Mutsuko Sakura

Mutsuko Sakura

Birth : 1921-02-15,

Death : 2005-01-23

Profile

Mutsuko Sakura

Movies

Swing Girls
Mie Suzuki
A tale of delinquent and lazy school girls. In their efforts to cut remedial summer math class, they end up poisoning and replacing the schools brass band.
Walking With The Dog
Dumped by a bored pet owner, a mixed-breed mutt ends up with three time loser Yasuyuki, who's loveless, homeless and jobless. Yasuyuki finds solace in the dog, whom he calls Tamura, and uses it to mend fences with his ex, who's distracted by her mother's debilitating illness. A trip to a hospital reveals Tamura's ability to comfort dying patients, leading to dog and master attending the real-life Japanese Therapy Dogs training school.
The Village Album
Hanatani Village in the valley of Tokushima Prefecture is going to be submerged when a dam is constructed. In order to preserve the beauty of the place for future generations, the villagers decide to take photographs of all the families in the village. Kenichi, the only photographer in the village, is put in charge of the project. He calls his son Takashi, an aspiring photographer, to help him with the task. Takashi is puzzled since his father and he are not at all close, but as they visit each family in turn and Takashi sees his father working, Takashi's feelings towards his father begin to change.
十五才 学校IV
Bored with school, 15-year-old Daisuke Kawashima embarks on a pilgrimage to visit the 7,000-year-old cedar tree on distant Yakushima Island. Through his journey, Daisuke meets a number of interesting people, including friendly truck driver Sumire and a mysterious mountaineer girl.
Give It All
Etsuko - a typical Japanese high school student, who's unlucky in love, an academic failure, and plain bored with life. That's until one day, the view of a boat gliding gracefully in the sea inspires her to take up the oar. Since she's rejected by her school's all-male rowing team, she decides to form her own all-women team. Nothing will ever be the same again.
Maborosi
Tomeno
A tragedy strikes a young woman's life without warning or reason. She continues living while searching for meaning in a lonely world.
Sumo Do, Sumo Don't
Yuki Anayama
A college senior, Shuhei, is blackmailed by a professor into joining the school's sumo team. He is aided by a group of misfits who must team together to defeat their rivals or face disgrace and the disbandment of the sumo club.
The Demon Comes in Spring
Island villagers find a young woman and young man swept ashore near their remote village in northeastern Japan. The two have tried to escape the girl's enforced marriage to another man, in order that they may marry themselves. The ancient custom of the village decrees that the angry sea gods must be calmed by throwing the pair back into the sea. The lovers face being sacrificed to the sea gods or perhaps something even more difficult to bear.
I Lived, But...
Self
An extremely lovely tribute to Ozu, on the 20th anniversary of his death. It uses a combination of footage from vintage films and new material (both interviews and Ozu-related locations) shot by Ozu's long-time camera-man (who came out of retirement to work on this). Surprisingly (or perhaps not), it focuses less on Ozu's accomplishments as a film-maker than on his impact on the lives of the people he worked with..
Oiran
O-Tatsu
Ayame, a courtesan, attracts the attention of street vendor Kisuke and decides to run away with him to America. Unfortunately, a crazed tattoo artist is obsessed with Ayame's perfect skin as a potential canvas, so he kills Kisuke to keep Ayame in Japan. Later, Ayame is sold to a brothel in Yokohama. Kisuke's ghost possesses her, causing his image to appear tattoo-like on her skin whenever she has sex.
運命の殺意 北信濃母子心中
In the past, a woman was raped by her brother-in-law. Keeping this dark secret, she lives a seemingly happy life with her husband and son, but the son, shocked to find out his real father is the brother-in-law, sets out to do something. The downfall of a mother and her child starts there...
Cape Erimo
Harajuku, the fashion capital of Tokyo. Yasuko (Izumi Yamaguchi) works at a boutique as a beginner seamstress. As snow covers the streets, the boutique's interior decorates itself with colorful clothing. An exhibition of the shops's spring line up is right around the corner. After a hard day at work Yasuko stops by at a produce market, setting all her unfinished work on the rear deck of a random truck. When she gets home, she realizes that she's missing a couple of things.
Dangerous Games
Mitsuko Masuda
Drama is afoot at Shirobara Middle School when the bold Henmi Ryoko transfers into Class A, 9th Grade. She immediately picks a fight with, Masuda, the head of the preparation committee. The girls' battle for control of the gang soon grows out of control as it sweeps up the entire school. Brawls. Seduction. Yazuka. And more!
One Two Punch
Two men succeed in opening a joint restaurant after hilarious troubles.
Sex and Life
Dr. Mikami is an elderly somewhat clumsy, very popular therapist, his patients turn to him with all possible and impossible questions. Because Dr. Mikami's specialty is sexual clarification... The world's best-selling sex literature was filmed here in a manner close to the original. And the openness of the image shows the shocking conflicts of young people in scenes that were never filmed. Shocking documents about sex life from the doctor's office.
My Destiny
Midwife
Snow Country
Maid
This movie is based on an immortal literary work "The Snow Country," a story about a life of geisha Komako who lives in a region with heavy snowfalls.
River Washes Away the Moon
Hadashi no hanayome
Japanese comedy film.
Get Married, Mother
Okami
Akitsu Springs
Geisha C
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.
Drunkard's Paradise
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.
引越やつれ
Manao Horiuchi movie
Zero Focus
One week into newlywed Teiko Uhara's marriage, her husband, Kenichi, leaves on a short business trip and never returns. Teiko travels across Japan to search for him, and along the way discovers some surprising facts about her husband's past. With only a pair of old photographs among his belongings to go off of, Teiko tries to figure out what has happened to him.
Women of Tokyo
Chie
The Shrikes
The Tragedy of Bushido
A 16-year-old youth is ordered to commit ritual suicide to follow his deceased lord into death and preserve the honor of his clan. His elder brother's wife, who has raised him as if he were her own child, asks her husband for permission to spend a single night with the young man and teach him the pleasures of the flesh, out of motherly mercy. However, the following day, an official decree is issued to ban suicide through fidelity...
The Izu Dancer
Tatsu
Love story between a student and girl whose parents are itinerant entertainers. Set in Japan in the 1920's.
Floating Weeds
O-Katsu
When a theater troupe's master visits his old flame, he unintentionally sets off a chain of unexpected events with devastating consequences.
Thus Another Day
Kansuirô maid
A father curries favor with his bosses to further his career, but his wife has lost faith in him. She returns to her family home while they rent out their house during the summer to pay off their mortgage, and there she meets a lonely old man...
ここに男あり
Good Morning
Oden'ya no Nyôbô
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.
Farewell to Spring
Kikutarô
Five longtime friends get back together, but are disappointed to find that their bonds are not as strong as they once were.
Nitōhei monogatari: Banji yōryō no maki
Hideko
Sixth sequel to "Story of Second Class Private".
Maria of the Ant Village
Alongside Tokyo's Sumida River is a ragpickers' settlement known as Ant Village. One night, a young Catholic girl, Satoko Kitahara, who has been baptized under the name of Maria, comes to offer her services. However, Ant Village is not just an ordinary vagrants' community but a fine autonomous organization, and as the municipal authorities have long been demanding that the people of Ant Village leave the site, Satoko is utilized to publicize the Village and win public sympathy. While being utilized in this manner, Satoko is nevertheless glad to be able to help the people of Ant Village, especially the children, and when the summer vacation comes she decides to take the children on an excursion to Hakone. To raise funds for this purpose she becomes a rag-picker herself.
One Step to Happiness
I Want to Be a Shellfish
Shimizu Fusae
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."
Farewell to Summer
Equinox Flower
Akemi
A man clashes with his daughter over her choice of fiancé.
Nitōhei monogatari: Shindara kami-sama no maki
Hanae
Fourth sequel to "Story of Second Class Private".
Tokyo Twilight
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.
The Rose on His Arm
Sushi shop lady
Ignoring the protests of his working-class mother, a young man becomes wrapped up in the world of delinquents and yakuza.
Travel Chronicles of Yaji and Kita
A Samurai's Honor at Pawn
A film about the struggle of an officer from Edo, Toyama Saemon, with a lightning-fast gang of thieves.
The Dawn of Judo
Izu no odoriko
An adaptation of the Kawabata Yasunari short story.
Young Miss Executive
A young woman becomes president of a business.
Tokyo Story
Oden-ya no onna
The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko, the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.
彼を殺すな
Beauty of Life
Inochi uruwashi
Boyhood
Mrs. Yamazaki
When a family has to relocate due to the war, they are ostracized by their new community.
Home Sweet Home
Kaoko Fukuda, Namiko's sister
The Ueki family may not be wealthy, but smiles are never in short supply. The father is awarded prize money for 25 years of service to his workplace, but has it stolen on the way home from the ceremony...
想い出のボレロ
Drama directed by Yasushi Sasaki.