Masao Shirai

Movies

My Destiny
Producer
Portrait of Chieko
Executive Producer
Takamura, a poet and sculptor, marries a budding artist named Chieko who dreams of becoming an oil painter. When a series of hardships befall her family, she finds herself unable to confide in her husband, and the pain she carries within begins to weigh heavily on her sanity...
The Kii River
Producer
Epic saga of an idealistic land-owning family dealing with militarism, war, social change and economic reform.
Pale Flower
Producer
Muraki, a hardboiled Yakuza gangster, has just been released from prison after serving a sentence for murder. Revisiting his old gambling haunts, he meets Saeko, a striking young upper-class woman who is out seeking thrills, and whose presence adds spice to the staid masculine underworld rituals. Muraki becomes her mentor while simultaneously coping with the shifts of power that have affected the gangs while he was interred. When he notices a rogue, drug-addicted young punk hanging around the gambling dens, he realizes that Saeko's insatiable lust for intense pleasures may be leading her to self-destruction.
Destroyer Yukikaze
Executive Producer
Yutaro Kida, a worker at the Sasebo Naval Arsenal, volunteers for the navy but finds himself a cook's mate in the galley of a gunboat. But his dream is eventually realized when he is transferred to the new and powerful destroyer Yukikaze which he helped to build. When the Pacific War breaks out Yukikaze performs valiantly in the South Pacific, and while on shore leave, Kida meets and falls in love with Yukiko, younger sister of his commander.
The Night We Danced
Producer
Follows the lives of three sisters who have a dance act together.
A Legend, or Was It?
Producer
A Tokyo family escaping the war relocates to a Hokkaido village; their daughter is set to marry the local leader's son, but her siblings disapprove.
Double Wedding
Producer
Nonsense Boys
Executive Producer
Japanese comedy film.
To Your Majesty, The Emperor
Producer
A conscript from a poor background writes the Emperor asking if he can stay in the army when his service is up.
Escape from Hell
Producer
This suspense drama set in the mid 1700's depicts the plan of the Tokugawa rulers to send a number of homeless men to a remote island Sado to perform forced labor. Living conditions on the island are terrible and the men soon become rebellious. Based on a short story by Seichō Matsumoto.
Shichinin no keiji
Executive Producer
Miyoko Sekiguchi, who works at a second-rate trading company, and car mechanic Koji Fukumoto are in love. The morning after Koji and Miyoko went out for a drive, the strangled corpse of a call girl is discovered in Toyamagahara. Chief Akagi, Detective Sergeant Sawada, and the other detectives begin to suspect Koji during their investigation. Koji insists he's innocent, but has no evidence to prove it. Even when detectives come to Miyoko's home and workplace and her coworkers begin to look down on her, Miyoko continues to trust and love Koji...
Sing, Young People
Executive Producer
A story about four best friends and their lives inside and outside college. Then suddenly one of them receives a surprising offer to be a movie star.
The Body
Executive Producer
The sexual experiences of the passionate Sakiko, from her fling with her boss in her first job to her ending up as a prostitute.
A Flame at the Pier
Producer
Takashi Fujiki stars as a rebel in this drama about life on the Yokohama waterfront by New Wave director Masahiro Shinoda. The rebel works as an errand boy for a shipping company and vents his frustrations by plucking on the guitar. His interpretations of popular trends in music are sometimes right-on, and sometimes not exactly. Bereft of his guitar, the rebel's modes of expression are not as effective in generating interest as the Yokohama docks themselves, a fascinating world in their own right.
Get Married, Mother
Producer
Ballad of a Workman
Producer
A demobilized soldier becomes a day laborer with a road construction gang, and his wife goes to work to bolster their income. Their modest dream is to see their son grow and to be happy as a family.
Akitsu Springs
Executive Producer
Yoshida’s first big-budget production and colour film is a haunting tale of unrequited love and postwar disillusion. The story of the fatal attraction between a spineless intellectual and a strong woman is conventional, but its enactment is radically new.
背くらべ
Executive Producer
Japanese drama film.
Tokyo Bay
Producer
An investigation into a drug smuggler who is assassinated in front of an insurance building sets two detectives, Sumikawa and Akine, into a sprawling investigation through Tokyo's underworld.
Drunkard's Paradise
Executive Producer
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.
A Roaring Trade
Producer
Honno-Ji in Flames
Producer
The plot is based on the novel "Akechi Samanosuke no Koi," the final work in a trilogy by Hiroshi Kato about the forced suicide of Oda Nobunaga at the temple Honnoji. Historically, the general Akechi Mitsuhide is credited with causing Nobunaga's downfall. Kato's novel focuses on Mitsuhide's nephew Samanosuke, who fought alongside his uncle during the assault on Honnoji.