Kazuko Kurosawa

Movies

Shoplifters
Costume Design
After one of their shoplifting sessions, Osamu and his son come across a little girl in the freezing cold. At first reluctant to shelter the girl, Osamu’s wife agrees to take care of her after learning of the hardships she faces. Although the family is poor, barely making enough money to survive through petty crime, they seem to live happily together until an unforeseen incident reveals hidden secrets, testing the bonds that unite them.
Outrage Coda
Costume Design
Five years after the all-out war between the Sanno and Hanabishi crime families, former yakuza boss Otomo works in South Korea for Mr. Chang, a noted fixer. When tensions rise between Chang and the Hanabishi, and Chang's life is endangered, Otomo returns to Japan to settle things once and for all.
Lear on the Shore
Costume Design
Kuwahata Chokichi used to be a famous actor, but now he's suspected to be suffering from dementia. He is betrayed by his older daughter, Yukiko, her husband-cum-his-former-disciple, Ikuo, and Yukiko's lover, a mysterious driver, and gets sent to a high-class old folks' home. One day, Choukichi runs away from the home and wanders to the beach where he meets his younger daughter, Nobuko, who he had with his lover. Although he had thrown Nobuko out in the past, he begins to imagine seeing her as the image of Cordelia, who is the beloved daughter of King Lear, after talking to her. Gradually, his past memories start to come back to him, and Choukichi heads towards the world of insanity.
Ryuzo and the Seven Henchmen
Costume Design
Ryuzo and his 7 former henchmen are all retired yakuza, but they now live as regular old men. One day, Ryuzo becomes the victim of a phishing fraud. He calls his 7 men together to reform their society.
Like Father, Like Son
Costumer
Ryota Nonomiya is a successful businessman driven by money. He learns that his biological son was switched with another child after birth. He must make a life-changing decision and choose his true son or the boy he raised as his own.
Beyond Outrage
Costume Design
As the police launch a full-scale crackdown on organized crime, it ignites a national yakuza struggle between the Sanno of the East and Hanabishi of the West. What started as an internal strife in Outrage has now become a nationwide war in Outrage Beyond.
Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai
Costume Design
A tale of revenge, honor and disgrace, centering on a poverty-stricken samurai who discovers the fate of his ronin son-in-law, setting in motion a tense showdown of vengeance against the house of a feudal lord.
The Lightning Tree
Costume Designer
Set during the Edo Period, a young man from a noble family meets a young woman under a special tree called "Raiou" (the tree was struck by lightning at one time with the broken part eventually sprouting out cherry blossoms). The young woman lived freely in the mountains after she was abducted as a young child. The couple soon fall in love under the Raiou tree, but become acutely aware of their different social positions & the ramifications it has on their relationship.
Outrage
Costume Design
When a tough yakuza gangster is betrayed by his bosses, it means all out war. Bodies pile up as he takes out everyone in his way to the top in a brutal quest for revenge.
Akira Kurosawa: The Epic and the Intimate
Self
Akira Kurosawa: The Epic and the Intimate is a French documentary film that consists primarily of interviews with Kurosawa’s European collaborators from the time of the making of Ran, with footage from the film interspersed between the talking heads.
Dear Doctor
Costume Design
Osamu Ino is a great doctor who is beloved in his rural village. His knowledge and dedication make an equally strong impression on his reluctant medical intern, Keisuke Soma. But, Soma and the villagers reconsider their opinion when they learn about a shameful incident from Dr. Ino's past. Now the once-respected doctor must account for his past actions.
I Want to Be a Shellfish
Costume Design
1944, in the depths of World War II. Toyomatsu Shimizu is a completely typical barber from a remote sea-side town who lives frugally but happily with his wife Fusae and their five-year-old son. Eventually, though, the army beckons and he is drafted. One day an officer on the battle-field orders him to kill a captive U.S. soldier. Although Toyomatsu lacks the spirit to kill the man, and only wounds him in the arm, the victorious U.S. soldiers will not accept this, and Toyomatsu is arrested and tried as a war-criminal. And he receives the cruelest sentence possible...
Still Walking
Costume Design
Twelve years after their beloved eldest son, Junpei, drowned while saving a stranger's life, Kyohei and Toshiko welcome their surviving children home for a family reunion. Younger son Ryota still feels that his parents resent that he isn't the one who died; his new wife, Yukari, is awkwardly meeting the rest of the family for the first time. Daughter Chinami strains to fill the uncomfortable pauses with forced cheer.
Anmitsu Hime
Kinako
At age 16, a tomboy princess, Princess Anmitsu, has no love interest in her life and worries her parents. Despite their concern, Anmitsu runs away from the castle to venture into the commoners' life. During her daring adventure, she befriends a group of children who make a living by pick-pocketing. At the same time, she finally meets her prince charming Senbei, the leader of the group. However, she soon finds herself in an awkward position when she learns of the children's new plot: they are planning to steal the treasures from her own castle. Will she be able to put a stop to it without revealing her true identity?
Dororo
Costume Design
Hyakkimaru, a warrior on a quest to reclaim 48 of his body parts which were each taken by a demon, is joined by Dororo, a thief on a quest to avenge the death of her parents.
Hana
Costume Design
In a poor district of Edo lives a young samurai named Soza. He has been sent by his clan to avenge the death of his father. He isn't an accomplished swordsman however, and he prefers sharing the life of the residents, teaching the kids how to write etc. When he finally finds the man he is looking for, he will have to decide whether he follows the way of the samurai or chooses peace and reconciliation.
The Hidden Blade
Costume Design
Set in 19th Century Japan a young samurai who finds himself in love with a farm girl leaves his home to begin a new life. He has to take stock of his new life when he is put to the test and ordered to kill a traitor who just happens to be his dearest friend.
The Twilight Samurai
Costume Design
Seibei Iguchi leads a difficult life as a low ranking samurai at the turn of the nineteenth century. A widower with a meager income, Seibei struggles to take care of his two daughters and senile mother. New prospects seem to open up when the beautiful Tomoe, a childhood friend, comes back into he and his daughters' life, but as the Japanese feudal system unravels, Seibei is still bound by the code of honor of the samurai and by his own sense of social precedence. How can he find a way to do what is best for those he loves?
Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create: Dodes'ka-den
Self
Documentary made by Toho for the Masterworks reissue of all of its Kurosawa films. This one focuses on "Dodes'ka-den" (1970).
Letter from the Mountain
Costume Design
As the film begins, Takao (Akira Terao) and Michiko (Kanako Higuchi) have already pulled up their Tokyo roots and moved to a village that is Takao's ancestral home. They visit a thatched cottage that serves as a memorial shrine (amidado) for the village dead and chat with the attendant, the spry 96-year-old Oume (Tanie Kitabayashi). Together they admire the view -- from an inspiring distance. Oume, it turns out, is a kind of sage, whose thoughts and observations are a popular feature in a column in a local newsletter. Her amanuensis is a mute, sweetly smiling young woman named Sayuri (Manami Konishi), who is as devoted to Oume as Oume is to the souls of her beloved dead.
The Sea Is Watching
Costume Design
O-Shin is a young brothel worker who, one night, helps a young samurai escape from his pursuers. Against the warnings of her fellow workers, particularly Kikuno and the brothel's owner, O-Shin falls in love with the samurai.
Kurosawa
Self
Documentary on film maker Akira Kurosawa
A Message from Akira Kurosawa: For Beautiful Movies
Self
A Documentary in 10 parts covering the film making of Kurosawa around the theme of making the perfect movie or as he says: A Beautiful Movie.
After the Rain
Costume Design
A group of travelers is stranded in a small country inn when the river floods during heavy rains. As the bad weather continues, tensions rise amongst the trapped travelers.
Kurosawa: The Last Emperor
Self
A profile and history of film director Akira Kurosawa.
Madadayo
Costume Design
Based on the life of Hyakken Uchida, a Japanese author and academic. The film opens with Uchida resigning his job as a German professor at the onset of WWII. The story is told mostly in vignettes as he is cared for by former students in his old age.
Rhapsody in August
Costume Design
The story centers on an elderly hibakusha, whose husband was one of 80,000 human beings killed in the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki, caring for her four grandchildren over the summer. She learns of a long-lost brother, Suzujiro, living in Hawaii who wants her to visit him before he dies.