Eiko Miyoshi

A promising post-graduate literature student is transformed into a psychotic killer following the suicide of his father and a sleazy affair by his mother with a younger man.

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.

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.

The story is about the social problems faced by Japan's indigenous Ainu, mostly centered on the reactions of the characters to their oppressed state.

7th film in the President series and the first entry in color.

Fifth entry in the Company President Series.

Japanese peasants Matashichi and Tahei try and fail to make a profit from a tribal war. They find a man and woman whom they believe are simple tribe members hiding in a fortress. Although the peasants don't know that Rokurota is a general and Yuki is a princess, the peasants agree to accompany the pair to safety in return for gold. Along the way, the general must prove his expertise in battle while also hiding his identity.

The common-law wife and daughter of a wealthy old man plot to murder him and steal his fortune, with the help of their male acquaintances.

Historical drama about a sleepy-eyed ronin.

May Kawaguchi is a famous Japanese fashion designer. Returning to Tokyo from her home in New York, she travels incognito with a tour group, in hopes of having a quiet vacation without being noticed. But she is spotted and the press has a field-day with the returning celebrity. Her hopes of rest shattered, she agrees to put on a large-scale fashion show.

The fourth entry in the Company President Series

Set in the 1860s, the final years of the Tokugawa Shogunate, The Fireflies focuses on Tose (Awashima Chikage), the mistress of the Teradaya, a small inn in the Kyoto suburb of Fushimi. She does not have an easy life. Her husband, Isuke (Ban Junzaburo), is a wastrel who fancies himself a kabuki singer and who is obsessed with cleanliness. Her mother-in-law, Sada (Miyoshi Eiko) dislikes her because of her humble origins (her family are farmers) and because she fears that she will inherit the inn instead of Sugi, her daughter. Sada's hopes for Sugi, however, are dashed when she runs off with a con artist and leaves her child behind for Tose to take care of. When Sada becomes seriously ill, it is Tose who nurses her. On her deathbed, Sada asks her daughter-in-law's forgiveness. Meanwhile Isuke spends most of his time with a mistress he has taken, forcing Tose to manage the inn by herself

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.

Residents of a rundown boardinghouse in 19th-century Japan, including a mysterious old man and an aging actor, get drawn into a love triangle that turns violent. When amoral thief Sutekichi breaks off his affair with landlady Osugi to romance her younger sister, Okayo, Osugi extracts her revenge by revealing her infidelity to her jealous husband.

A study of uneasy relationships among the inhabitants of a tiny rural community.

Period drama based on the novel by Saisei Murō.

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.

It's a man's world. Shimamura, an artist, comes to this snowbound town to rejuvenate himself. He connects with Komako, a geisha he met on a previous trip, and it seems like love. She's the foster daughter of a local family, almost engaged to the family's son Yukio, now dying of consumption. He's tended by his sister Yuko who's angry at Komako for abandoning her brother. Shimamura returns to Tokyo but promises he will be back soon. In anticipation of his return, Komako breaks with her patron and her family loses their home. Complications arise when Shimamura doesn't come back as promised. Then Komako discovers that he and Yuko knew each other in Tokyo. Can Komako escape destiny?

A neighborhood labors under postwar hardships.

The obstinate black market trader Okyo lives together with her son Seitaro, who works as a mechanic for a bus company. She also looks after her son's colleague, the bus driver Fujita. When he causes an accident one day, Seitaro testifies against him due to his moral scruples, thus getting his company into trouble.

Returning to their lord's castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the spirit's prophecy comes true, Washizu's scheming wife, Asaji, presses him to speed up the rest of the spirit's prophecy by murdering his lord and usurping his place. Director Akira Kurosawa's resetting of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" in feudal Japan is one of his most acclaimed films.

Shozo is plagued by the needs of his ex-wife and his current one, but prefers the company of his cat.

Japanese comedy film.

Kiyoko (Takamine Hideko) and her husband want to open a coffee shop. She becomes increasingly close to the bank clerk (Mifune Toshiro) she's asked for a loan.

The president learns that the company's biggest stockholder is also a friend of his singing teacher and spies on his movements.

A new third-class president wins an appointment thanks to his marriage with the former president's daughter.

Kiichi Nakajima, an elderly foundry owner, is convinced that Japan will be affected by an imminent nuclear war, and resolves to move his family to safety in Brazil. His family decides to have him ruled incompetent and Dr. Harada, a Domestic Court counselor, attempts to arbitrate.

The story of a couple, a spoiled son and a down-to-earth girl, in Osaka in the early Showa era. The film won the prestigious Blue Ribbon awards for best director, best actor (Morishige) and best actress (Awashima), and the Mainichi Concours award for best actor and best screenplay (Yasumi Toshio). It ranked second (after Naruse Mikio’s Ukigumo) on the Kinema Junpō top ten films for the year.

After years on the road establishing his reputation as Japan's greatest fencer, Takezo returns to Kyoto. Otsu waits for him, yet he has come not for her but to challenge the leader of the region's finest school of fencing. To prove his valor and skill, he walks deliberately into ambushes set up by the school's followers. While Otsu waits, Akemi also seeks him, expressing her desires directly. Meanwhile, Takezo is observed by Sasaki Kojiro, a brilliant young fighter, confident he can dethrone Takezo. After leaving Kyoto in triumph, Takezo declares his love for Otsu, but in a way that dishonors her and shames him. Once again, he leaves alone.

Two youths - the serious son of a Buddhist abbot and his rakish pal - quarrel over a restaurant keeper's daughter. When one of the youths die the other boy and the girl find they cannot forget him.

Three young women make a suicide pact, but they grow to have a better understanding of themselves.

This drama of middle-class life in postwar Japan tells the story lower-middle-class workers in the city of Kawasaki, and their troubles and travails.

Struggling to elevate himself from his low caste in 17th century Japan, Miyamoto trains to become a mighty samurai warrior.

An Inn at Osaka, rarely seen outside Japan, follows the story of an insurance company executive from Tokyo, Mr. Mito, who is demoted to the Osaka office. He takes a room at a small inn and tries to rebuild his life. Notable for its exquisite framing and cinematography, An Inn at Osaka allows its complicated plotlines to disappear behind the minutiae of penury and humiliation that Mito and others suffer during the post-war economic and social reconstruction.

A family comprised of a man, woman and their only son is torn apart when the father, who is a doctor with his own clinic, is to go off to war. Soon the wife and the son are left without an update of his status and whether he is alive or not. With the clinic lying dormant the doctor's wife rents the premises to her husband's underling. This is a man who does not accept payment from the poor. The woman, in the meantime, works at a restaurant whose owner being ill has given her additional duties. Her younger sister is an unmarried finance writer who also lives with them. It is both sisters, however, who receive marriage proposals.

1953 Toho adaptation of Natsume's novel.

A math teacher loses his job while falling in love with a local girl.

Young Setsuko Fujino begins a new job at Tokyo Chemical Company. She likes her boss, Ippei Hitachi, and enjoys serving him tea, despite the fact that her fellow workers think the women employees should not have to act in such a servile manner. When the women go on strike over the issue, Setsuko finds herself caught in the middle. When the heir to the company, Ryosuke Tanabe, proposes marriage to Setsuko, she is honored, but realizes that her real affection is for Hitachi.

Shiro Yabe, a young gangster who boarded the second class on the Tokaido Line after finishing a dangerous smuggling transaction in Kobe, is next to a beautiful woman with a sad face.

Gosho’s most celebrated film both in Japan and the West, Where Chimneys Are Seen is perhaps the most compelling example of his concern for, and insights into, the everyday lives of lower-middle-class people. Based on Rinzo Shiina’s novel of the absurd, the film depicts the lives of two couples against the backdrop of Tokyo’s growing industrialization during the 1950s.

A married couple looking for an apartment move in with the husband's co-worker, a widower. The husband becomes jealous of the widower and his wife.

Jirocho the gambler hits the road.

Carmen falls in love with an artist in this sequel to Carmen Comes Home. The film is noted for being entirely shot with canted (Dutch) camera angles.

A screwball tale of a suspected “lady thief” and the detective who is on her trail, following her from Osaka to her home village, where she is going to hold a memorial service for her father. Of course, the detective falls in love with his prey.

Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.

A teenaged girl witnesses her widowed mother's attempt to sustain her family.

1950s Japanese comedy.

Soldiers Hayate and Yaheiji secretly escape from their besieged castle. Hayate has left behind his lover, Kano. On his way, Hayate is wounded and cared for by O’Ryo, who falls in love with him. But when Hayate accidentally kills her caretaker, he flees, with O’Ryo in pursuit. Subsequently, Hayate's comrade Yaheiji falls in love with Oryo. Kano, the lover left behind by Hayate, believes him dead, and becomes involved with another soldier, Jurota. When Jurota defects to the opposing army, he takes Kano with him. A double set of love triangles has developed, wherein each man and each woman loves one and is loved by another. Finally only combat and self-sacrifice can untangle the weave.

A high-born woman named Okuni travels around the country with Gohei, a samurai retainer who is in service to her. They are in search of Tomonojo, who has killed the man who was Okuni’s husband and Gohei’s master, and they cannot return to their lord’s home until they have fulfilled their duty of hunting down and killing Tomonojo.

When a group of young geologists declares a mountainside marked for residential development unstable, they are met with scorn on two fronts. On one end, they must contend with the local villagers who balk at the prospect of relocation; on the other, they face the ambitions of the headstrong lumber baron, whose actions will only further destabilize the land. Their pleas for reason ignored, the scientists can do little but observe as nature runs its inevitable course.

Kameda, who has been in an asylum on Okinawa, travels to Hokkaido. There he becomes involved with two women, Taeko and Ayako. Taeko comes to love Kameda, but is loved in turn by Akama. When Akama realizes that he will never have Taeko, his thoughts turn to murder, and great tragedy ensues.

When a family has to relocate due to the war, they are ostracized by their new community.

Wataru Naohiko who has the prosecutor general as his father became a young composer and its symphony "saint" invoked the world echoed. But his disciple Uchiyama and his best friend prosecutor Daisuke Toki accused his music as a sesame of pause-only technique, not a truly heart-hungry art.

Clothes of Deception initiated Yoshimura’s most characteristic vein. This geisha story is often described as a loose remake of Mizoguchi’s pre-war masterpiece Sisters of Gion (1936), but this is inexact. Whereas in Mizoguchi’s study of two sisters, both women had been geisha, in Yoshimura’s film only Kimicho (Kyo Machiko) is, while her sister works in the Kyoto tourist office. Juxtaposing a traditional Kyoto profession with a modern one, Yoshimura shows how life in the old capital was changing in the wake of wider transformations in Japanese society.

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.

Yukie, the well-bred daughter of a university professor, is shocked when her father is relieved of his post for his political teachings during a purge of anti-militarism in pre-war Kyoto. Years go by as she is courted by two of her father's former students; one a fiery leftist, the other more moderate and equable.

Uta’s mother died when she was six years old; her father she never met. She was forced to adopt a traveller’s life when her grandmother died, and now she is a dancer and part of a family of actors who travel from town to town, setting up street performances. A way of escape from this marginal existence arises when she gets the chance to move to tea merchant Hiramatsu’s place, where she is asked to teach his daughter to dance.