April 1954. 12 year old schoolgirl Sadako thinks her main problem is being unable to pass the baton in relay races. But just as her team starts winning, she starts getting tired more easily. She is sent back to the American Base Victory Hospital, where the diagnosis is lymphatic leukemia. And she has no more than a year left to live. Her parents agree with the doctor that Sadako should not be told, but will she find out anyway ?
Old Priest
Shigematsu Shizuma lives with his senile mother, his wife Shigeko, and his niece Yasuko in a village near Fukuyama. He, his wife, his niece and his close friends in the village were present at the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The Shizumas look for prospective husbands for Yasuko, but find that the families withdraw on finding out she was at Hiroshima.
Storekeeper
On August 9, 1945, the Americans dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. This film, based on a story by Mitsukaru Inoue, describes the daily life of people in Nagasaki the day before that fateful event. It presents the human drama of people's lives, and their feelings of joy and sadness. These include a newlywed couple, an expectant mother, and lovers who must say farewell because the boy is called to serve in the army. Each of these people, like others in the city, hoped to live with their dreams for ‘tomorrow’. But tomorrow never comes for them, as their lives are brought to an abrupt and unexpected end. Knowing how the story ends, in this case, doesn't detract from it at all; rather, it enhances the emotional impact, which is further heightened by the poignant musical score from Teizo Matsumura. 'Ashita' is the first film in Kazuo Kuroki's 'War Requiem Trilogy,' which also includes 'Utsukushii Natsu Kirishima' (2002) and 'Chichi to Kuraseba' (2004).
Grandfather
A young rock singer is not appreciated by her band, and gets a postcard from Japan saying "wish you were here". She takes what little money she has including ex-boyfriend's rent money and goes to Tokyo. She has numerous cross-cultural adventures and ends up singing with a Japanese rock group looking for a gaijin gimmick.
A documentary about the lives of actors in the Sakura-tai theatrical troupe, which had arrived in the island of Hiroshima to begin preparations for the staging of a play just before the atomic bombing.
Shokichi Shimamura
Tatsuhiko and Shofumi are hoodlums living in downtown Hawaii, who have flown out of Japan and entered the country illegally for a reason. The two make a living by trafficking marijuana under the pretext of selling tea leaves, but they are in a foreign land where they don't speak the language well.
Hashimoto
The tragic, true story about Hachikō, an Akita dog who was loyal to his master, Professor Ueno, even after Ueno's death.
Shimada
At the time between the World Wars, Japan is involved in empire-building throughout East and Southeast Asia. After a brief career as a low-level military adventurer, Iheiji sets up chains of brothels throughout Asia. As Japan's power in the region grows, so does Iheiji's prosperity and patriotism.
During the winter in Toyama in 1962, Tatsuo Mizushima is fretting about his feelings for his classmate Eiko Tsujisawa while agonizing about his upcoming high school examinations. When he was little, he and Eiko had heard that in April of a year when the winter has been very harsh, any couple finding fireflies together needs to get married. However, his family's situation does not allow Tatsuo to continue his worrying about such things for very much longer.
Haru, an aging scriptwriter, has isolated himself somewhere in the woods of Nagano to work on his first novel. As the last surviving member of his kin, he intends to chronicle the family he grew up in.
Gensai
Shipwrecked African-American slaves arrive in the midst of Bakumatsu-era Japan; they soon carve out a niche in the market with their musical talents.
Kamezo
The culturally isolated, nomadic Seburi people of western Japan are the subject of this tragedy about a few of the community's members who especially experience difficulties as modern Japan encroaches on their world. The setting is World War II, and conflicts have already arisen when the military police come to take Seburi men away into the army. Still following their own customs that can be harsh at times, and are particularly cruel to women (women must give birth alone and unaided, a woman's adultery is punished by burying her up to her neck in the earth and then leaving her for days), the Seburi are mainly treated with fear and animosity by the non-Seburi townspeople of the region. Along with the hardships arising from cultural clashes, nature's own vagaries present other challenges to the Seburi -- who still lived in tents until the 1950s. Winter avalanches and snowstorms cause as much havoc as the tensions engendered by the slow encroachment of the modern world.
Hoshino Bunzo raises up his orphan grandson, Keiji whose right leg gets paralyzed when he was an infant. Bunzo loves Keiji so much that he does every thing to protect his grandson. Sonoda Keiko, a new young teacher comes to the school when a new term starts. She wants Keiji to go back to school. After two years absence from school, Keiji tries to attend the class but he cannot continue. All pupils hold an exhibition of Keiji’s paintings in the village shrine to make him happy. He is very pleased and gives his paintings to them and to Keiko, he gives a painting entitled "Spring Pony". When this picture is awarded a prize in the National Friendship Painting Compettition, it is like a new beginning for Keiji’s family.
Inumaru
The melodramatic story of a pink crew’s tragi-comedic adventures on location. A fictionalized adaptation of set photographer Ichiro Tsuda's 1980 book The Location (Za Rokēshon), an illustrated 229-page document about the cameraman’s experiences with pink cast and crew on the sets of several films produced in the late 1970's.
Tanimoto
Internationally acclaimed for his cinematic realism and social commitment, Kaneto Shindo based the story of THE HORIZON on his sister's experiences. The film concerns Hideo, a young girl who leaves Japan in 1920 to settle her family's debt by being sold in marriage to a Japanese farmer in San Francisco. Over the next 20 years the couple works hard and raises 4 children. After Pearl Harbor is attacked they are interned with other Japanese immigrants in a camp, losing both their land and their assets. Hideo has now been uprooted twice and has to adjust to her son's going to war and her daughters' post-war assimilation and marriage to Americans despite her protests. But Hideo is a survivor and she awaits a new immigrant from Japan with hope.
The evil Hikita clan rises from the dead to fulfill a curse on the Satomi clan by restoring the face of their warlord by using the skin of Princess Shizu. In the process of trying to capture her, the clan murders her entire family, but Princess Shizu escapes their clutches. She enlists the aid of eight samurai warriors, possessors of powerful magic crystal, led by Dosetsu (Sonny Chiba!) to help rescue the remaining members of her court and revenge her family. Along the way, they must fight undead warriors, evil spirits, poisonous beauties and a giant centipede.
Doctor(医師)
Nakata, an author, resides utilizing the painful memory regarding the death of his partner, whoever life had been cut short a few many years earlier. Ended up being it a crash or ended up being it suicide? Doubt persists. In order to escape his guilty Nakata, conscience gives up on marriage and fatherhood. Hence freed, he embarks on an obsessive intimate records and jeorney his activities in a book, "The Dark Room". A philisophical essay on sexuality, reproduction and the fate of mankind.
Teruyan
In a small village in a valley everyone who reaches the age of 70 must leave the village and go to a certain mountain top to die. If anyone should refuse they would disgrace their family. Old Orin is 69. This winter it is her turn to go to the mountain. But first she must make sure that her eldest son Tatsuhei finds a wife.
A gripping and entertaining historical drama that follows the actions of the thief Nezumi Kozo Jirokichi during the Edo period.
Father of Ogin
Saotome Mondonosuke is Hatamoto (a high-class warrior who is allowed to see the Shogun in person) who has a crescent-moon-shaped scar on his forehead with flashy clothes and a handsome face, and is proficient in all the military arts and called Bored Hatamoto. Mikijiro Hira acts as such a hero in history. Mondonosuke is secretly ordered to look into the suspicious movement in Nagoya castle by the Ometsuke, and he found out about the misconduct and sole it. This is a period movie about the hero!
Hachibei
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.
Tora-san gets into an argument with his uncle and sets out on the road again. In Kyushu he meets a young woman named Keiko and the shy zoologist Saburō, and attempts to play matchmaker between the two when they all return to Tokyo.
Horiatsu
To satisfy her lover's fetish for tattooed women, Akane agrees to have her body covered in eloborate tattoos by Kyogoro, an old craftsman. Kyogoro has developed a special technique, by which his assistant, Harutsune, keeps Katsuko's mind off the pain while Kyogoro does his work. After the work is done, Harutsune makes the shocking discovery of how Kyogoro mastered his technique.
Model Reiko Higa is injured after being hit by a car pursued by motorcycle cop Tomishima. Tomishima's supervisor refuses his request to apologize to Reiko, as it would be an admission of police responsibility. Forced to give up her career, Reiko leaves Tokyo to return to her hometown on Okinawa, travelling by road up to Kagoshima, and Tomishima pursues her in order to apologize.
Pharmacist
The man has a monotonous job punching tickets for the Japanese railway. One night, while walking home, he saves Jun from getting raped by two hoodlums. A few days later, he sneaks into her house but gets discovered. Later, as he watches his son subdue an insect with a chemical, the man gets an idea to subdue women while they're sleeping so he won't be discovered sneaking into their home. His new hobby spirals out of control as his confidence grows.
When a broadcasting company takes away its financial support from a symphony orchestra, some of the members refuse to admit defeat. The first violinist returns to his home and manages to get the orchestra back together for a grandiose performance, saved at the last minute by their original conductor -- and boding well for the future of the die-hard musicians.
Guard
Loosely based on a 1926 short story by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, the film opens as an artist and a young woman are in a dentist's waiting room. Though he is attracted to the woman, he says nothing to her. They are later in the same examining room. When he is given an anesthetic, he begins to imagine a series of scenes in which the woman undergoes various forms of sexual abuse, including rape and torture. When the artist recovers from the anesthetic, he finds clues showing that he may not have been hallucinating.
Tattooist
The world-famous woodblock artist Hokusai (1760-1849), a widower in need of a steady income, lives with his daughter Oei in the house of his friend Bakin.
Former blues singer turned private eye, BJ becomes involved in a dangerous gang business.
Man on festival boat
Two boys, whose parents ply their trade by the mouth of a muddy river in Osaka, become close friends.
Jyosyuya
The film depicts carnivalesque atmosphere summed up by the cry "Ei ja nai ka" ("Why not?") in Japan in 1867 and 1868 in the days leading to the Meiji Restoration. It examines the effects of the political and social upheaval of the time, and culminates in a revelrous march on the Tokyo Imperial Palace, which turns into a massacre. Characteristically, Imamura focuses not on the leaders of the country, but on characters in the lower classes and on the fringes of society.
Japanese film based on the life of Zen Master Tetsugen Doko.
Fireworks Hand 2
A member of the jieitai ("Self-Defense Force"; i.e. Japanese military) is on leave and finds a woman giving birth in a graveyard in the former Yoshiwara district. He takes her to an inn to gove birth, and stays on a few days as she recovers, but becomes fascinated with the strange people he meets there, particularly the owner, who visits a house in his courtyard every day to talk and give food to his mother. He says she is very sick and can't leave bed, but no one else has ever been inside or seen her.
Restaurant's Owner
Intellectual collegue professor Sasa becomes obsessed with beautiful Sugiko, a virgin. Eventually, luring her to a love hotel.
A couple originally from Okinawa run an inexpensive restaurant in Kobe, with their grade-school daughter, Fuuchan. The movie depicts the warm interaction between her and adults that grew up with the rough history of Okinawa and discrimination from the mainland. Shots partly on location at beach of Itoman, Yogi Park and Hateruma Island. This is the movie version of the well-known novel by Kenjiro Haitani.
“Quit working as a nurse!” “All right, I will!” thus began the married life of Yasuo and Keiko. But the reality is harsh. Keiko even had to work on the first night after her marriage. Ten years later, the married couple is still at it. Yauso tends to the house and their children, while Keiko sacrifices family life for life as an overworked nurse. One day, after Keiko comes home utterly exhausted and dejected from her work, Yasuo makes up his mind and writes a letter of resignation in her place. Upon learning of this, Keiko angrily declares that nursing is what she lives for and she will keep on working. Realising that that is one battle he will never win, Yasuo sends a letter to a newspaper -- “Nurses’ husbands, aren’t you having a hard time? Get together nurses’ husbands. Contact me.” There is a tremendous response. This leads to the formation of many unions of nurses’ husbands throughout the country.
Tora-san's opinions about Americans get challenged when another wandering peddler Michael Jordan stops by Shibamata.
The men who surround and torment the young protagonist (demanding teacher, owner of the company that rapes his own daughter, despotic and uncompromising father) are opposed to women (victims of men) as embodiment of salvation.
A motorcycle cop and a freelance photographer, having learned the location of 1 billion yen's worth of the Imperial Navy's gold, team up to salvage it.
Tanejiro Shibata
A thief, a murderer, and a charming lady-killer, Iwao Enokizu is on the run from the police.
High school student Keiko struggles with the pressures of college entrance examinations and a chaotic home life, ultimately succumbing to alcohol, marijuana, gang members and rape.
Toichiro
A young man has an affair with an older woman. He is very jealous of her husband and decides that they should kill him. One night, after the husband had plenty of sake to drink and was in bed, they strangle him and dump his body down a well. To avert any suspicions, she pretends her husband has gone off to Tokyo to work. For three years the wife and her lover secretly see each other. Finally, suspicions become very strong and people begin to gossip. To make matters worse, her husband's ghost begins to haunt her and the law arrives to investigate her husband's disappearance.
Sen Rikyu is a ceremonial tea master who advises warlord Hideyoshi in sixteenth-century feudal Japan. His daughter, the beautiful Lady Ogin, has an unrequited love for Lord Ukon, who has angered Hideyoshi by becoming a Christian convert. Ogin's father Rikyu also displeases Hideyoshi by opposing the warlord's plan to invade China and Korea. When the animalistic Hideyoshi is rejected by Ogin, he threatens her and her father with arrest and worse.
Taizô Sakata
Nikkatsu Roman Porno
Mountain Man
A blind traveling musician is abused and oppressed wherever she goes, even as the modern world imposes change around her.
Ayako is a 7-year-old girl with a dark, tanned face and a somewhat mysterious expression on her face. She shows up at the elementary school and acts strangely, but the children don't know her name and just call her "that girl". There are two groups of children at the elementary school, and the conflict between the groups intensifies...
Taro Kuroki, 42, is a stuntman with a samurai's heart. He loves adventures, plays pranks with the police, tries to cure a cat lady by reversing her trauma, and finally, rescues his niece who is about to be lured into prostitution.
Set in the time of steam locomotives and covering a period of almost 30 years, this sensitive film tells the story of the wife of a railroad worker in the northern part of Japan. The ferocious local class restrictions work to keep her husband in his place, as does his lack of education.
In the summer of 1947, various men and women gather at a mansion in the countryside at the invitation of Kazuma Utagawa. They are artists, novelists, poets, painters, playwrights, actresses, etc. Then the murders begin, one after another. The incident seemed to have no continuity...
Sôiku
Nikkatsu Roman Porno
Old Beggar
A passionate telling of the story of Sada Abe, a woman whose affair with her master led to an obsessive and ultimately destructive sexual relationship.
Kinetarô Kitamura
Roman Porno from 1975.
The Master
Roman Porno from 1975.
Harukichi
Roman Porno from 1975.
Genzô Kakinuma (Bath-house Manager)
A sly gangster hatches a plot against his own wife, who works at a brothel-cum-bathhouse, with the help of the bathhouse owner’s wife.
Genji's father
The Taisho era was a time of turbulence in Japan. From new marks of modernity to full-blown riots, a sense of revolution filled the air. The Dam Dam Group is a small anarchist organization lead by Daijiro, a silver tongued "Benshi", a performer who provides narratives for silent films, playing multiple roles. In other words, he was a master at the art of deception, a handy talent when it came to 'doing jobs' for his group. His revolutionary ideals attracted many to his squadron, but among them was a young girl who was oblivious to his group's activities. Her name was Shino.
Personal tale of Okita Soji who fights to survive in a world without pity in the merciless era of the downfall of the Tokugawa Shogunate.
Publican at Ebisu
Two detectives are tasked to investigate the murderer of an old man, found bludgeoned to death in a rail yard.
The Homeless is a picaresque tale in the truest sense of the word. Two inmates are simultaneously released from jail, but go their separate ways, only to cross paths again in the nearest brothel. There they make the acquaintance of a would-be prostitute with a childlike mind and serious problems with the yakuza. They help her escape from the mob-infested cathouse and decide to guide her on her quest for sunken contraband somewhere off the coast, whose location only she knows, but which the yakuza are very eager to learn about. It is a remake of the French film The Last Adventure (1967).
Kofukuya's Owner
It's the evening before the day all brothels must be shut-down, according to the new law, in 1958. At the Kofukuya's (literally, the house that sells happiness), five prostitutes decide to celebrate the day. Erotism, drama, and comedy mix as each hour, and a different event passes, in which all the women's stories come to the surface.
Yoshizo Kawamura
Based on a true story, an elderly woman resiliently spends nine months attempting to retrieve her husband's dead body, fighting government bureaucracy and indifference all along the way.
A college professor wants to bring the joys of sex to his frigid wife. He convinces his son in law to sleep with her because the idea arouses him, while also making him insanely jealous. The professor keeps a journal of his fantasies in a locked cupboard and hopes that his wife will find the key and read it.
Tonomura
Nikkatsu Roman Porno
Sex Show Manager
Roman Porno from 1974.
Adaptation of Natsume Soseki's classic novel in a modern setting.
When his pistol is stolen, police detective Murakami is humiliated, especially when the gun is later implicated in a crime. Working with his superior, Chief Detective Sato, Murakami works feverishly to trace the location of his pistol, ultimately clashing with a gang of youthful Okinawans.
Japanese “kayo” film based on the song by "Namida koi" by Aki Yashiro.
Shimamura
Reform schools are a way of protecting society by ridding it of lawless juvenile delinquents. But who's protecting the juvenile delinquents from corrupt reform schools? Rica could be considered a bit of an expert on reform schools, having spent most of her early life in and out of them. When Rica is dragged back once again, she gets a severe beating and is finally sent off to a mental hospital with the intention of selling her and her pals into a slave trade. A trader takes Rica's friend Jun to a mountain cottage where she's pegged for the lead in his clandestine porno film operation. Once again, it's up to tough-as-nails Rica to bust up this corrupt racket once and for all!
Poor Yoko knows she is getting played and used by a playboy, but she loves him with all her heart and soul.
Shimamura
Rica wanting a fresh start leaves her friends and past life behind or at least that is what she thinks as trouble always seems to find her. Rica's looks into a ship that exploded and everyone who survived this disaster who comes in contact with her dies. Rica only chance of solving the mystery of the sunken ship is if she can locate a old friend of hers who just happened to be on that ship the night it blew up.
Minoru visits his home on Okinoerabu island for the first time in thirty years. Seeing the old man who used to be in love with his mother, Minoru recalls the old days spent on the island with his young, beautiful mother.
Ippei
Roman Porno from 1973.
Tokuzô Kasai
Sex & Fury chronicles Ocho's exploits as she searches for her father's killers, each identified by unique tattoos on their backs (a deer, a boar, and a butterfly). Along the way, she also crosses paths with Shonusuke, a radical set on murdering prominent politician Kurokawa and Christina, an American spy posing as a gambler.
A young outlaw can’t escape his rebellious past despite connections to a well to do family.
Shunkai
About a girl who marries in the middle of the Pacific War, is widowed at 18, and her unflagging struggle to survive during and after the war with her son.
Harumatsu
The story tells of the adoration of Sasuke for his mistress, the blind samisen-teacher Shunkin, who treats him imperiously and subjects him to cruel beatings.
Nomura
For a girl who works in a 3rd rate bar, Ayuko is full of vanity. Nomura, her patron, is besotted by her and it is their habit that they cannot reach a climax unless they peek at a couple, across the way, making love. Intent on climbing up in the world, Ayuko uses all her wiles to get her patron, who is putty in her hands, to move her from her grubby apartment house to a dreamboat of a place. She then tries to find a place to work more befitting her new home but all the elite night clubs will have nothing to do with her and with time heavy on her hands, the devil finds mischief for idle hands to do.
Sunaoko come to Okinawa to find his brother Tsuruo. Her searching is not very painless because it tears up old wounds in complicated relationships, some of which date back to the horrors of war.
Ishibashi
Natsuko is so good at using that super-strong vagina of hers that she can fuck guys to death. In the end, she’s pitted against a sexual superman and a showdown ensues. There’s also a subplot about a mad scientist type who needs vaginal juices to create a potion designed to turn Japanese girls black.
Hiroshi (Tatsuo Umemiya) has the biggest penis in all of Japan and everyone who touches (or is touched by) it, is blessed by good fortune. After buying his sister a washing machine for her wedding, he travels to Tokyo, where he must help his friend Masa out of a half-million yen debt. Among other hijinks, he becomes a penis god in the process.
Kiyohime, a daughter of Tokugawa Ienari is married-off to Tadateru Ogura, the lord of a Kyushu clan. However, the lord's sexual inexperience and Kiyohime's strict morals lead to significant crisis in their marriage. To improve his sexual prowess, the lord is introduced to Sandra, a French woman held captive by usurer-smuggler Hatakaya. This results in the lord's choosing Sandra as his mistress. Kiyohime's attendants see this move as an insult and have Sandra beaten and imprisoned. Nevertheless, Sandra escapes with the help of Morita, a retainer of the lord. Out of bitterness and as some sort of revenge, the lord imposes a sex ban on his subjects.
Physiognomist
A woman takes revenge on her husband after he leaves her for a younger woman by harassing the couple with unwanted phone calls at night.
Murai
The brief love story of an attentive young man and a beautiful woman who meet, fall in love and part during the course of a train ride.
Prison guard
Two Jesuit priests encounter persecution when they travel to Japan in the 17th century to spread Christianity and search for their mentor.
The film depicts the youth of Kinzo, a heretic painter who worked in Tosa during the late Edo period, and the hurricane-like inner side of his life.
Nakano
2 years ago, Kumi broke up with Shuhei and decided to forget everything about him for good. However, after being told that her younger sister, Junko, fall in love with a man and is currently living with him. She was determined to discover who was the man who won her sister's heart. But what will happen when she found out that the man in question is Shuhei, her first love?
Pinku from 1971.
Pachinko owner
Murase is a bodyguard of yakuza group. Ochiai is a police officer who once was a student activist. When they meet, they are surprised how identical they look.
Michio Yamada, a recent school graduate, is sent to Tokyo to work as a fruit-packer in a department store as part of a government programme. He takes a gun from a house on an American base and uses it to kill several people. The scene changes to Yamada's childhood. Yamada is born the child of a reprobate and a weak-willed woman. As a boy Yamada, experiences poverty and the rape of his sister at first hand.
Rivalry between a hoodlum group and a gangster organization.
A man is inspired to build a hospital after his mother falls ill and becomes a host to swindle money out of women.
After the bankruptcy of her foster-father's condom factory, Tamae sets out to make a living on her own and ends up working as a geisha at a hot spring resort. After rising in popularity, a climactic sex battle is held to decide who gets to lay claim to her.
Saeki
A truck driver is reunited with friends from his youth in a seedy bar and gets drawn into a web of crime.
Rokurō starts a part-time job on a fishing boat, but the ship has an engine failure in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Old man
Three students spend their holidays at the seaside where they are mistaken for Koreans, a minority which is looked down on in Japan. The action develops into a crime story.
Farmer
In the Sengoku period, a woman and her daughter are raped and murdered by soldiers during a time of civil war. Afterwards, a series of samurai returning from the war through that area are found mysteriously dead with their throats torn out. The governor calls in a wild and fierce young hero to quell what is evidently an Onryō ghost. He encounters the two beautiful women in an eerie, beautiful scene. After spiritual purification, he meets the demon in a thrilling fight.
About an establishment where old men pay to sleep besides young girls that had been narcotized and happen to be naked, the sleeping beauties. The old men are expected to take sleeping pills and share the bed for a whole night with a girl without attempting anything of bad taste like putting a finger inside their mouths.
A sex-obsessed young woman, a suicidal young man she meets on the street, a gun-crazy wannabe gangster—these are just three of the irrational, oddball anarchists trapped in an underground hideaway in Oshima’s devilish, absurdist portrait of what he deemed the “death drive” in Japanese youth culture.
aka Libido.
Doctor
Third film of the yoidore hakase series
During a Soviet circus tour in Japan, a small street musician, Ken, meets a clown, Yuri Nikulin. Upon learning that his sick father is being treated in the Soviet Union, Ken sets off in search of him. The friendship of the great clown and the boy continues in Moscow.
Gonpachi
A well-respected drama teacher confesses to his housekeeper that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima has left him impotent. With the coming of spring, the sympathetic housekeeper suggests that the Master observe the Yobai , a custom in which the young men of a village steal into the bedrooms of susceptible women to have sex.
School director
Two young women must come to terms with the fact that a man they're deeply linked to is a murdering rapist.
Seeking revenge against the guard who tormented him, a young man returns to the island where he was imprisoned in reform school. But his plans for vengeance are disturbed when he encounters a strange and beautiful young woman
Subu makes pornographic films. He sees nothing wrong with it. They are an aid to a repressed society, and he uses the money to support his landlady, Haru, and her family. From time to time, Haru shares her bed with Subu, though she believes her dead husband, reincarnated as a carp, disapproves. Director Shohei Imamura has always delighted in the kinky exploits of lowlifes, and in this 1966 classic, he finds subversive humor in the bizarre dynamics of Haru, her Oedipal son, and her daughter, the true object of her pornographer-boyfriend’s obsession. Imamura’s comic treatment of such taboos as voyeurism and incest sparked controversy when the film was released, but The Pornographers has outlasted its critics, and now seems frankly ahead of its time.
A film dealing with the trials and tribulations of a primary school before and after the Pacific War, set in Fukashima Prefecture.
Shochiku's popular series of gang films, this one has the hero returning from prison bent on revenge. He runs into Chinese hoodlums, blackmailers and gold-smugglers. But he also aids and abets young lovers yet, despite his help, their love ends in tragedy and he tracks down his prey in Kobe.
Yamashiro-no-Kami Munemura
Provincial 14th century governor Moronao, attracted to the wife of a court magistrate, tries to seduce her and when she rejects his advances plots to send her husband into battle.
Ayako, a young woman from a rural fishing village, is sold by her family into a brothel when her father takes ill. There, she is quickly stripped of her innocence and illusions.
Retired man
On the eve of the Russo-Japanese war at the beginning of the 20th century, small-town girl Okane has married an old wealthy man to escape a life of poverty. Upon her husband’s sudden death, she withdraws to her small farming village where she stoically submits to public opprobrium and lives the silent sullen life of a pariah. Along comes Seisaku, the local “model youth”, returning from his army duty: while she is the shame of the village, he is the pride of his community. Nevertheless, the disreputable beauty and the honorable patriot begin an unlikely and tumultuous love affair that will eventually render him as marginal as she.
A young girl in an industrial town is saving her money to enter college. But her drunken father loses his job, her mother cannot make ends meet, and then the boy she likes loses everything when his factory fails. She takes all her savings out of the bank and offers them to him to make a new start. He refuses at first but eventually agrees and so she goes back to school to tell her teacher that she has decided not to continue college, that she is young and strong, and can make her own way in life.
Ushi
While her son, Kichi, is away at war, a woman and her daughter-in-law survive by killing samurai who stray into their swamp, then selling whatever valuables they find. Both are devastated when they learn that Kichi has died, but his wife soon begins an affair with a neighbor who survived the war, Hachi. The mother disapproves and, when she can't steal Hachi for herself, tries to scare her daughter-in-law with a mysterious mask from a dead samurai.
Sadako, cursed by generations before her and neglected by her common-law husband, falls prey to a brutal home intruder. But rather than become a victim, she forges a path to her own awakening.
Misawa Ihei (Nagato) is traveling with his wife Tae (Iwashita Shima) who abhors the practice of sword fighting for prize money. Tae is the daughter of the clan's chief counselor who married the low-ranking Ihei to avoid becoming the clan lord's mistress. Into the mix comes Oba Gunjuro (Tetsurō Tamba), a mysterious ronin who will do anything for money. This leads to a fitting climax as the forces of hate and love converge while the couple attempt to break through the border!
A sake factory worker on holiday returns to his home town, where he rapes the wife of one of his co-workers in the forest. The other man returns home to find his wife changed and suspects that she has been unfaithful.
Picked up and raised on an island in the Seto Inland Sea, Yasukichi's only trait is his innate mischievousness. However, because his love for his hometown is exceptionally stronger than anybody's, he is trying everything he can to somehow help the inhabitants of the island which are going through a recession. He saddles himself with a debt to bring a cheap band onto the island and tries to market the underwater sightseeing ship on the island without regards for the Marine Act.
A Tokyo student transfers to a rural school and finds it difficult to adjust himself to its customs and traditions. One of the customs is the wearing of an old school cap by a senior. It is a symbol of courage and bravery and is handed down to a new senior each year.
Boss Izu
Handsome young Katsuta tries to follow the yakuza code, but even his boss doesn't believe in it. Diamond Fuyu is less ethical, and allows the idiotic Tetsu to trick a schoolgirl he fancies, Hanako, into a type of bonded prostitution. Because of gang conflict, the Izu family (to whom Katsuta belongs) has their last gambling den taken over, and he seeks revenge. This brings him back into contact with a former lover who is also a card trickster - she is also Diamond Fuyu's sister, and is now married to Okaru-Hachi, who has mastered a clever card cheating trick called Okaru, which involves the deft use of mirrors.
Foreman
A woman, Tome, is born to a lower class family in Japan in 1918. The title refers to an insect, repeating its mistakes, as in an infinite circle. Imamura, with this metaphor, introduces the life of Tome, who keeps trying to change her poor life.
Tajima
A divorced woman enters a marriage arranged by her mother in exchange for money to save the life of her seriously ill son.
Monk
Based on a novel by Tsutomu Mizukami, this haunting melodrama focuses on a young bamboo worker who takes his father's prostitute as his wife.
Murata
Experienced shipyard worker Shimazaki gets an offer of free lodging from his employer in the company seaside rest house if he agrees to see to its running. After moving in, Shimazaki finds out that this will also mean taking care of a flock of youngsters, and he soon becomes their none-too-successful warden. At work the boys are disciplined, as soon as they return to their dormitory however they turn into an unmanageable mob.
Shinsaku Tsuda
After a businessman is murdered, an investigation identifies a suspect who is then put on trial for that crime.
Shinko Terasawa was always considered to be the odd ball of the bunch. At a time when romance was against school regulations, Shinko was the first to take a bite out of the forbidden fruit. Expelled from her former school, she finds herself in an all-girls school in Jokamachi, where rumors fly. One day, Shinko delivers an anonymous love letter addressed to her English teacher, Ms. Shimazaki. Convinced that the students are playing a prank, Ms. Shimazaki is adamant about getting to the bottom of this "problem”.
The film takes place at the junction of the two eras of Meiji and Taisho. Sakata Sankichi, an uneducated zori sandal maker, becomes a professional shogi player through his genius shogi skills and lives a fanatically devoted shogi game supported by the love of his family. This is the 3rd adaptation of Hideji Hojo's famous play.
Kamegoro
The ship Kaijin Maru is left adrift after losing all means of navigation in a storm. The four people on the ship are becoming increasingly desperate as food and water run out.
Japanese drama.
Zenkichi Segawa
Keiko is pretty and intelligent but her home life is not a happy one. Never having known a father's love, she develops a possessive attachment to Mr. Mazaki, the new mathematics teacher.
Not too long ago, Soichiro was considered one of the most powerful men in business. But his business had failed, his granddaughter had committed suicide. There was nothing in his life anymore that he could look forward to. Sochiro was ready to put an to it end to all. As he drives down the Usui Pass, headed toward his summer house in Karuizawa, a girl in red heels, wearing nothing else but a coat jumps in front of the car.
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.
A crime film released in 1962
Matsunaga
Set in Kawaguchi in the early 60s, this simple story chronicles the lives of foundry families and one girl's dreams of higher education.
President Toyotomi
Mr. Mito, a former president of an instant food company, with two young men’s help, solves the quality problems and wins a big ramen contract with a large Chinese company.
Goro
Based on the original novel by Tokuda Shusei, adapted by frequent Masumura scribe (and renowned director in his own right) Kaneto Shindo, this downbeat melodrama features a battle of women for the affections and commitment of the same man, a handsome car salesman. Masuko (Ayako Wakao) is the number one hostess at a cabaret, living with her lover, ... but finds out that he has a wife. When Masuko’s niece arrives the competition further ratchets up. (Also occasionally known in English as “Inflamation”)
A touching story of a girl who sails away from her love to keep her family together.
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.
Hikozo
Late romance by acclaimed filmmaker Kinugasa Teinosuke.
Chen
In the city of Yokosuka, Kinta and his lover Haruko, both involved with yakuza, brave the post-occupation period with a goal to be together.
Kotani
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.
Senta, the father
A family of four are the sole inhabitants of a small island, where they struggle each day to irrigate their crops.
Inosuke Uematsu
Kohei Misugi works in a vegetable market, but his ambition is to be a photographer. He is given his first opportunity to demonstrate his talent by the Sakura Film Company which offers him an assignment to "Cover Tokyo" with a camera. But he is disillusioned when he is told he must work together with Miharu, a good looking girl in the film company's publicity department. Then the fun begins.
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.
Popular geisha Koharu suspects that Yusaku, a handsome stranger she falls in love with, is involved in a robbery of precious diamond.
Kumakichi Takeda
Koharu, a young geisha, is in love with Kenichi, an apprentice carpenter to her father Masagoro. Their love life comes to a sudden halt after an argument between their two fathers. Can their love survive in spite of the bitterness between their two families?
Hemmi Gengoro
The film tells the story of four orphans living in an impoverished mining town. An adaptation of a best-selling book based on the diary of a ten-year-old zainichi (ethnic Korean Japanese) girl, it was one of the first films to deal with the subject of zainichi identity and struggles in Japan.
Drama which shows the struggle of Fumiko, a female teacher, at work and at home.
Teppei Sasada
Airline captain saves passengers from a brutal murderer on a plane during four hours of terror.
Oshiuri no Otoko
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.
Kiku and her brother Isamu are social outcasts, children of a prostitute mother and black GI father, in postwar Japan.
An ageing fishing boat, Dai-go Fukuryu Maru ("Lucky Dragon No. 5") sets out from the port of Yaizu in Shizuoka Prefecture. It travels around the Pacific line fishing. While the ship is near Bikini Atoll, the ship's navigator sees a flash. All the crew come up to watch. They realize it is an atomic explosion, but take time to clear their fishing gear. A short time later, grey ash starts to fall on the ship. When the ship returns to port the sailors have been burned brown. They unload the fish, which are then transported away. They visit the local doctor and then go to Tokyo for an examination. It turns out they are all highly radioactive. Their symptoms become worse, and the contaminated fish causes a panic.
(uncredited)
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.
Ramen shop owner
Set in post-war Japan, a group of five, four men and one woman, gathers in the basement of a butcher shop to dig up a cache of morphine buried during the war. A grimly humorous tale of twisted relationships as one by one each of the group is eliminated.
Masumura
Former boxer Daishiro lost his wife, and his only son, Kaoru, went missing, it was a heavy blow for Daishiro. One day, Daishiro got a call from his relative Morihiko. He said he forgot the winning lottery ticket of 2 million yen at the hotel, so he wants Daishiro to go and pick it up. Morihiko used the hotel for secret meetings, so he said he couldn't go there himself because he was afraid it would become public. When Daishiro entered the hotel, the Yakuza, who learned about the lottery from the newspaper, threaten the hotel maid Noriko, and want to rob her. Daishiro helps Noriko and safely picks up the lottery, but a message arrives from his relative Seikichi from Osaka. His missing son Kaoru is said to be a boxer in Osaka. "My son... He has the blood of a boxer in him..." Daishiro is heading to Osaka in a hurry...
The film marked Yōko Mihara's debut as the star of Shintoho's series of ama films, a role she took over from Michiko Maeda.
детектив Мацумото
Nobuo is a hot-headed hoodlum fresh out of reform school who struggles to make a clean break with his tearaway past.
Following a yearlong attendance upon his shogun in Edo, samurai Hikokuro makes a long-awaited return to his home and doting wife, Dane. Initially greeted by the effusive welcome of his family, spiteful whispers also reach his ear about an adulterous affair carried on, in his long absence, between his wife and a famous drummer. With Hikokuro’s honor imperiled by rumor, his family insists on a formal investigation into the veracity of the gossip. Through the combined testimony of many witnesses, a tale unwinds around the visits of a traveling musician hired to tutor the family heir, the spurned attentions of the man who started the rumor, and the ultimate truth behind the accusations. The conclusion of events prove as much an indictment of bushidō as it is of the reluctant parties involved. Adapted from a 1706 play by Chikamatsu Monzaemon and based on a true case.
Kenta
A chance meeting between two traveling gamblers leads to a case of mistaken identity when the farmers transporting gold to the governor think they are about to be robbed as the two gamblers face off against each other swords in hand.
Live-action adaptation of Yoshiro Kato’s manga.
Yajiro, Heiichiro's uncle
1957 drama from director Kôzaburô Yoshimura
Tobe
Shokichi, the owner of the clothing store, lives with his daughter Hideko and plans to open an art gallery. One day, Hideko led a handsome art student, Shohei and a poor painter, Sohei. Sohei’s painting was praised by a great printer at the completion ceremony of the art gallery. Since he became successful as a painter, but he looked quite indifferent. Around the same time, Shohei’s sister brought Sohei’s pictures to the gallery and Shokichi noticed that she was a daughter of his first love.
A scrap iron carrier arrived at Tokyo bay. The ship swarmed with the stevedores, the souvenir seller and the hookers. The crews of ship were oppressed by arrogant captain and his officers. The crews caused an uprising. A manager of stevedore ordered his employee leader to suppress an uprising...
Kurazo
Saheji, a man-about-town, gets stuck at a high-class brothel when he can’t pay the bill. He makes the best of his situation by performing various tasks amidst the tumult of the end of the shogunate—but always by making sure to get a “commission” for his troubles.
Frank
Harsh film about a car dealer who gets into financial trouble.
Pote-chan
Eikichi Yamashiro, who is a former contender for the boxing title, works as a manager at a Club Champion owned by his fiancé Natsuko’s father. He lost a title match five years ago as he was besotted by Natsuko, but Eikichi actually cannot give up the dream of the championship. One day, he meets Shuntaro Fuma, who is a punk kid but a promising boxer, and realizes the dream that he himself could never fulfill. Then, they together start to train with the aim of the title. Mari Shiraki is an up-and-coming ballerina under the patronage of Eikichi as well. Eikichi forbids Shuntaro and Mari to be romantically involved with someone during their training, however, they start to go on a date. (source: Nikkatsu International)
Senkichi Hanamura
Kawai Midori's father left the family a long time ago and since her mother passed away, she has taken care of her younger siblings by herself by working with a group of itinerant camellia oil peddlers. While she is In Izu selling camellia oil, she meets a young student, Katō Yutaka, who asks her to let him take her picture. The peddlers also meet a jazz band, and when Midori sings a song, teased by the band's star singer Nanjō Haruo, the band members are enraptured by her beautiful voice. She eventually joins the band and quickly becomes a popular jazz singer.
Based on Kakuko Mori's autobiography, about her life and retirement from acting due to her increasing blindness.
Dotanba - Last Minute
Doctor Otsuki
A 1956 alien invasion tokusatsu film directed by Shinichi Sekizawa, the screenwriter noted for his immense contributions to Toho's Godzilla series by providing the screenplays/stories for the majority of the original Showa films.
Japanese drama film.
In the backstreets of Ginza, the boss of a hairdressing salon is found dead, killed by strangulation. The detective on the case soon hears rumors about the murder.
Shime
In 1906, after finishing a tough migrant job in the Philippines, Takichi has returned to Japan. He starts to work as a rickshaw driver, but his lover had died of an illness, leaving a baby girl, Hatsue. Hatsue grows up beautifully and falls in love with Shintaro. But Takichi objects to their relationship...
Shokichi
Uhei Matsumura
Police beat a murder confession out of four innocent men who are then sentenced to death. Based on a true story.
Gensaku
Based on the novel by Torahiko Tamiya.
From runaway brides to a typhoon, the continued adventures of Ushikata police station.
Kabuki adaptation: A princess, a figure from the literary past who anticipates a modern woman, tempts a self righteous priest.
Five years have passed since the three comrades who saved their lives on the Burma Campaign-Kenichiro Kishi, Eiji Shiga, and Daizo Kobayashi promised to meet again five years later at the platform of Shinagawa Station, which was crowded with repatriates. , The day of reunion is approaching.
Bartender (segment 1)
A group of five rookie insurance salespersons, driven to desperation by the impossibility of their work in Japan's failing postwar economy, form a plan to rob a cash delivery truck in order to provide for their families.
Mr. Yamaguchi
The female members of the family of the Minister of Health and Welfare, who has just proposed a program of birth control, become pregnant one after the other. - Nikkatsu
Patrolman Kuramochi
Lending money, job hunting for civilians and babysitting. All these things are usually not listed on a policeman's job description. But for the officers of this local police station, it‘s part of their daily routine. One day, patrolman Yoshii (Hisaya Morishige) finds an abandoned baby and a six year old girl standing in front of the station. When he's declined by the welfare office, orphanage and local health clinic to take them in, he decides to take care of them himself.
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.
Toku, a factory worker gives food to a starving woman, Tsuru, who then follows him home. He shares a shack in a shanty village in Kawasaki with his friend Pin-chan. The two men try to get rid of her but then let her stay when she gives them money. Tsuru tells the people of the village that she lost her job due to a strike, then was robbed of her severance pay, then sold to a brothel in Tsuchiura. She ran away with a friend from Kawasaki. Toku and Pin-chan sell her to a geisha house and spend the money. She is thrown out. The owner demands his money back. Tsuru earns the money to pay their debt by working as a prostitute outside the station. The other prostitutes beat her. She fends them off with a policeman's revolver and is then shot dead by the police.
Gen'ichi Inoue
Based on Philippines war experiences. Military doctor Leutenant Hanada deserts with a local girl. The officer in command orders Lieutenant Uji to shoot Hanada. Uji takes a sharpshooter called Takagi and tracks him. At first Uji cannot forgive Hanada but as Uji is isolated from the main force he too starts to think of desertion.
1950s Japanese drama.
Kakisuke
Japan, 1159. Moritō, a brave samurai, performs a heroic act by rescuing the lovely Kesa during a violent uprising. Moritō falls in love with her, but becomes distraught when he finds out that she is married.
Risaburo
Nobuko Otowa won the Blue Ribbon for the Best Actress for this movie among others.
Yamada
Ginko, a poor cobbler's daughter, becomes a geisha to support her family. She passes from one geisha house to the next, trying to find love and hope in the process. No matter how hard she tries, she just can't escape her sad fate.
Kazuo Miyagawa’s prizewinning black-and-white cinematography draws out the moral shadings of Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata’s 1952 novel Thousand Cranes, a quietly devastating story of a young man, orphaned during the war, who stumbles into a passionate yet tragic relationship with his late father’s mistress and her daughter.
A group of Okinawan high school girls are drafted as nurses during the American invasion of the island. As the enemy army advances further, the situation for the girls becomes increasingly desperate as food and shelter run out and the number of injured climbs, leading to the film's tragic finale.
President of Akabane Construction
Office worker comedy by Nobuo Nakagawa
Owner of a ship
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.
A family of Kyoto textile workers struggles after tragedy.
Dedication of the Great Buddha is a 1952 Japanese film directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa. It was entered into the 1953 Cannes Film Festival.
Story of a Beloved Wife is an autobiographical work based on Shindo's first marriage. Jūkichi Uno stars as a struggling screenwriter, and Nobuko Otowa stars as the wife who supports him through his early struggles.
Directed by Senkichi Taniguchi
A Japanese adaptation of Guy de Maupassant's short story Boule de Suif, directed by Kimura Keigo
Clothes of Deception initiated Yoshimura’s most characteristic vein. This geisha story is often described as a loose remake of Mizoguchi’s pre-war masterpiece Sisters of Gion (1936), but this is inexact. Whereas in Mizoguchi’s study of two sisters, both women had been geisha, in Yoshimura’s film only Kimicho (Kyo Machiko) is, while her sister works in the Kyoto tourist office. Juxtaposing a traditional Kyoto profession with a modern one, Yoshimura shows how life in the old capital was changing in the wake of wider transformations in Japanese society.
Aoye's friend
A celebrity photograph sparks a court case as a tabloid magazine spins a scandalous yarn over a painter and a famous singer.
Ango Shindo
An attempt is made to suppress a journalist's investigation of collusion between a rural police chief and the local gangster bosses.
Waretsuku
The tale of a feudal swordsman who cynically takes no responsibility for anything, relegating it to others, and then taking the credit.
Life and love in corrupt postwar Tokyo, as a young couple struggles against both the law and the mob.
Matsushita
A 1948 Japanese film.
Shop Proprietor
Doctor Sanada treats gangster Matsunaga after he is wounded in a gunfight, and discovers that he is suffering from tuberculosis. Sanada tries to convince Matsunaga to stay for treatment, which would drastically change his lifestyle. They form an uneasy friendship until Matsunaga's old boss Okada returns from prison.
A young lawyer falls in love with the daughter of his former professor, whom he's hired to tutor his children.
Yoshida
After Japan's loss in the war, the wealthy, cultured, liberal Anjo family have to give up their mansion and their way of life. They hold one last ball at the house before leaving. The seemingly cold, cynical son secretly grieves for his defeated father and the values that the war destroyed, while the daughter tries to prevent father from taking his life and to find her own place in the new Japan.
Photographer
An errant salaryman's son gets lost until a man from the Tokyo tenements brings him to vendor Tane, who's reluctant to let the kid board.
Rokuzô Ôkuma
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.
