Isao Tamagawa

Isao Tamagawa

Birth : 1922-01-11, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan

Death : 2004-01-01

Profile

Isao Tamagawa

Movies

A Tale of Youth at Hirosaki High School
A semi-autobiographical film about a young man from Tokyo who moves to Hirosaki in the early Shōwa era. A straight-to-video production made for the Hirosaki Senior High School Alumni Association that also incorporates footage from contemporary Hirosaki, and features cameos by regular Suzuki performers like Tamagawa Isao and Nogawa Yumiko.
Nezumi Kozō kaitō den
Japanese comedy film.
Kagero-za
Clerk
A 1920s playwright meets a beautiful woman who may be the ghost of his patron's deceased wife.
Port Arthur
Kanemoto Matsumura
Depicts the bloody siege of the fortress of Port Arthur, one of the most strongly fortified positions in the world, during the Russo-Japanese War of (1904 - 1905). In the story dominated the character Lt Takeshi Kogyo (Teruhiko Aoi), teachers, and a reserve officer who became commander of the platoon and later company. At the same time monitors the conduct of the army commander general Nogi (Tatsuya Nakadai), which was commissioned of the emperor Matsuhito (Toshirô Mifune) to the conquest of the fort.
Zigeunerweisen
Doctor Amaki
A surreal period film following an university professor and his eerie nomad friend as they go through loose romantic triangles and face death in peculiar ways.
The Fall of Teenager
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.
Take Me Away!
Kyoko met Tetsu during her trip to San Francisco. Soon they fell in love but getting married was not in his mind. They were to meet again back in Tokyo but Tetsu didn't turn up. She went to look for him in San Francisco but all she found was him with his new girlfriend. Kyoko went back to Tokyo and eventually married a big corporate CEO...
Sweet Revenge
Detective Oka
Masao is falsely accused and jailed for the murder of a loanshark to whom he owed a lot of money. His sister Kiriko makes the long trip to Tokyo, specifically to accost Otsuka, Japan's top criminal defence lawyer, and plead with him to take her brother's case. They live in Kitakyushu which, though a city, she contends that the local lawyers are not up to the job. Otsuka contemptuously brushes her off. A year passes. Masao has suicided in jail, his appeal having failed due to the lack of interest and competence of the local defence lawyer. Kiriko returns to Tokyo, planning revenge on Otsuka for refusing the case and causing her brother's death.
The Visitor in the Eye
Detective Geta
Komori Tiaki is a budding tennis student, however one day in training her coach hits the ball into her eye accidentally. She is taken to hospital but it advised that she will never regain the sight in her eye. Her coach knows of a mysterious doctor 'Blackjack' who lives in a secluded house, who might be able to help. 'Blackjack' agrees to do the operation, but for a 'substantial reward'! Her sight is regained, but now she starts to see a mysterious man that is invisible to those around her....
Mount Hakkoda
Captain Okitsu
Two infantry regiments of the Imperial Japanese Army—210 men overall—tackled Mt. Hakkoda in the winter of 1902 to prepare for war with Russia.
A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness
Mori
A model must cope with the stress of fame after a marketing executive transforms her into a sports celebrity.
Utamaro's World
Utamaro was an artist who lived in Edo (which was later to become modern-day Tokyo) in the late 18th century. This film, which has a complex and wide-ranging storyline, recreates the world of that time, as it appeared in Utamaro's paintings.
Cobra 2
Tomoda
Japanese crime film.
Graveyard of Honor
A look at the life of renegade yakuza, Rikio Ishikawa, particularly the years from 1946 to 1950 when his violent antics get him in trouble with his own clan, Kawada, and then with the clan of his protector, Kozaburo Imai. In these years, he can rely on Chieko, a young Tokyo courtesan who gives him shelter. He's banished to Osaka, where he picks up a drug habit. Through it all, he keeps his friends and enemies off balance with unpredictable behavior - and he seems indestructible.
Cross-Currents
A ryokan maid is on trial for pushing a familiar guest off a cliff to his death. An eager attorney offers to take the case to gain notoriety.
Shadow Hunters
Set during the declining years of the Tokugawa shogunate, Shadow Hunters details the questionably noble exploits of three ronin who act as "Shadow Hunters". These three ronin are not your normal ornery ruffians who are looking for a drink, a broad and someone to jab a sword into, but are in fact former samurai who, rather than follow their destroyed fiefs and murdered masters into death via seppuku, have dedicated their combined sword prowess to stopping the government from raping its daimyos for valuable resources.
Hazardous Graduation
Sex games by students at a junior high school are exposed by the principal and teachers, but the tables are turned in favor of the students.
Penitentiary Brothers
Authentic action drama of modern gangsters.
Safari 5000
A Japanese racing driver for Nissan named Godai (Yujiro Ishihara) have a rivalry with a French driver named Pierre (Jean-Claude Drouot). Godai is enlisted to race in an annual endurance race, The East African Safari Rally. Peripheral to this is the story concerning Godai's former lover Yuko (Ruriko Asaoka), a fashion designer, and her friend Anna (Emmanuel Riva), who happens to be Pierre's wife.
The Rough One
A tale of wannabe yakuza youths. When not cooking up scams with his buddies, Zenkichi develops a crush on Taro's disgusted sister, Miki. But soon the young hoods run afoul of their underworld idols when they rob the wrong gang, led by brutal boss Konno. When Zenkichi's pals start to bite the dust, he hooks up with a more traditional yakuza, Tetsugoro, to retaliate.
Outlaw: Heartless
Gohara
Goro Fujikawa (Tetsuya Watari) was indebted to Mitsugimoto. Sawada, a low rank yakuza with a gambling problem owed Mitsugimoto three million yen. This equation can only lead to one answer. Mitsugimoto needs to pay and Goro's coming to collect.
The Sands of Kurobe
Sayama
Kitagawa is an engineer charged with construction of a gigantic tunnel through the Japan Alps for the transportation of equipment in the building of the massive Kurobe Dam. The tunnel crosses an earthquake fault and Kitagawa is beleaguered not only by cave-ins and flooding, but by strife between management and the workers's union. Adding to Kitagawa's stress is the knowledge that as his attention is pulled inexorably toward the tunnel construction, his youngest daughter is dying from leukemia.
Japan's Longest Day
Colonel Okitsugu Arao - Chief of Military Affairs Section
Following the detonation of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese military and the government clash over the demand from the Allies for unconditional surrender. Minister of the Army Anami leads the military officers who propose to fight on, even to the death of every Japanese citizen. Emperor Hirohito, however, joins with his ministers in asking the unthinkable, the peaceful surrender of Japan. When the military plots a coup to overthrow the Emperor's civilian government, Anami must face the choice between his desires and loyalty to his Emperor.
Branded to Kill
Michihiko Yabuhara
After botching his latest assignment, a third-ranked Japanese hit man becomes the target of another assassin.
Fighting Elegy
Principal
Kiroku boards with a Roman Catholic family and falls for the daughter Michiko. He ignores his feelings, joins a gang, gets in fights and, eventually, becomes involved with the radical Kita Ikki group.
Zero Fighter
Japanese war movie.
Tokyo Drifter
Umetani
After yakuza boss Kurata dissolves his own criminal empire, a rival kingpin offers a position to Kurata's top operative, Tetsuya "Phoenix Tetsu" Hondo. When the fiercely loyal Tetsu declines, Otsuka taps unstoppable Tatsuzo the "Viper", a ruthless gun-for-hire, to assassinate him. As the Viper trails his target through the countryside, the agile Phoenix Tetsu grows concerned that one of his former associates has betrayed him.
Kokoro no sanmyaku
A film dealing with the trials and tribulations of a primary school before and after the Pacific War, set in Fukashima Prefecture.
The Stars and I Decided...
Iwakichi Mori
The brother of an up-and-coming kendoka is mysteriously murdered while working on a new model of motorboat.
Story of a Prostitute
Narita
Volunteering as a "comfort woman" on the Manchurian front, where she is expected to service hundreds of soldiers, Harumi is commandeered by the brutal Lieutenant Narita but falls for the sensitive Mikami, Narita's direct subordinate. Seijun Suzuki's Story of a Prostitute is a tragic love story as well as a rule-bending take on a popular Taijiro Tamura novel, challenging military and fraternal codes of honor, as seen through Harumi's eyes.
The Ghost of the Hunchback
A hunchbacked caretaker presides over a forlorn mansion inhabited by the ghosts of his previous masters. An unbelieving trio (a doctor, his assistant and his niece) fail to heed the caretaker's warnings and are slaughtered horribly by the jealous occupants.
Kwaidan
(segment "Chawan no naka") (uncredited)
Taking its title from an archaic Japanese word meaning "ghost story," this anthology adapts four folk tales. A penniless samurai marries for money with tragic results. A man stranded in a blizzard is saved by Yuki the Snow Maiden, but his rescue comes at a cost. Blind musician Hoichi is forced to perform for an audience of ghosts. An author relates the story of a samurai who sees another warrior's reflection in his teacup.
The Flower and the Sword
A dangerous mobster threatens the life of a businessman's mother in this thriller. As Ryuji oversees the building of a bridge in Japan, a powerful gangster plans to stop the project. By any means necessary.
Homecoming
Moriya Tomoko, a young girl working for a publishing company, is told by a woman art dealer that her real father did not die, as everyone believes, during the revolution in Cuba, but is now living in Japan. Tomoko's mother has remarried a strict, narrow-minded university professor, whose only worry is protecting his family name from the slightest blemish.
Gate of Flesh
Horidome
In the shady black markets and bombed-out hovels of post–World War II Tokyo, a tough band of prostitutes eke out a dog-eat-dog existence, maintaining tenuous friendships and a semblance of order in a world of chaos. But when a renegade ex-soldier stumbles into their midst, lusts and loyalties clash, with tragic results. With Gate of Flesh, visionary director Seijun Suzuki delivers a whirlwind of social critique and pulp drama, shot through with brilliant colors and raw emotions.
Pale Flower
Police Officer
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.
The Flower and the Angry Waves
A young yakuza in love with the girl who's to marry his clan oyabun, kidnaps the girl before fleeing with her. In Tokyo, he hides under the identity of a worker while the young woman becomes a waitress in a restaurant.
Tale of Army Brutality
Director Jun'ya Satô's debut film focuses on the inhuman training of recruits, the brutal drill system that reigned in the Japanese army during World War II, where in the first two years of training, ordinary people were turned into inhuman killers. For his first film, the director was awarded the Blue Ribbon Awards in the Debutant of the Year nomination.
Tokyo Bay
Ryohei Inoue
An investigation into a drug smuggler who is assassinated in front of an insurance building sets two detectives, Sumikawa and Akine, into a sprawling investigation through Tokyo's underworld.
Joyu
Based on Kakuko Mori's autobiography, about her life and retirement from acting due to her increasing blindness.
Twice on a Certain Night
Poor social conditions badly affect the relationship between a married couple, when the husband, who is desperately searching for work, fails to notice the terrible sacrifices made by his wife when she accepts a job at a local inn.
The Street Without Sun
Moriyama