Kan Yanagiya

Intrepid tax investigator Ryoko Itakura sets her sights on the mysterious and philandering Hideki Gondo, a suspected millionaire and proprietor of a thriving chain of seedy hourly hotels, who has for years succeeded at hiding the true extent of his assets from the Japanese authorities. Itakura and Gondo soon find themselves engaged in a complicated, satirical battle of wits.

Sex games by students at a junior high school are exposed by the principal and teachers, but the tables are turned in favor of the students.

Second movie in the yoidore hakase serie

When an only child is struck by a car and dies, the child's mother seeks vengeance against the driver in this thrilling drama. The car was driven by the wife of a company president who is having an affair. The woman's husband manages to buy silence about the incident, but the victim's mother discovers the identity of the driver. After she secures a job in the home of the company president and his philandering spouse, the woman plans to murder the couple's son when he reaches the age of her late son.

The first film with Tetsuro Tamba as a detective. An exciting drama about the pursuit of a criminal, which takes place in Yokohama. Tamba enthusiastically plays a police inspector who pursues a criminal who kidnapped his sister.

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.

After a bombing raid destroys the family store and her husband, Reiko rebuilds and runs the shop out of love stopped short by destruction.

The warlords overrun the country while the farmers are starving, and forced to become soldiers to keep the wolf from the door. The farmers are recruited in groups of fifteen. In Yaju's village, there are only twelve men, so they press Oto, who looks more like a boy than a girl, to join, disguised as a man.

1962 Japanese movie

Two obaachans become fast friends listening to music in front of a record store. They both boast about their loving sons but in reality, one had just escaped a retirement home and the other was looking for an escape from her son and daughter-in-law. With nowhere to go, the two wander around, befriending a cosmetics salesman and a kind waitress who give them beer. This biting social satire starring two memorable grandmothers, scripted by Yôko Mizuki, picked up on Japan’s aging population problem far ahead of its time.

A comedy of a high-spirited geisha, Koharu, who is at risk of being trapped in a conspiracy to take over a lucrative diamond mine business.

Popular geisha Koharu suspects that Yusaku, a handsome stranger she falls in love with, is involved in a robbery of precious diamond.

An elderly woman, Ume Matsumoto, complained to the First Investigation Department that her son Hirasaka, who runs a shoe store, had disappeared. The ominous foreboding of the First Investigation Department hit the mark, it turned out that the discovered unidentified body of the drowned man was Hirasaka. Moreover, the land in front of the station, owned by Hirasaka, was sold by someone. Suspecting that this is a planned murder, the Investigative Group, fearing the escape of the criminal, begins to act secretly, without creating an investigation headquarters.

Sheriff Goro goes undercover to investigate drug smugglers.

Young geisha Kohana scrambles to realize her dream of bringing back her grandmother’s restaurant business.

Kaji is sent to the Japanese army labeled Red and is mistreated by the vets. Along his assignment, Kaji witnesses cruelties in the army and revolts against the abusive treatment against the recruit Obara. He also sees his friend Shinjô Ittôhei defecting to the Russian border, and he ends in the front to fight a lost battle against the Russian tanks division.

The sixth and last Moonlight Mask film in the original series produced by Toei in the 1950s.

Fifth Moonlight Mask theatrical film.

Fourth Moonlight Mask theatrical film.

Japanese family drama.

The 3rd Moonlight Mask movie from the 50s.

Asako, a former telephone operator once heard the voice of a murder suspect which has continued to haunt her. Years later her husband invites his boss, Hamazaki, over for dinner and she realises his voice is suspiciously like that of the killer. Before she can investigate further, Hamazaki is found dead and her husband becomes the prime suspect.

Best friends Gentaro and Sanpei become fateful enemies when Sanpei steals a secret document revealing the identity of the chosen successor to the Tokugawa Shogun. Gentaro of the Owari clan sets out to retrive the invaluable document.

A young, struggling couple are making every sacrifice so they will one day in the not-too-distant-future, have enough money to get married. As they have agreed on this procedure, it comes as a shock to the young woman to find out from her husband-to-be that he just loaned all the money they had saved to a friend. She is understandably miffed, and a big disagreement results. But after some time goes by, she discovers why the friend needed the money so badly, and the couple are back on solid footing again.

Sayuri, a young woman born to a simple life on a farm, moves to Tokyo to pursue a life long dream of becoming a singer. Through dance, music, and songs, this story shows how a girl raised on a farm was able to make her dream a reality, with the love of those around her.

Second Moonlight Mask theatrical film.

First Moonlight Mask theatrical film.

A bus making its precarious way across a winding mountain road picks up some unwelcome passengers.

It’s been five years since her husband had passed away. Fuyuko lives in the quiet suburbs, in a small but loving home with her three beautiful daughters. Haruko, the eldest, is the lead vocalist in a band. Natsuko is the conscientious type, who spends her days in ballet classes beautifying herself. The youngest of the three, Akiko is a bookworm who found her niche in philosophy. Although the sisters may appear to have nothing in common, there is one thing they all agree on; "Mom needs a new husband".

Roppeita is big in size, clumsy and full of energy. When his grandfather orders him to move out to Tokyo to save a sinking milk delivery business a distant relative of his runs, he encounters the most strangest of clientele.

Japanese "kayo" film centered around the song "Wakai omawari-san" by Shiro Sone.

Japanese drama film.

Japanese drama film.

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...

Japanese drama film.

Shigeki Kachi, Tosuke Satomura, and Nanako, who belong to the theater company Vuanbert around Dosa, withdrew at the indignation of the chairman Hayashi and seeked their own careers in the film industry.

A reporter Takuo, who is sleeping in the newspaper room of the Maichō newspaper company, receives a sudden report from a reporter that the missing Akiyama JNR president was found dead.

Shows the devastation caused by the atomic bomb, and by use of a fictional storyline, portrays the struggle of the ordinary Japanese people in dealing with the aftermath.

Following the Second World War, the lives of various people in a poverty-stricken area of Tokyo are entertwined. Pachinko parlor girls, shoeshine boys, a maker of costume jewelry, and a streetcorner artist all struggle to make their livings and to find happiness in difficult surroundings.

Jidai-geki by Kiyoshi Saeki

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.

Five women classmates from a college in Tokyo are on the first stretch of a walking tour when one of them, Masako, falls ill at a railway station. Osen, a middle-aged maid from a nearby inn, takes her in and nurses her, assisted by Dr. Minami, a young physician who diagnoses her illness as a mild case of pneumonia. With Masako in good hands and needing a few days to recuperate, her classmates continue their tour. Masako’s recovery, however, is hampered by her spoiled and immature nature and her determination to punish the world for the loss of her mother.

A Japanese adaptation of Guy de Maupassant's short story Boule de Suif, directed by Kimura Keigo

This little seen early work by Ichikawa was produced during the director's Shintoho period (1947-51). Written by Kaneto Shindô and featuring Ryô Ikebe as a young policeman it is part crime drama, part social study. Definitely not an undiscovered masterpiece, but still a must for Ichikawa buffs.

The Angry Street includes a great deal of location shooting in the rebuilt city, including downtown streets, residential neighborhoods, the campus of the University of Tokyo, and the high life of jazzy dance halls. Sudo (Hara Yasumi) and Mori (Uno Jukichi) are two university students who make money by picking up rich girls in dance clubs and conning them into giving them cash. Mori is the brains of the operation, and Sudo is the suave dancer who picks up the girls. Over the course of the film, Sudo becomes involved with three different girls and is drawn into the gangster milieu, which he seems unable to resist even though he is responsible for his mother, grandmother, and sister, Masako (Wakayama Setsuko). In this world of bad boys and girls, Masako is the pillar of strength and moral virtue who finally enables Mori to straighten out.

A film by Kiyoshi Saeki

Three humorous love stories set in rural Japan.

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.

The premature death of a young mother serves as inspiration for her husband and son.

A bizarre murder at a hot springs resort threatens to disrupt an Edo detective's (Hasegawa) vacation. When his hot-blooded wife (Yamada) starts snooping around, however, he finds himself reluctantly drawn in to the case.

This epic depicts the battle between Uesugi Kenshin and Takeda Shingen. The focus of the story is the struggle by the unit leader in charge of the main supply wagons and the supply troops to transport materiel to the Uesugi army. To this are added episodes involving an itinerant woman.

This film depicts a troupe of wandering kabuki players traveling through rural Japan.

This film attempts to reconstruct the tension of the Battle of Shanghai through an episode in an understated way, introducting its story in a documentary mode. In the film story, Japan's marine regiment protects Japanese residents and Chinese refugees-women and young children-from rampant street fighting, Shanhai Rikusentai unsparingly uses its first eight minutes for an official-mannered self-justification of the war. From the viewpoint of explaining Japan's military operation,the narration refers to the city s spatial division in sync with maps on screen.

A half brother and sister work at a hotel in Hakone respectively as a porter and a souvenir shop clerk. They are close. One day a woman named Hasegawa checks into the hotel in order to recuperate in a calm environment with fresh air. She is the mother of the store employee. The mother and daughter were separated due to the Kanto earthquake. The girl was practically raised by her older half brother.

Japanese adaptation of LES MISERABLES. The last film of director Itami took inspiration from Les Miserables. Transpiring during the Southwestern War of 1877 in Japan, which was the last civil war in the country, a criminal escapes prison only to be found by a monk. The criminal decides to turn a new leaf based on their conversation and goes on to become a town's mayor. He hears news of a mistaken arrest and identity. The revelation of truth is the start of a series of miseries.