The first movie of Tôru Murakawa’s “Game” trilogy, in which an assassin hired to recover a kidnap victim becomes embroiled in a vicious power struggle between two large corporations over a sizable government defence contract.
Tai Kato’s early 20th century set yakuza epic about an ordinary merchant girl (Hiroko Maki) who crosses paths with an assassin (Tetsuya Watari). The encounter sends her to jail as a suspected accomplice. Years later she marries a yakuza boss, whose gang is affiliated with working class people.
Reiko Ike stars as the daughter of a man who has been pushed into drug dealing by the local Yakuza mob. Having outlived his usefulness to the gang he is murdered and Reiko is gang raped, leading her to attempt a knife attack on the Yakuza boss (Ryoji Hayama) at a swank nightclub. Failing to kill him she ends up in prison, where she befriends a crew of other malcontents (including Yumiko Katayama and Chiyoko Kazama) and meets the Yakuza boss's girlfriend (Miki Sugimoto). Upon release Reiko reassembles her mob and launches a Machiavellian scheme to engineer a gang war between Hayama's Oba Industries and the formerly dominant Hamayasu Clan. The rival gangs begin killing each other off and Reiko works her way closer to her ultimate vengeance.
With World War II is coming to its end and Japan nearing defeat, Japanese military leaders step up suicide attacks on Allied ships. Toei legend Koji Tsuruta stars as a Kamikaze squad leader who has second thoughts about suicide runs. He becomes torn between his own morality and his duty to his country when he must deal with a pilot under his command who refuses to complete his mission.
Adm. Koshiro Oikawa
In the summer of 1941, the United States and Japan seem on the brink of war after constant embargos and failed diplomacy come to no end. "Tora! Tora! Tora!", named after the code words use by the lead Japanese pilot to indicate they had surprised the Americans, covers the days leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, which plunged America into the Second World War.
In the prewar days leading up to the Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937, head flight instructor Lt. Katō Tateo of the Imperial Japanese Army-Air Corps trains new volunteers from the Army's Infantry to become Japan's next generation of fighter pilots at the Tokorozawa Flying School. Flying Kawasaki Ko-4 biplanes, Lt. Katō will train both friend and future foe alike. But as war in China breaks out, Katō now in command of the 5th Rentai will take his untested men flying antiquated planes into aerial combat against the Chinese Air Force who is now headed by Lt. Cho who Katō both earlier befriended and personally trained himself. While Katō's squadron ultimately achieves air superiority over the skies of Manchuria, it comes at a high price in men to which each loss carries a heavy burden that he alone must carry. As the war widens into the Second World War, Captain Katō must battle an ever advancing array of deadlier new enemies flying ever more modern fighter planes.
Shinsaku Fujioka, Sakura Syndicate chair
A once-powerful yakuza clan disbands as a result of a police crackdown, but one small group refuses to bow to police pressure, and launches a campaign to take over Tokyo's drug, prostitution, and gambling rackets. Someone wants to stop them. Is it the police? Rival gang members? Or is it an entirely new group of hired killers who will stop at nothing to gain complete control of Tokyo's "bloody territories"?
Shuntaro Nonomura
Story of love, jealousy and hatred among waitresses of a deluxe bar.
Tenth film in the long-running series Daiei Studio's Woman Gambler with Kyoko Enami starring where she plays the woman gambler Ogin.
President Yukawa
Horror film directed by Koji Shima.
Fourth film in the long-running series Daiei Studio's Woman Gambler with Kyoko Enami starring where she plays the woman gambler Ogin.
Tomoda
A war breaks out on the streets between rivalry Yakuza clans.
Miwata
Onna no Toba, is the first film in long-running series Daiei Studio's Woman Gambler with Kyoko Enami starring where she plays the woman gambler Ogin. The series gets cited on lists of action yakuza films or woman avenger films, but once the films are actually viewed, it is quickly obvious they are not generally about action except in the nominal sense of acts of gambling. And while Ogin is in fact sometimes motivated by revenge, she is not as a rule a martial artist or a killer, & this series tends to place its female hero as far away from the "action babe" method as she can get. Ogin is an honest dealer in the criminal underworld of yakuza-run gambling. She is samurai-like in that she sets out to become Japan's number one dealer, much as a samurai might go on his "warrior's pilgrimage" to become Japan's number one swordsman.
The story contrasts the life of two doctors, former classmates and now both assistant professors at Naniwa University Hospital in Osaka. The brilliant and ambitious surgeon Goro Zaizen stops at nothing to rise to a position of eminence and authority, while the friendly Shuji Satomi busies himself with his patients and research.
Self-Defense Force General
Gamera escapes from his rocket enclosure and makes his way back to Earth as a giant opal from New Guinea is brought back to Japan. The opal is discovered to have been an egg that births a new monster called Barugon. The creature attacks the city of Osaka by emitting a destructive rainbow ray from his back, along with a freezing spray capable of incapacitating Gamera.
Zoku teppō inu (続鉄砲犬) is a 1966 film directed by Mitsuo Murayama. It is the sixth film in the Inu series.
A young man is determined to have as many affairs as possible but not to get married. One of his conquests is of a different mind however. For she is pregnant and so he agrees to live with her. But he misses very much the other younger girl whom he saw a lot of, and with the older woman's consent, sees the younger one and on her request, asks her to move in with them. This is the beginning of a very strange triangle which they all live through to a not unhappy ending.
Two sisters live with their family. The elder is reserved; the younger lively. Yet, the former is first engaged and all goes well until the young man disappears
Kikuzawa
Young lawyer Jiro receives a late night phone call from a distraught woman sending him on a journey to uncover corruption and exploitation stemming from those at the very top of society.
Namiko gets a crush on Ishizuka, a young CEO of a nightclub, but he was plotting to destroy her husband’s company by greenmail.
Industrial espionage in the pharmaceutical industry.
In 1963, Funaki Kazuo's debut song of the same name was released and then it was adapted to a movie based on Kenji Tomishima 's novel “Shake to Tomorrow” with the same title, produced by Daiei with this song as a motif. Singer and actor Funaki Kazuo also appears in the movie, which depicts the fun, love and heartbreak in a Japanese school.
Set around Ginza’s neon billboard boom, the movie is a drama of romance, corporate intrigue and tragic crime. A reporter (Ken Utsui) investigates a homicide in Tokyo’s bustling construction scene, meanwhile a super typhoon is brewing in the Pacific, and Ginza is square in its sights!
Ryokichi Ibuki is a clerk who learns company "top secrets" and becomes an industrial blackmailer. Kaoru Koizumi, a confidential secretary in love with Ibuki, reveals her firm's plans to him. She resigns when Ibuki blackmails her employer but Ibuki gains another spy in Ayuko Ichinoi...
The case of the counterfeit bills that spread all over Japan.
Prosecutor Narumi
After a businessman is murdered, an investigation identifies a suspect who is then put on trial for that crime.
Yukiko Shiba, a doctor, and Akira Sakai, a composer and musician, are lovers. Their love is a forbidden one. He is married, with children. She is a doctor with a bright career ahead of her.
A fishing village is terrorized by a giant whale, and the fishermen are determined to kill it.
Masamichi Arikawa
Kihachi Oguri
Two car manufacturers spy on each other to try to find out details and prices of a new sports car each is about to launch.
Ushimatsu's father told him never to reveal his lower-caste heritage; years later, he now contemplates confiding in an activist fighting against such discrimination.
Channa
An Indian prince leaves his world of comfort and riches behind to wander and meditate for six years in search of spiritual enlightenment. Siddartha (Cojoin Hong) turns his back on the old religion when people are starving needlessly and holy rituals include human sacrifices. During his meditations, he is tempted by erotic dancing women, demons, and the evil machinations of his criminal cousin. Devastate to attain the spiritual perfection and become the Buddha. He travels to convert followers by his kindness and wisdom, gaining a multitude of believers when he stops an elephant from crushing a local priest. Buddha of course goes on to become one of the great religious leaders of the world.
Ichizô
One of Kinugasa's last films--based on the story by Tanizaki Jun'ichirō.
Disguised as a beggar monk, Ryunosuke is harassed along the road by the rowdy members of a country dojo or fencing school malingering outside their fencing hall. The third film in the Satan's Sword trilogy.
Fascinated with women from an early age, Yonosuke had his first sexual encounter at the age of seven. From that day on, he recklessly and forwardly pursues women, feeding his fascination and experience. As Yonosuke's salacious behavior brings much cause for shame to the family, his father eventually breaks relations with him. Expelled from the family, 19-year-old Yonosuke embarks on a pilgrimage of lust, traveling far and wide to acquaint himself with women of all walks.
Kurisu
Late romance by acclaimed filmmaker Kinugasa Teinosuke.
A musical about the escapades of some tanuki passing themselves off as humans in human society.
The sequel to Daibosatsu tôge (1960) and the second of the trilogy follows the adventures of Ryunosuke Tsukue after he is blinded.
Urajuku no Shichibee
The Dai-bosatsu toge trilogy is based on Kaizan Nakazatos unfinished long series of novels (41 books, written from 1913 to 1941). Set in the last period of the Tokugawa Shogunate, Daibosatsu Toge tells the story of Tsuke Ryunosuke, a nihilistic swordmaster who doesn't hesitate to kill anyone, bad or good.
Kiyotsugu
Princess Kiyo accidentally injures a local priest, Anchin, while on a hunt. She apologizes, but feels irritated by Anchin’s indifference to her in spite of her beauty. One night, while Anchin is recuperating in a hot spring, he is approached by Kiyo. She tells him that she is in love with him.
The exciting story of Jirocho and his yakuza gang that controlled the area of the Tokaido during the latter days of the samurai era. Awesome fighting from Katsu Shintaro as One-Eyed Ishimatsu highlights this great tale taken from Japanese history!
The first story concerns an attractive young woman who works in a Tokyo nightclub. Her plan for a solid financial future has a double whammy. In the second story, a beautiful young woman is employed by an unscrupulous real estate agent to convince male clients to invest in worthless property. The last story is about a widowed geisha who has no real financial worries and who falls in love with a forger.
A journalist decides to do his own investigation after a series of strange murders are committed during a local election campaign.
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…
Japanese drama
The story follows Oshino, a geisha who is trying to start a new life with a lover who is a painter. However, her past filled with debts and pimps catches up to her.
During the 1200's, legendary Buddhist monk Nichiren returns from his studies to lead Japan out of moral crisis and prepare to fight Mongol invaders by creating a new form of Buddhism. He runs afoul of the existing Buddhist sects and their government supporters and is persecuted. Can Nichiren persevere before the Mogol fleet reaches Japanese shores?
Patron
A war widow with a young boy manages a farm with her bossy mother-in-law. When a reporter comes to interview her, the two begin an affair. He turns out to be married and won't leave his wife. Her older brother tries to marry off his children and hang on to/ extend his farm through an advantageous marriage in the face of threatened land confiscation and the desire of his children to get comfortable urban jobs instead of the backbreaking work in the paddy fields under parental control.
The magical swordsman battles a gang of cutthroats, who are led by a peg-legged villain.
In 1905, Japan was seriously threatened in the Russo-Japanese War. Japan determined a decisive attack on Russia to end the war. A reconnaissance troop was organized to penetrate into the supreme headquarter of Russia in Tieling Mountain of China to find out the enemy's situation...
Moriyama
1957 drama from director Kôzaburô Yoshimura
Oya, chief editor
A female reporter is fired for writing about police corruption; to make money while hiding from the press, she posts a bounty upon herself.
Chief of the Metropolitan Police
A series of ghastly murders are being committed. The one similarity in each of the murders is that a weird buzzing sound is always heard right before the murder occurs. Is the killer invisible or possibly some other incredible creature?
Kinichi and Akiko meet when they visit their fathers in prison. After successfully gambling on a bicycle race, they spend an enjoyable day together at the beach.
Adaptation of the Yukio Mishima novel.
A traditional bar mistress in Kyoto clashes with her Tokyo rival.
Kan'ya Morita
An exciting film about thugs, in which murders and drugs, justice and resentment explode in the dark city of Tokyo with the help of guns and violence.
Dr. Kamura
Large star shaped aliens travel to earth in hopes of warning them about an oncoming catastrophe. To prevent panic about their appearance, one alien takes the form of a popular singer.
A chance ride in a car leads to an unforgettable relationship. A misunderstanding leads to more misunderstanding... Love and thrills in this coming-of-age romance film.
Father Seiichiro
Hayase, a schoolteacher, assists Sakai in editing a German-Japanese dictionary. Hayase owes much to Sakai, as Sakai raised him for 13 years after Hayase lost his parents in a war. Hayase has been secretly married to Otsuta, a former geisha, and has been unable to tell Sakai of the marriage, aware as he is that Sakai wants him to marry his daughter, Taeko. Otsuta wants Hayase to tell Sakai about her, but understands the difficulty of his position. At a festival, Otsuta is mistaken for a pickpocket and taken to the police. Because of her background as a geisha, newspaper reporters eagerly delve into her past and report that she has been married to Hayase. Unaware of what has been printed in the papers, Hayase decides to tell Sakai about his marriage. Sakai shows the newspaper to him and orders Hayase to part with Otsuta. Given no chance to explain, Hayase accepts Sakai's order.
Yasuke Shiraishi
Following the tragic death of his father, a young boy's family trains his horse to compete in the local derby.
Chen-Hsuan-li
In eighth century China, the Emperor is grieving over the death of his wife. The Yang family wants to provide the Emperor with a consort so that they may consolidate their influence over the court. General An Lushan finds a distant relative working in their kitchen whom they groom to present to the Emperor. The Emperor falls in love with her and she becomes the Princess Yang Kwei-fei. The Yangs are then appointed important ministers, though An Lushan is not given the court position he covets. The ministers misuse their power so much that there is a popular revolt against the Yangs, fueled by An Lushan.
Kobayashi
Yukiko's fiance learns her mother runs a geisha house and ends their engagement. She despises what her mother does until one of her clients shows interest and starts to woo her.
Seki
What is the life of a Geisha like once her beauty has faded and she has retired? Kin has saved her money, and has become a wealthy money-lender, spending her days cold-heartedly collecting debts. Even her best friends, Tomi, Nobu, and Tamae, who were her fellow Geisha, are now indebted to her. For all of them, the glamor of their young lives has passed; Tomi and Tamae have children, but their children have disappointed them. Kin has two former lovers who still pursue her; one she wants to see, and the other she doesn't. But even the one she remembers fondly, when he shows up, proves to be a disappointment.
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, a brilliant tactician, is a loyal subject of the emperor, despite his grave misgivings about leading Japan's navy into war with the United States. He opposes the attack on Pearl Harbor, but, overruled, he leads his forces to the best of his ability.
Film directed by Eichi Koishi and starring Wakao Ayako
Chief army surgeon Yamada
The film is about the Yamato's suicide mission to Okinawa in March 1945 to defend the homeland threatened by U.S. bombers. Adapted from Mitsuru Yoshida's 1952 book "Requiem for the Battleship Yamato".
Shinkichi Shigeno
Film directed by Saeki Kozo with Wakao Ayako.
Film directed by Saeki Kozo with Wakao Ayako.
Veterinarian
Soichi Ataka is the eldest son of Ataka family. Although mentally challenged, he's a person with a gentle heart. Soichi's wife, Kuniko is devoted to her husband and together the couple runs the family farm. Their happy family life comes to an abrupt halt when Soichi's half-brother, Joji returns with his wife Masako after failing in a business.
Once an average and seemingly ordinary Tokyo girl, she suddenly finds herself as a TV star owing to her discovery by a casting company, which noticed photographs that her cousin had sent. When another actress falls ill she is given the role instead. Her first film is a success propelling the young actress to popularity, her own fans, money and a house. While everything looks dandy from the outside not all is well within the family however.
Nomura
In pre-war Shanghai, a man falls in love with a mysterious woman, but she eventually disappears. Back in Japan, he is obsessed by her memory and tries to recreate the world he knew then.
Gotō Matabei is the most able and fierce samurai of the Kuroda clan. However, he gradually dislikes the ruthless personality of Kuroda Nagamasa and leaves the clan. Seven years later, he joins Toyotomi Hideyori's army. Filmed in 1945 and released in 1952.
Numata
The troubled relationship between a writer and his ballet teacher wife, who has for years loved another man, finally leads to the breakup of the family.
Maruju
A girl who'd left her hometown for the exciting adventure of the big city returns home years later for a visit, soon somehow causing scandal.
Arifusa
An attempt is made to suppress a journalist's investigation of collusion between a rural police chief and the local gangster bosses.
A joint project by Sojiro Motoki and Tomoyuki Tanaka, co-dramatizing the original story by Shu Sekikawa with Senkichi Taniguchi and Kenro Matsuura. The fur of a stray dog, the double-barreled gun tied to the backpack, the beard covered with tanned leather, and the bottom of the snow-burnt shining eyes, for the first time in thirteen years, these reached out to the bottom of society. Genji Iwaki dreamed of reuniting with his first love, Tsukie Shiina, with a huge amount of gold dust. To hand over half of the gold dust, he appeared in the memorable N city from the mountains of Teshio with the hope of seeing his late colleague's son, Ichiro Akutsu...
Ryuzu Maya
When a young woman is named as the prime suspect in a murder, her girlfriend and her girlfriend's boyfriend set out to prove her innocence. Their investigation leads them to an isolated, creepy house in the middle of nowhere, where sinister goings-on abound.
Sanpei Tsuchiya
Horror film directed by Kôzô Saeki.
A lowly drunken samurai finds an abandoned baby in the woods and takes it home. A gift from a fox. But there's something special about the boy.
Minowada, a young teacher at a National People's School, has his own theory of education and the daughter of his linguistics teacher becomes drawn to him. Kayo, a strong-willed doctor, is also attracted to him. A mediator tries to arrange a marriage but just at that point Minowada receives military call-up papers.
This film begins with a teacher describing to his students how brave the crew was which died as result of Japan's first submarine accident. The film then follows two of the pupils, one becomes a submarine captain and the other designs submarines.
Heizo
Kanji is a poor peasant widower who struggles to earn a living for his daughter and himself and to pay off his father-in-law's debts.
An early example of the Japanese war film, closer to documentary realism than the kind of propaganda produced at the height of the Pacific War. "A company commander calls on five men. They are to reconnoiter, but on their way they are attacked. Only four of them return. While his companions mourn the fifth straggles back. Soon after comes the order to move out for a general attack. The men know that this time there will be no returning." (Donald Richie)
One of Uchida’s early sound films, Unending Advance is based on a curious story by Yasujiro Ozu, in which an examination of the quotidian problems of a middle-aged salaryman and his family segues into an idyllic dream of an implausible future. The surviving print, although incomplete, offers an essential glimpse into Uchida’s prewar period, when he was associated more with realist dramas than with the period films that dominated his work after the war.
A 1937 Japanese language film directed by Tomu Uchida, starring Ryo Akaboshi, Mitsuru Date and Hisao Furutani.
Two brothers run a factory canning crabs. The elder brother Kotaro is righteous and insists on honesty. The younger brother is fixated on money. They are polar opposites. When a boat sails out looking for crab and does not return one day the brothers begin to argue over how to run their facility. They had just received a large order from a foreign country and had obtained a loan from a lender that needed to be repaid.
A sad love film where the action takes place in Kyoto, in a trading house.
Shinzô
Taki no Shiraito is a very independent young woman with a famous water juggling act in a travelling carnival troupe. She falls in love with an orphaned carriage driver Kinya Murakoshi, and pledges to put him through law school in Tokyo. She always encloses money in her letters to him, until one hard winter there is no work to be found.
Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. Released in 2 parts. His only release of 1931
The second part of the melodrama based on the novel Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, the action of which is transferred to the era of the Meiji Revolution. The film has not survived.
The first part of a fascinating melodrama based on Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, the action of which is transferred to the era of the Meiji Revolution. The film has not survived.
Yasuzo Yasui, Kikuchi's nephew
Tomotaka Tasaka's earliest surviving surviving film is a powerful adaptation of Hector Malot's "Nobody's Girl".
