Kyū Sazanka

A narrative feature made from a collage of clips from various films around the world.

Adapted from the Seicho Matsumoto story "Tazutazushi". Ryohei Suzuki, a manager at a travel company, is married to his superior's daughter, but tires of their authority over his life. A chance encounter with Yukiko Hirai one rainy night brings a new romance into Ryohei's life, and he and Yukiko fall deeply in love. Yukiko, however, reveals that she has a violent husband in prison - with only a week left until his release. Ryohei, desperate to maintain his social standing, brings Yukiko to the mountains in Nagano and sets in motion an unthinkable, tragic chain of events.

Sixth film in the long-running series Daiei Studio's Woman Gambler with Kyoko Enami starring where she plays the woman gambler Ogin.

Following the journey of a caterpillar along the Japanese islands from Nagasaki to Hokkaido, this allegorical and oblique first feature film by Kuroki depicts in exquisite images a series of encounters and life's turning points.

#13 in the Ekimae series of films. Set at Todai University, Professor Sakai (played by Frankie Sakai) mentors a group of university hopefuls. Cut to 25 years later, the students have each settled into their careers and cross paths with Professor Sakai's son, a P.E. teacher (also played by Sakai).

A young intellectual conscientious objector is forced to serve with the Japanese army in Manchuria. He joins with a dim-witted former gangster in an effort to desert by stealing a train.

Ayako Wakao won the Blue Ribbon and the Kinema Jumpo for this film.

The four principals in a love affair collide when jealousy, blackmail and suicide enter the picture.

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.

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.

Nine maids serve the household of a writer and his wife. The couple treat their maids like daughters and marry them off to eligible men. So, they are forever looking for new maids. As the years go by maid servants become hired help and more bossy and independent, so Chikura and his wife find themselves adjusting their lives to keep up with changing times.

Japanese comedy film.

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...

Ensemble comedy.

An executive of a shoe company becomes a victim of extortion when his chauffeur's son is kidnapped and held for ransom.

A greedy, materialistic family attempts to cover-up the embezzlement committed by the son while keeping their other schemes active. They discover there are other, equally conniving players involved.

The story tells of a group of samurai who were left leaderless (becoming ronin) after their daimyo (feudal lord) was forced to commit seppuku (ritual suicide) for assaulting a court official named Kira Yoshinaka, whose title was Kōzuke no suke. The ronin avenged their master's honor after patiently waiting and planning for over a year to kill Kira. In turn, the ronin were themselves forced to commit seppuku for committing the crime of murder.

The Fencing Master tells the story of a man trying to survive as the only world he knows is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Danpei Ichikawa lives for swordfighting – he was once a renowned kabuki swordfight choreographer, and as the Chairman of the New National Theatre Company, he wants nothing more than to choreograph the swordfights for the modern plays put on by the company.

This movie depicts a familiar samurai Tange Sazen story realistically. A Tange loses one of his eyes and arms in an attempt to recover a masterpiece sword for his lord. However, his efforts are not appreciated and he becomes a man of hatred.

An ambitious young woman uses her sex appeal to solve financial problems in her family, including a brother in debt to the yakuza, and a father who stole money from his firm to repay his son's debt.

Satoko is a mistress by trade or fate: when her master, the silkscreen artist of the Kohoan Temple in Kyoto, dies, she is given to the temple's lascivious head priest Kikuchi. She is drawn to a melancholy young acolyte, Jinen, who has observed the profligacy of his cruel master and Satoko's utter dependence on the man. Jinen is both fascinated and disturbed by Satoko's interest in him; he is similarly caught between loathing of Kikuchi and of the dark circumstances of his birth and his own moral weakness. The story unfolds in a dreamlike manner—a flashback inspired by a now-infamous image on a silkscreen in the souvenir shop at the so-called Temple of the Wild Geese.

Towards the end of the Second World War, a downed U.S. pilot is captured and imprisoned by rural Japanese villagers, who await official instructions as to how to proceed with their “catch.”

A story about the nature of office workers today.

The family of an older man who runs a small sake brewery become concerned with his finances and his health after they discover him visiting an old mistress from his youth.

Asakichi beats a ganster, Sada, in a physical fight, leading to recognition by Sada's clan boss. When Kotoito, the geisha Asakichi is in love with, is kidnapped by a rival clan and sold to a a house of pleasure, Asakichi and Sada set out to rescue her.

A young girl is rigorously trained in the feminine arts so that she can become a geisha. As she struggles through life, she learns to live not just as a woman but as a complete person.

A nameless ronin, or samurai with no master, enters a small village in feudal Japan where two rival businessmen are struggling for control of the local gambling trade. Taking the name Sanjuro Kuwabatake, the ronin convinces both silk merchant Tazaemon and sake merchant Tokuemon to hire him as a personal bodyguard, then artfully sets in motion a full-scale gang war between the two ambitious and unscrupulous men.

Contemporary musical drama film by Yasuzo Masumura.

In Meiji era Japan a sixth grade boy is smart, likable and confident and owing to his academic success liked by his teacher. Things are not going well at home, however, where his father does not work leaving the mother to toil . With the boy's family having no money he cannot progress his education and has to drop out of school. A neighbour, who is a bookstore owner, offers the family money to allow the boy to continue his schooling, but the father is too proud to accept and rebuffs the offer forcing the boy to work.

A historical drama that depicts the touching beauty of world obsession and human love in the style of light comedy, in the center of which is a young man who has a master license menkyo kaiden in the art of swordsmanship, but weak against lies and women. A remake of Bungaku no Issue, shot by Sadao Yamanaka in 1933.

In the autumn of 1945, Petty Officer Tadashi Yamaji is among the numerous war crimes suspects facing death on the gallows for maltreatment of Allied women and children interned in camp Kampili. Kampili is located some ten kilometers outside Macassar on the island of Celebes. Eighteen-hundred Allied women and children were interned for the duration of the war. Yamaji's iron rule for camp administration is : No violence; hands off internees; He also endeavors to establish self-administration by internees while aiming at a self-supporting camp economy within six months. His ingenuity gains the camp numerous pigs to enrich their diet, and sewing machines with to make fatigue uniforms for the military. The internees are grateful for what little aid he can give them. As the tides of war changes, Allied planes bomb the camp in error. But the surrender of Japan changes everything, and the internees join forces to save their former camp commander from the gallows.

A kind of modern dress "Donzoko" "The Lower Depths", about slum life in Osaka, where a greedy widow (Mimasu) takes advantage of her poor roomers, including her own son, who makes a meagre living stripping taxicabs.

In this loose adaptation of "Hamlet," illegitimate son Kôichi Nishi climbs to a high position within a Japanese corporation and marries the crippled daughter of company vice president Iwabuchi. At the reception, the wedding cake is a replica of their corporate headquarters, but an aspect of the design reminds the party of the hushed-up death of Nishi's father. It is then that Nishi unleashes his plan to avenge his father's death.

When the plague threatens a small town in Manchuria, a young doctor finds himself struggling to save the lives of his townspeople.

A budding gangster enthralls a freeloading young woman, soon taking advantage of her knack for hitch-hiking to rob middle-class, middle-aged men.

Tatsuo Osone movie

Keiko, whom everyone calls Mama, narrates her story: she's a hostess on the Ginza, 30, a widow. She describes life's vicious cycle: acting cheerful around drunks, dressing and living well to convey confidence, needing money for these expenses and for her demanding mother and brother, and knowing she's growing older. She's of an age when she must choose: to seek marriage (difficult given her tarnished occupation), to be a kept woman, or to borrow money to buy a bar of her own. Each route has dangers, including investors demanding a return on their loans. Keiko has a quiet dignity that attracts men, but are they what they seem? Does she actually have choices?

In the closing days of WWII remnants of the Japanese army in Leyte are abandoned by their command and face certain starvation.

Comedy historical film about a wandering warrior, based on the novel by Shin Hasegawa.

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…

A middle-aged husband of a younger woman finds her youth intimidating to the point that he cannot become aroused. His solution involves the introduction of his daughter's lover to his wife.

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.

After handing in a report on the treatment of Chinese colonial labor, Kaji is offered the post of labor chief at a large mining operation in Manchuria, which also grants him exemption from military service. He accepts, and moves to Manchuria with his newly-wed wife Michiko, but when he tries to put his ideas of more humane treatment into practice, he finds himself at odds with scheming officials, cruel foremen, and the military police.

1959 adaptation of Junichiro Tanizaki's novel.

Fifth entry in the Company President Series.

When Yumiko Tsuyama, a potter by profession, comes inquiring about a room for rent in an old mansion overlooking Osaka, she finds a bizarre collection of characters already living there. The unlikely leader of this menagerie is Yoda Goro, who speaks four languages fluently, is an expert in cabbage rolls, and has written how-to books encompassing every aspect of human existence.

A friendly rivalry turns into romance for Yukiko, an elite female detective, and a handsome private eye named Mitamura while both are investigating the missing person's case from a wealthy family.

A fox in disguise, Okon, returns the favor to a man who rescued her from a fatal trap.

Nishi is an advertising executive for a caramel company that is planning to launch a new product, in fierce competition with two other companies.

Based on the novel by Toyoko Yamazaki.

Two residents of Edo city Yaji and Kita make a journey to the temple of Ise, as part of a religious pilgrimage, but actually to get away from their wives for a little while. As they travel, they are constantly beset by complications involving women, mistaken identity, and misunderstood events. Another film adaptation of the famous novel Ikku Jippensha Footing It Along the Tokaido (Tokaidochu Hizakurige)

Kosaka drops to death while ice climbing with his friend Uozu to see the sunrise on the New Year’s Day. The investigators try to find the cause of the death, then discover that the cut rope was made in the factory for which Uozu’s brother works.

Aya successfully stages a fashion show in Osaka and in the train on her way home to Tokyo accidentally treads on a man's foot. The man whose name is Rentaro is not amused. Just afterwards she notices that he is reading a magazine which carries her picture which he crushes and throws under his seat. One of her customers in Tokyo is a pretty girl named Kana for whom she had designed a dress which at first seems quite satisfactory. But a few days later Kana brings it back. It seems her brother thinks it terrible. But when Kana brings the dress back she meets Aya's brother, Takeshi, with whom she becomes friendly and Takeshi gives her a new dress which he smuggles out of his sister's office. When Aya finds Kana's discarded dress and misses one belonging to another customer she goes to see Kana's brother, and to her surprise finds him to be the fellow whose foot she'd stepped upon in the train...

The story revolves around a young man appointed to rescue a troubled hospital who must choose between two women, a dedicated nurse or a spoiled rich girl.

1957 drama from director Kôzaburô Yoshimura

Romantic comedy.

A poor peasant, after years of scraping, becomes a rich and powerful Osaka merchant. Mizoguchi Kenji's final project; he died before completing it and directing duties turned over to Yoshimura Kozaburo.

A talent scout moves sharply, dead-set on signing a promising athlete to the baseball team the Toyko Flowers.

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

Film adaption by Kenji Misumi

In Kyoto a young kimono maker with traditional ideas gets involved with a married professor.

Okawa Hashizo as 'Young Lord', the unlikely sleuth sets out to untangle the riddle of what went on at the Inner Palace, where a young woman who had served the Shogun came home in fear for her life. Will the Young Lord uncover the truth of what went on at the Palace, and does it relate to a series of murders that have been occurring just before the festival?

Police beat a murder confession out of four innocent men who are then sentenced to death. Based on a true story.

First sequel to "Story of Second Class Private".

Detective Tarao goes undercover to battle an evil gun smuggling business.

Tale of tragic love between samurai and princess during Heian period.

Hibari Misora musical.

Japanese youth film.

A fellow member of the company named Hanjiro tells Koharu, an actress in a traveling theatrical troupe, about a keepsake folding fan that his lost love Lady Okyo gave him years ago. It turns out this fan is a precious clan heirloom whose possession, for convoluted reasons, will determine the clan's leadership. Sword-slinging bad guys descend to capture the fan, and Koharu embarks on a road trip to Edo to return the MacGuffin to the rightful hands of Lady Okyo.

Japanese comedy film.

Kingoro Yanagiya's 100th film.

Early jidaigeki by Tai Kato

Early jidaigeki by Tai Kato.