Asao Sano

Iwatsuki Reiko, a writer for a weekly magazine goes on a trip to Amakusa, Kyushu with Yukitake Asami, the president of a company. Yukitake informs Iwatsuki that she has many enemies.

In the middle of the Edo period, when the finances of the shogunate were in a desperate situation, the shogunate sent its shadow spies to each clan, who secretly planned the abolition of the clans and the seizure of their territories. The Inami clan has mastered the essence of making weapons, thus breaking the law. To protect the clan, its elders hire three "Shadow Hunters"... TV movie based on the popular manga by Takao Saito.

This gripping docudrama is a fictionalized account of what could happen to a Japanese family when one of their sons shames them in front of the entire nation.

Jo has just come back to Japan for the funeral of his parents, who were killed in tribal warfare in Africa where the family had been living throughout most of Jo's life. Once the funeral was over, he missed the boat that was going to take him back home, and, because of an altered itinerary, he ends up stopping in a town for awhile -- striking up an acquaintance with a teenager and her grandfather when he captures their runaway horse. He would have been glad to leave after the proper amenities were completed, but the girl's journalist brother is murdered -- he was getting too close to wrapping a major news story. At that point, Jo and a friend cannot easily drop the matter as though nothing had occurred, and the two start to track down the source of the trouble -- a factory that makes poison gas for Third World buyers. Now their task is to dismantle the operation, prevent one train shipment from arriving at a transfer point, and find the journalist's killer.

A 1920s playwright meets a beautiful woman who may be the ghost of his patron's deceased wife.

The biography of Mifune Chizuko a woman clairvoyant.

A tragic love story between a prostitute and a young trainee monk.

The body of Sakai Hatsuko, a woman of 23 who has been slain with a knife, has been found in a forest. Some days later, Ueda Hiroshi, a 19-year-old shipyard worker, is arrested and charged with the murder. At Ueda's trial, a complex story unfolds.

In a fishing town by the Seto Sea, a student discovers a woman motionless on the beach and takes her back to his family's inn to nurse her, but he soon discovers than she is an extremist on the run from the police.

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.

When a lucrative waterfront development becomes available, the Kawade gang quickly use their political connections to secure the land. However, the acting boss of the Ohara gang also has his eyes on the property and recruits crooked detective Tokumatsu Kuno to help him hijack the deal. With relations between the rival gangs at breaking point, it's not long before all-out war breaks out as the gangsters, police and local politicians battle for control of the city.

The film follows the story of Sugi Toranosuke, a ronin, who returns to his home town of Edo many years after his attempted suicide as a sickly child. Rescued and adopted by a master swordsman, he has grown into a master swordsman and a very kind gentleman. The time is around 1868 the year that the nails were finally put into the coffin containing the feudal system that nurtured and sustained the samurai. Sugi is confused and unsure about what is happening but his teacher wants him out of the chaos of the multiple power struggles between the various clans.

About a girl who marries in the middle of the Pacific War, is widowed at 18, and her unflagging struggle to survive during and after the war with her son.

Undercover cop Kikuchi teams up with the Okinawa local police to clean up the narcotics and prostitution underworld.

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.

A film set in Nagasaki examining prejudice against atom bomb victims.

BLOOD END is one of the great unknown films from Japan's golden era of the late 1960's. Starring NAKADAI Tatsuya in one of his best roles, this is the story of the Mito Tengu Group who attempted to overthrow the Shogunate at the beginning of the Bakumatsu Period. Their political aspirations led to countless assassinations, as well as senseless killing of innocent people who got in their way. Sentaro (NAKADAI), a farmer who's been severely beaten for his outspoken defiance of the government and the high taxes during a time of famine is befriended by one of the group's leaders, KADA Gentaro (KATO Go) and joins up. This is the masterpiece of director YAMAMOTO Satsuo (who is best known for the first film in the NINJA, BAND OF ASSASSINS series) the erstwhile 'Leftist' director, who used his films to make his political points. Stunning fight choreography, and ultra-violence make this one of the bloodiest films of that era. A powerful film Rare classic!

The love story between a traveling guest and a geisha who inadvertently becomes the leader of her father's yakuza clan, after his death.

Tsutomu Yoshioka, a Tokyo office worker, is enaged to Mariko, the niece of his company's president. But Yoshioka has a crisis of consence when he remembers his former love Mitsu, a rural girl whom he met and later left while in college. Shimako, a former friend, persuades Yoshioka to meet with Mitsu while she plots to blackmail Yoshioka by photographing the meeting to break up Mariko and Yoshioka.

When Toru Sagara (Yujiro Ishihara) returns home from a foreign cargo route, he proposes to his beloved girlfriend Akiko (Ruriko Asaoka). She joyously agrees, promising a life together. On the day they were to be joined in matrimony, Akiko suddenly goes missing. Toru waits hours for her to show, but he is only greeted by the darkness of night. Four years later, his fiancée turns up at a night club in Yokohama with another man.

Kiroku boards with a Roman Catholic family and falls for the daughter Michiko. He ignores his feelings, joins a gang, gets in fights and, eventually, becomes involved with the radical Kita Ikki group.

The rehabilitation of a delinquent on leaving reformatory. Her redemption comes through a boy in a wheelchair; by his rehabilitation, growing comes in courage along with her patient, she grows by finding meaning in her own existence. She finally sees a new world before her and has the determination to lead a normal life.

One morning, Kazue is nearly knocked over by a motorbike in front of an instrument store, breaking all the records that she was carrying. The two connect instantly and begin seeing each other every day. However, Iwai, Yukio’s foster parent, is concerned - Yukio had been exposed to the atomic bomb when he was four years old and had been showing symptoms of atomic radiation, hospitalizing him in the Genbaku Atomic Bomb Survivor’s Hospital. Unfortunately, nobody knows when the symptoms may return. When Yukio passes out from anemia during work, he decides to part with Kazue. A couple of days later, Yukio tells her of his destiny at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, but Kazue passionately encourages him.

Like a girl runaway, Tsuyu moves to Osaka to work as a bar hostess. She meets the owner of a model school, Yoko, and seriously thinks about becoming a fashion model. Yoko tells her that she can move in to Yoko’s house to take lessons, while making a living at the same time.

Ryu (Akira Kobayashi) sets foot on the Yokohama port with a suitcase filled with 300 thousand dollars. He was sent by a jewelry company in Hong Kong to retrieve a certain diamond that was stolen from them. The "Himalayan Star" is worth couple hundred million yen and unbeknown to Ryu, it now lays in the hands of Aizu (Jo Shishido), the infamous ”Pirate of the Tokyo Bay."

When a US army sergeant is found drowned in Tokyo Bay, an investigation is launched to determine how and why he lost his life. The investigation uncovers a black market scheme involving counterfeit money, murder, and conspiracy.

Sixth part in the Enblem of Man series.

On January 26, 1948, a robbery of the Teigin bank took place in Tokyo - the criminal poisoned the bank employees and fled the scene with a large amount of money. In parallel with the investigation conducted by the Japanese police, journalists are also trying to find the culprit. Based on a true incident.

A Tokyo student transfers to a rural school and finds it difficult to adjust himself to its customs and traditions. One of the customs is the wearing of an old school cap by a senior. It is a symbol of courage and bravery and is handed down to a new senior each year.

Based on the loosely autobiographical novel of the same name by Toko Kon. Ken Yamanouchi stars as Togo Konno, the titular bastard.

Ayako (Sayuri Yoshinaga) is a free-willed college girl who shares a room with Takako and Kimie. They each have a clear vision of what they want from their career and love life. Soon, their room share takes a turn, when ideals begin to clash with reality.

Tajima is a private detective in charge of his own company, Detective Bureau 2-3. When warring criminal gangs go overboard by robbing U.S. military munitions, Tajima steps in to stop what the cops can't.

An unofficial sequel to Million Dollar Match (1961) which also starred Koji Wada as a young energetic boxer. This story deals more with betting action surrounding a boxing match, concentrating mostly on the high-powered Yakuza gambling dens.

A celebrity, dissatisfied with his personal and professional lives, impulsively leaves fast-paced Tokyo to deliver a much-needed jeep to a remote village. When his controlling manager, the woman he loves, follows, the two must reconcile while dodging reporters.

A high-school vigilante protects his community from the extortions of mobsters from a neighbouring city.

Koji Wada, who is good at shooting, karate, judo and boxing, has a tough fight with the sea gangsters!

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.

Ryoji, a wanderer, arrives in a remote mountain town, carrying a shotgun and claiming to be a hunter. He quickly becomes embroiled in a web of trouble surrounding the town's mill.

One of Sayuri Yoshinaga's first leading roles.

An employee in an assurance company threatens to commit suicide when management announces a massive layoff, the company uses this threat to its own advantage by turning the incident into an advertising campaign. With the success of the campaign, however, he is no longer a desperate man pointing a gun to his head, but a potential leader who wishes to take advantage of his failed suicide.

A young doctor falls into a despair of developments. He plans to revenge the disgrace inflicted upon his sister, whose engagement was broken as a result.

A budding gangster enthralls a freeloading young woman, soon taking advantage of her knack for hitch-hiking to rob middle-class, middle-aged men.

In the closing days of WWII remnants of the Japanese army in Leyte are abandoned by their command and face certain starvation.

The monologue and mysterious death of a man who survived and returned from Iwo Jima. A newspaper reporter writes an article about "The Man from Iwo Jima" asking the people who were close to him about his character and the painful memories off all those involved.

A man is wrongfully accused of murder.

A lifetime story of a woman who stubbornly lives in a poor mountain village in post-war Japan.

Television production of I Want to Be a Shellfish. 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. According to the accusation by GHQ, Toyomatsu "attemped to kill a US prisoner", which was nothing but an order by his superior and failed after all with hurting the prisoner by weak Toyomatsu. Also, Toyomatsu was driven to corner at the trial by the fact that he fed the US prisoner some burdock roots to nourish him. Toyomatsu believes nothing but being not guilty, but he is sentenced to death by hanging. Prior to the execution, Toyomatsu writes a long farewell letter to his family, the wife and the only son: "If I ever incarnate, I hate to be a human being any more.... Oh yes, I would like to be...a shellfish living on the rock-bottom of the sea."

The story follows a university student who moves into an apartment building and becomes involved with a waitress. The landlord then attempts to evict the tenants and sell the building through illicit means.

A sophisticated comedy about love games between men and women that arise from an intentionally dropped train ticket.

A group of rank-and-file Japanese soldiers are jailed for crimes against humanity, themselves victims of a nation refusing to bear its burdens as a whole.

A true semi-documentary drama depicting a record of a sheriff's challenge to the vivid evil of a sailor who embarked on a single underworld to uncover the crime of an inhumane international prostitution organization called "Japanese women's smuggling."

The story of a novelist whose wife is confined in a mental hospital. His love for her drives him to write about her, though he runs into trouble when her parents accuse him of cashing in on her misfortune.

The film tells the story of a group of high school boxing team members who spend their days drinking, sailing and chasing girls, and who more often than not spend their nights getting into brawls. In particular, it focuses upon Tatsuya, a sullen young man, who falls in love with Eiko, a proud upper-class girl.

East-West Transportation, headquartered in Tokyo, operates daily scheduled cargo flights on the Tokaido Road from Tokyo to Osaka and back, as the name suggests. Daikichi was a driver working for the East-West transportation company, and Rokuheita served as his assistant. The Daikichi truck, which was packed with luggage today, has left for its destination. And soon after Daikichi's truck left, Rokuheita heard a cat meowing from behind, so Daikichi stopped the car and turned to check the cargo, and there in a large basket he saw a crying baby...

In the War's closing days, when a conscience-driven Japanese soldier fails to get his countrymen to surrender to overwhelming force, he adopts the lifestyle of a Buddhist monk.

Private Detective Ippei Shizuno faces off against a serial killer and a wealthy woman's society who runs an illegal gun trade.

In the thriving Tokyo neighborhood of Ginza, a woman in the process of selling her estranged husband’s art collection attempts to identify the man who painted her own portrait fifteen years prior.

Ginko, a poor cobbler's daughter, becomes a geisha to support her family. She passes from one geisha house to the next, trying to find love and hope in the process. No matter how hard she tries, she just can't escape her sad fate.

This film is strongly anti-war film. The film is based on the collection of writings by Japanese student soldiers who died during World War II. The film is located to Burma. It shows the everyday problems of soldiers in contrast of their ideas and the cynicism of their commanders. Soldiers are also victims of military bullying by their commanders.