Keiko Awaji
Birth : 1933-07-17, Tokyo, Japan
Death : 2014-01-11
History
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Keiko Awaji (1933) is a Japanese film actress.
Notable highlights of her career were an appearance in Akira Kurosawa's Stray Dog, and a role as Kimiko in The Bridges at Toko-Ri, where she appeared alongside William Holden and Mickey Rooney.
Her first husband was Filipino musician and actor Rodrigo "Bimbo" Danao; they had two children together. Their eldest is actor Etsuo Shima.
Her second husband was Japanese actor Yorozuya Kinnosuke, but they divorced in 1987. Their eldest son Akihiro died in a car crash in 1990. In 2004, their youngest son Kichinosuke Yorozuya (Satoshi Ida) was arrested for breaking into her home and served six months in prison. On June 16, 2010, Kichinosuke committed suicide by jumping off his apartment in Shinjuku.
The actress is apparently a big fan of the Dragon Quest games, even going so far as to say it is her dream to play one last game before she dies.
She died of esophageal cancer in Tokyo on 11 January 2014, aged 80
Description above from the Wikipedia article Keiko Awaji, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Tamako
A widower and his daughter deal with the death of the man's wife.
Writer-director Gu Su-yeon's new film draws on his own semiautobiographical account of growing up as a delinquent zainichi Korean (Japanese-born, but of Korean ancestry) in the seaside city of Shimonoseki in Yamaguchi Prefecture, a working-class hellhole overflowing with sex and fury. Day after day, (fictional) Gu finds fresh foes and makes the local hoodlums want to kick his ass. While working multiple dead-end part-time jobs, he cruises around town on his scooter in search of gangland trouble: leaping across rooftops with irate hordes of punks in hot pursuit, running off with a fetching belle in a sailor suit, rescuing a schoolgirl from being gang-raped at a glue-sniffing orgy…
Beniko
Towa lives in a peculiar sanatorium after committing suicide. Convalescing in sanatorium, she is informed that she has only 7 days to live. Isolated within their worlds, strange people live in this sanatorium and try to avoid making any contact with her. However, Kuroda a man who lost his power of speech feels sympathetic towards her and their every lovable things give true colors to the life and inspire Towa’s honest desire for the life…
Aoi Morishita
Elderly ladies rise to the challenge of staging a play and struggle to launch a theater company. Based on the actual amateur theater company "Theatrical Company Hono" in Fujieda City, Shizuoka Prefecture, where the presiding officers and performers are composed of elderly women. They have been performing stage plays about issues related to the elderly for a long time.
Self
Documentary made by Toho for the Masterworks reissue of all of its Kurosawa films. This one focuses on "Stray Dog" (1949).
Katsuko Doi
Akira, a teacher from Tokyo, has just arrived in a small rural town to begin his new job. Soon after arriving, he meets, and begins to fall for, Miki, a papermaker and part of a large and unusual family. When he learns of an ancient legend that the family carries the curse of the Inugami, or Dog God, he brushes it off as silly superstition. After a series of mysterious deaths, however, the townspeople begin to grow restless, and Akira must confront the truth about Miki and her family.
Kyuketsu Onsen e Yokoso (吸血温泉へようこそ kyuuketsu onsen e youkoso, translated as Welcome to the blood-sucking hot spring) alternatively known as Kyuketsu Onsen ni Yokoso (吸血温泉にようこそ kyuuketsu onsen ni youkoso) is a Japanese direct-to-video horror-erotic film released in 1997 by the Japanese studio known as Museum. It is based in an original story by Go Nagai. A little after the release of the film, a manga version was also released in the magazine Comic Bazooka by Tatsumishuppan, from May 1997 to August 1997, and later released in a single tankōbon in 1997-10-25 by Mediax in the line MD Comics. The manga was later published in the compilation tankōbon Kireta Ito: Nagai Go Jisen Sakuhin shu published by Kadokawa Shoten in 2001. The film features famous Japanese celebrity Aya Sugimoto in the role of the landlady of the onsen and the main vampire woman, ex-idol singer Yuka Onishi of Sukeban Deka III fame, and AV idol Ryo Hitomi.
Fusae
A young woman tries to reconcile with her mother, who left their family for another man.
Set in decadent, chaotic Hong Kong and Tokyo, the film tells the story of a young woman caught up in a mysterious turn of events. A young tour guide, 23-year-old Mamiko who's had her heart set on Paris, finds herself swept off to booming Hong Kong where she is thrown into the midst of a high-profile burglary case.
Katsuyama
The rise to power of the famed Lady Kasuga no Tsubone, who established the 'Ooku' (the women's quarters at Edo castle) and acted as nursemaid to Tokugawa Iemitsu, the future 3rd Shogun is chronicled in this historical drama. Intrigue and suspicion abound as the two brothers Iemitsu and Tadanaga vie for the post of Shogun, while behind the scenes the remnants of the defeated Toyotomi faction, lead by Lord Ishida Mitsunari attempt to discredit the Tokugawa Shogunate and regain their former position as rulers of the nation. The hidden battles between Shogun Hidetada's wife and mistresses of the 'Ooku' come to light as they force the two brothers into a life or death struggle.
Madam
During his wandering throughout Japan, Tora-san meets a suicidal man. He travels with the man to Vienna, but winds up homesick for Japan.
The adventures and tribulations of a group of students during the years following the II World War.
Etsuko
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.
Takeko
Drama about the friendship between a lonely laborer (Atsumi) and a young woman (Hoshi) unable to enter college.
Fuji
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.
The sequel to "Flowers and Dragons". Kingoro Tamai founded a family in the port of Wakamatsu. He unites people with his courage, and revolts against the entrepreneur Oki Nakashi, who is teeming with vices. Kingoro and his family are also forced to fight against the Ezaki-Gumi group, which is opposed by Tomoda Kizo, who is trying to control the port of Wakamatsu.
A story of manly life and the beauty of conjugal love. A story about a man and a woman establishing a family of longshoreman, centering on their love and struggle.
Mitsui Fujiko
#13 in the Ekimae series of films. Set at Todai University, Professor Sakai (played by Frankie Sakai) mentors a group of university hopefuls. Cut to 25 years later, the students have each settled into their careers and cross paths with Professor Sakai's son, a P.E. teacher (also played by Sakai).
Omaki
The ghost of a samurai's wife takes revenge on her husband.
Otomaru
A young intellectual conscientious objector is forced to serve with the Japanese army in Manchuria. He joins with a dim-witted former gangster in an effort to desert by stealing a train.
A woman remember's her own marriage when dealing with the love life of her son.
Michie Higurashi
The music teacher, who danced the twist at the graduation ceremony of the solemn female school, was fired but became star. First film in popular "Number 1" Series.
Nine maids serve the household of a writer and his wife. The couple treat their maids like daughters and marry them off to eligible men. So, they are forever looking for new maids. As the years go by maid servants become hired help and more bossy and independent, so Chikura and his wife find themselves adjusting their lives to keep up with changing times.
The story tells of a group of samurai who were left leaderless (becoming ronin) after their daimyo (feudal lord) was forced to commit seppuku (ritual suicide) for assaulting a court official named Kira Yoshinaka, whose title was Kōzuke no suke. The ronin avenged their master's honor after patiently waiting and planning for over a year to kill Kira. In turn, the ronin were themselves forced to commit seppuku for committing the crime of murder.
Michiko
Drama about the lives of the five daughters and daughter-in-law of a store owner.
Based on the comic by Fuyahiko Okabe.
Based on the comic by Fuyuhiko Okabe.
The life of a toilet-seller during the Japanese Economic Miracle.
Kimie
Follow-up to "Ekimae Ryokan." Set around the Yurigaoka and Nishi-Ikuta stations on the Odakyu-Odawara line, the film takes up the problem of real estate around the expanding Yurigaoka apartments.
Fukuko
In "The Other Woman" the children of a distinguished professor find that the woman they have come to regard as their racy and slightly disreputable Ginza aunt is really their mother.
In this Japanese drama, a village girl goes to Tokyo and becomes a hooker to support her ailing mother. While there she meets an unmarried teacher (at least he says he's unmarried) and falls in love. When she learns that he lied and is married to a woman whose child was fathered by another man, she is crushed. He returns to his wife. The woman becomes more distraught when she learns her uncle has misused the money she has sent. As the final straw, her mother dies, and the girl becomes sick.
The film depicts the scarring of Yosaburo at the hands of yakuza thugs who catch him with mistress of the gang boss. Despite the physical and emotional scars he now carries with him, Yosaburo falls for a young noblewoman. The rest of the film follows the two as they fend off attacks from gangs and the police.
Tatsuya Nakadai plays a scheming low-level executive who plays labor against management and uses anyone he can to further his career in this moral drama. When things get too hot, he bails and goes to work for a prominent politician (Koreya Senda). Soon he has impregnated the daughter (Yoko Tsukasa) of his boss, but he figures marriage will solve his current problems. His happiness is short-lived when he is stalked by a union radical he once double-crossed who now seeks vengeance.
Mie Sakanishi
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.
Sumire Sakura
A drummer falls for a pawnbroker's daughter.
Yuri
Keiko, whom everyone calls Mama, narrates her story: she's a hostess on the Ginza, 30, a widow. She describes life's vicious cycle: acting cheerful around drunks, dressing and living well to convey confidence, needing money for these expenses and for her demanding mother and brother, and knowing she's growing older. She's of an age when she must choose: to seek marriage (difficult given her tarnished occupation), to be a kept woman, or to borrow money to buy a bar of her own. Each route has dangers, including investors demanding a return on their loans. Keiko has a quiet dignity that attracts men, but are they what they seem? Does she actually have choices?
Comedy historical film about a wandering warrior, based on the novel by Shin Hasegawa.
Kitagawa Utamaro is a famous ukiyo-e artist known for his paintings of beautiful women. The courtesan who became his model became even more popular. Ocho, a resident of an apartment building, hears about this and secretly plans to follow Otose, the owner of Mizuta-ya, who became famous as Utamaro's model. At this time, the Kano school, headed by Kano Eikawa, which was under the control of the shogunate, is dissatisfied with Utamaro's fame and tries to compromise him…
Kosei
Fate begins to smile upon young Chonosuke Tokugawa, son of eleventh Tokugawa Shogun, after some twenty years of life as a dependent at his step-brother's castle, when the ruler of the Takatori Clan suddenly dies leaving no heir and despite the protest from Minister Horio, it is decided that young Chonosuke is to succeed as ruler of the clan. Horio determines to murder Chonosuke on his way to Edo so that his own grandchild may rule the Takatori Clan. "Odd" Han, a travelling gambler happens to stop at the inn where Chonosuke's party is staying in secret. The assassins come to attack Chonosuke on the riverbank where he is viewing the fireworks alone but are driven off by Han. Now Chonosuke travels with Han disguised as a gambler during which he begins to learn the hardships of the peasants and is struck with the contrast between the life of a feudal and those whose labour provides his luxurious living.
Nanae
Edmund Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac, transplanted to Japan. A poet-warrior with an oversized nose (matched only by his great heart) loves a lady. But she sees him only as a friend, so he helps another man to woo her by giving him the poetry of his own heart.
7th film in the President series and the first entry in color.
Yoshiko Kosaka
Comedy about three soldiers, two female reporters, six prostitutes, and the wife of an officer, all stranded on a South Seas island at the end of World War II.
Fifth entry in the Company President Series.
The Undefeated Woman
Okiku
A longtime hotel employee (Morishige) struggles to bring his old-fashioned ryokan in line with postwar Japanese business practices.
Oimo / Osatsu
Two residents of Edo city Yaji and Kita make a journey to the temple of Ise, as part of a religious pilgrimage, but actually to get away from their wives for a little while. As they travel, they are constantly beset by complications involving women, mistaken identity, and misunderstood events. Another film adaptation of the famous novel Ikku Jippensha Footing It Along the Tokaido (Tokaidochu Hizakurige)
The fourth entry in the Company President Series
Spider Queen of the Forest
Japanese fantasy film.
Eriko
Aiko, a bar hostess, falls for the son of a company president who also keeps a mistress, and whose family disapproves of his relationship with the bar hostess.
A woman struggles to raise her young son on her own in postwar Japan, finding companionship with a kind laborer while still hoping for the return of her missing husband.
Okada's Wife (uncredited)
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.
Sayoko Uemura
The cabaret «Romance», run by Masami Daisaku's father, is experiencing financial difficulties, and Masami is betting on changes and asks singer Hibari Misora to perform. Musical youth comedy with young actors, passion, funny songs and laughter. Hibari Misora appears as herself.
Yuki Kawabe
Melodrama about a young factory girl who "chooses riches over chastity".
Keiko Nomi, prisoner
The woman prison has a cast all with a story of their own and with no dull or routine day. There is an employee who is divorced after her husband had an affair. She loves the jailed criminals and almost sees them as family. One day at a workshop someone faints while working hard to make money because she has a poor boyfriend. Another inmate is knocked up Another is a mother and has her child with her.
This is a paradise of dream and illusion, a country of Raccoon Dogs. The Bat Tribe lives in a neighboring country took a young prince of Raccoon Dogs as a hostage, and try to take a Buddhist saint from the temple by force.
Kimiko
A naval aviator is assigned to bomb a group of heavily defended bridges during the Korean War.
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.
Wakamaru, a geisha
At the close of the war in Japan, a widowed mother makes every possible sacrifice to bring up her ungrateful son and daughter who are unimpressed with their poor standard of living at home. They gradually reject her in search of the material comforts that working as a maid cannot provide. The mother's despair becomes interminable.
Follows six male friends from elementary school whose career paths diverge—newspaper reporter, engineer, boxer, sushi restaurant owner—but whose romantic lives intersect. (MoMA)
Midori
A young student falls into a hopeless romantic attraction to a sick girl, whom he can only see from afar.
Born to a prestigious family, Natsuko is not impressed by any one of her suitors. Determined to spend her life serving god, she sets off to a convent in Hakodate, Hokkaido, and meets along the way a young bear-hunter with whom she begins an adventure.
Harumi Namiki
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.
