son, a scenario that enrages his current mistress and results in heartbreak for all.
This 150-minute documentary, directed by Nobuhiko Ôbayashi on the set of Akira Kurosawa's Dreams, features behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with cast and crew.
A fictional account of the life of Japanese author Yukio Mishima, combining dramatizations of three of his novels and a depiction of the events of November 25th, 1970.
Salaryman comedy.
Young and beautiful Matsuko lives alone with her father in old Kamakura. Matsuko experienced love once, with Munehiro, who married another girl. But now she is content to live an uneventful life with her father. That is until she meets Munehiro again.
Baseball movie about Eiji Sawamura.
A group of Japanese nursing students and their instructor is serving at an army camp in China. When Japan loses the war the group sets out to depart China, but on the way back to Japan is captured by the Chinese and coerced to instead treat the Chinese army at a clinic. Caught with the group is also a Japanese doctor. When the Chinese army faction itself loses in battle the Japanese plan their escape.
Toshiro, a naval reserve student, is a kamikaze pilot. Unsure of how long he will live, Toshiro had no intention of marrying. However, after witnessing the deaths of his comrades and experiencing air raids, he decides to marry his lover, Teruko. But one day, while piloting a kamikaze plane in place of his comrades, Toshiro's plane's wing is shot out during a fierce aerial battle.
A young woman (Kuga), recuperating at a sanitarium in Karuizawa, falls in love with a young student (Ishihama) but returns to Tokyo to be with her father (Yamamura).
