The last year of Ryotaro Shiba's life, as he tried to achieve peace and independence without joining the armies of East and West.
Tetsuruo Ogawa
The Master’s late-night diner welcomes a woman troubled by funeral fans, an elderly scam victim, and a noodle delivery man struggling with love.
A biopic of seminal 20th century artist Leonard Foujita, a contemporary of Picasso and Modigliani, who was famous for mixing up European and Japanese styles.
Toshio Nakamura
Yuri Kashiwaga was once known as a genius pianist. One day, she returns to her hometown in Goto Islands from Tokyo. There, she begins to work as a temporary teacher at a middle school and advisor for the school chorus. The chorus aims to take part at a competition. Yuri gives the members of the chorus members an assignment. She instructs them to write a letter with the title of “To myself 15 years later.” The 15-year-old boys and girls write about their secrets and worries.
Bunji
Toru grew up in alpine countryside around Mount Tate. As a child, he resented the yearly trek up the mountain with his father to prepare their mountain hut for the summer season of climbers. When Toru grows up, he leaves his hometown and enters the working world as a stock trader. One day, Toru receives word that his father has passed away. He returns to Mount Tate once again, and becomes conscious of a new calling. But, does Toru have what it takes to follow in his father footsteps?
Katsuji Shimizu
Shimizu Yuichi is a shy and lonely day laborer looking for love. He aimlessly spends time corresponding with girls via telephone dating services and going on random encounters with girls looking for spending cash. His world is shattered one day when he is involved in the murder of one of his former encounters, the sweet-faced Ishibashi Yoshino who, after being jilted by playboy Masuo Keijo, berates and mocks the troubled loner.
In 1907, a group of men climb an unconquered peak in the last unmapped region of Japan.
Yujiro
Coming of age story about a boy and his mother.
Kaori, a professional thirty-something caught between her passion for an older married man and the indulgence of an energetic, but less-fulfilling, youthful suitor.
Kanji Shimizu
Satoshi Nomura, a top-level bureaucrat of a prefecture government, has passion for his career. One day, he is hired by the fixed-term personnel exchange training between public and private businesses. This personnel exchange training is part of some big prefecture project. This project is very big, so success of this personnel exchange training will probably determine his career. Nomura goes to a supermarket called "Mantendo".
Housekeeper Agent
This is the story between single mother housekeeper and mathematics professor,who has a brain damage.
The Chairman
Directed by Junya Sato and based on a book by Jun Henmi, "Yamato" has a framing story set in the present day and uses flashbacks to tell the story of the crew of the World War II Japanese battleship Yamato. The film was never released in the United States, where reviewers who have seen it have compared the military epic to "Titanic" and "Saving Private Ryan."
A Japanese remake of the South Korean film of the same name.
Miyo Hanayama (Etsuko Ichihara) works as a home care nurse, supporting the home care of patients who are close to death. Shigeaki Noguchi (Shigeru Kamiyama) complains that his wife has stopped talking to him since he collapsed once. Noriko Imaizumi (Hideko Yoshida) refuses to undergo surgery because her business has taken off and continues to recuperate at home. And 18-year-old Emi Akizuki (Juri Ueno) insists on visiting the town where she used to live. Everyone is trying their best to live their lives while keeping an eye on their imminent death, which may come at any moment. Meanwhile, Yuki (Mari Hoshino), a nurse like Miyo, discovers she is pregnant.
Half a Confession introduces itself as a thriller and abruptly changes gears, transforming into a tale of morality with deeper insights into its characters than we had anticipated. It begins when Soichiro Kaji (Terao), a retired detective, walks into police headquarters and confesses to the murder of his wife. We learn that the victim had prematurely developed Alzheimer's after the tragic death of their son, and in her suffering, had asked to die. The police chiefs would be far more content to take him at his word if it were not for a conspicuous hole in his story: 48-hour gap between the alleged murder and his confession. Fearing a public relations nightmare, they are eager to bury the incident and keep the press in the dark.
Tokujiro Okouchi
Based on a true story set in Matsumoto city, Nagano, during 1960s. A stray dog wanders into a high school's grounds. The dog, named Kuro, stays at the school and becomes a special friend to everyone.
Self
Documentary made by Toho for the Masterworks reissue of all of its Kurosawa films. This one focuses on "Dodes'ka-den" (1970).
Sayuri's father
As the film begins, Takao (Akira Terao) and Michiko (Kanako Higuchi) have already pulled up their Tokyo roots and moved to a village that is Takao's ancestral home. They visit a thatched cottage that serves as a memorial shrine (amidado) for the village dead and chat with the attendant, the spry 96-year-old Oume (Tanie Kitabayashi). Together they admire the view -- from an inspiring distance. Oume, it turns out, is a kind of sage, whose thoughts and observations are a popular feature in a column in a local newsletter. Her amanuensis is a mute, sweetly smiling young woman named Sayuri (Manami Konishi), who is as devoted to Oume as Oume is to the souls of her beloved dead.
Japanese film icon Ken Takakura, who has starred in over 100 films, stars in this elegiac look at war and remembrance. Hideji Yamaoka (Takakura) was a suicide pilot during the war who somehow survived Japan's surrender. After decades of working as a fisherman in Kumamoto, a provincial seaside city in southern Kyushu, Yamaoka remains reluctant to discuss his wartime experiences with anyone, much less an intrusive reporter looking for a feature story. Then a series of events shake Yamaoka to the core, forcing him to re-evaluate his past.
Kudo
After his girlfriend commits suicide, a man becomes embroiled in gang warfare attempting to obtain a gun in hopes to kill himself.
Kihei Ishiyama
A group of travelers is stranded in a small country inn when the river floods during heavy rains. As the bad weather continues, tensions rise amongst the trapped travelers.
Fourteen-year old student Ayumi has leukemia and starts losing hair. She becomes depressed but receives overwhelming support from her classmates when they all shave their heads for her.
Detective
Based on real-life events, this erotic thriller tells the sad and sadistic tale of a Japanese geisha whose behavior spiraled out of control.
A detective film by Nobuhiko Ōbayashi. Made for TV.
Editor Yabe
A story of friendship between two women, Yae and Kiyoko. Their friendship is tested when artist Yae, who suffers from fatal illness, develops special feelings towards her best friend Kiyoko’s boyfriend Kosuke.
People from all walks of life (a high-school student, a middle-aged businessman, a yakuza chief, etc.) all receive mysterious messages from loved ones who were killed 3 months earlier in a shipwreck. They are instructed to go to a small island in the Inland Sea that evening. At the stroke of midnight, the lost ship emerges from the sea and they are given a brief time to say their final words to their lost loved ones, before the deceased must once again board the ship and it sinks back into the depths.
Asian Blue focuses on Koreans brought to Japan to work in forced-labor brigades during World War II
Following the lives of three college rugby players drafted to serve in the military during WWII. Though they believe their service will help to benefit their loved ones back home, they are unprepared for the hardships of war. Through their shared trials and sacrifices, they grow closer as friends, and hope to return together to better days. This movie was released in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the end of WWII.
Isobe
A group of Japanese tourists try to forget their pasts and find themselves in India.
Okuda
Kon Ichikawa's retelling of the classic true story of Samurai honor. When a young clan lord is forced to commit seppuku (ritual suicide), his loyal followers (now Ronin, masterless Samurai) dedicate their lives to avenging his death.
Takayama
Based on the life of Hyakken Uchida, a Japanese author and academic. The film opens with Uchida resigning his job as a German professor at the onset of WWII. The story is told mostly in vignettes as he is cared for by former students in his old age.
Period piece about a samurai who marries a mysterious beautiful young woman who claims to have lost her memory.
The indolent son of an oil vendor becomes a regular customer of a prostitute, racks up a mountain of debt, and is disowned by his parents.
Prosecutor
A headmaster and a novelist, looking for inspiration, regard a strange natural phenomenon before sharing stories of their own.
Tokugawa Ieyasu
Furuta Oribe is ordered to become tea master under Toyotomi Hideyoshi after his teacher Sen no Rikyū, the former tea master, was ordered to commit suicide. Princess Goh, daughter of the lord but adopted by Hideyoshi, is outraged when Rikyū's severed head is thrown in the Nijo River. She sends Usu, Oribe's servant, to retrieve the head and deliver it to Rikyū's adopted daughter.
When a team of detectives lose the trail of a murderer, they decide to keep an eye on the suspect’s ex-lover, who is trapped in an abusive marriage.
Tadao
The story centers on an elderly hibakusha, whose husband was one of 80,000 human beings killed in the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki, caring for her four grandchildren over the summer. She learns of a long-lost brother, Suzujiro, living in Hawaii who wants her to visit him before he dies.
Yuta Hanafusa
An auto repairman's daughter questions him about what happened to her aunt during the war, but the father remains reticent. Finally the man opens up, and the girl is able to piece together her aunt's tragic story.
"Do Not Fall" - Set during Japan's Meiji period, three sisters are abused and exploited by their harsh father, including a daughter who plays the three-corded shamisen for pilgrims visiting the sacred chapel of Ise.
Otomo
Masaki, a baseball player and gas-station attendant, gets into trouble with the local Yakuza and goes to Okinawa to get a gun to defend himself. There he meets Uehara, a tough gangster, who is in serious debt to the yakuza and planning revenge.
Nuclear Plant Worker
A collection of magical tales based upon the actual dreams of director Akira Kurosawa.
Soji
Late in the 1500s, an aging tea master teaches the way of tea to a headstrong Shogun. Through force of will and courageous fighting, Hideyoshi becomes Japan’s most powerful warlord, unifying the country.
A Japanese boy in love with a girl of Korean origin must battle the prejudices of those around him in order to sustain the relationship.
Ryokichi Tagami
The reincarnation of a 10th century Japanese general haunts 1920's Tokyo.
Maekawa (uncredited)
The tragic, true story about Hachikō, an Akita dog who was loyal to his master, Professor Ueno, even after Ueno's death.
勘作
Isoya
Story of famed Japanese actress Kinuyo Tanaka, with an emphasis on her working relationship with director Kenji Mizoguchi.
Vice-principal
Takeshi Yasui, a junior high school student is found dead in a river. The police investigate it as a murder related to bullying. The dead boy turns out to have been murdered by two of his schoolmates, who he had been bullying.
Osamu Uemura
The life and travels of adventurer Naomi Uemura, who disappeared in Alaska in 1984. A member of the first Japanese expedition to reach the summit of Mt Everest in 1970, Uemura also accomplished several "firsts". He was the first man to reach the North Pole solo, climb Denali solo, and float down the Amazon river solo. In the film, Uemura returns to Tokyo after a stint in Siorapaluk in Northern Greenland. In Tokyo, he reconnects with an old friend and, over coffee, shares his life story - from his days as a college dropout to his successful expedition to the top of Everest.
Tsubono
In the 50s, the complicated life of a popular writer who must share his life with his family, his numerous mistresses and his work
Running Man
In this humorous paean to the joys of food, a pair of truck drivers happen onto a decrepit roadside shop selling ramen noodles. The widowed owner, Tampopo, begs them to help her turn her establishment into a paragon of the "art of noodle-soup making". Interspersed are satirical vignettes about the importance of food to different aspects of human life.
Shuri Kurogane
With Ran, legendary director Akira Kurosawa reimagines Shakespeare's King Lear as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan. Majestic in scope, the film is Kurosawa's late-life masterpiece, a profound examination of the folly of war and the crumbling of one family under the weight of betrayal, greed, and the insatiable thirst for power.
A boy transfers into a new high school in the big city. He gets bullied, but meets a pretty girl. He tries to win her heart, but rivals abound. Debut video release from Pantsu no ana, a subsection of "BOMB" magazine.
Nishijima Tetsukichi
A female college student who aims to become a pianist meets a boy who raises a guide dog.
Army Surgeon Oka
A remake of the 1953 film of the same name.
The president of the Japanese National Railways is found dead during a period in which train service is plagued by numerous layoffs, strikes and shutdowns. The government says that the president was murdered; the police claim it was a suicide. A quizzical reporter follows the case for years, but the basic question remains unanswered: was the victim killed by members of the burgeoning Communist movement in Japan, or was the death stage-managed by the authorities in hopes of discrediting the Communists?
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.
Gyougyou
Set in Japan's Tenpyou era (729-749 CE), four young monks are sent to China to study Buddhism and bring a high priest back to Japan with them. The film tells the tale of the four monks' youth and the life and times of the high priest Ganjin.
The Carp
Outside of a small village in Japan, a mysterious pond is inhabited by mythic creatures. Their story is of revenge, tragedy, and the power of real love. A classical tale which translates wonderfully to film.
Iwakura
Akira leaves for the Mt. Gassan foothills before winter's onset, visiting the local temple and interacting with the residents all while falling for fair Fumiko.
A very beautiful Japanese woman is in love with Persian carpets. She is being chased by lecherous Saburi Shin and a handsome young photographer. Lecherous Saburi Shin knows what she wants, and is able to produce it for her.
Suicide has long been used as a form of social protest in Japan. In this film, set in 1703, samurai culture is being transformed by the emergence of a new merchant class. Elements of the social contract are beginning to unravel, and some unscrupulous people took undue advantage of these changes before the social order was re-created. In this story, a rich merchant gives his clerk an I.O.U. instead of wages. When the impoverished clerk presents the paper to the merchant at the agreed upon time asking for payment, the man flies into a rage and pretends he never wrote it and claims the clerk is trying to defraud him. Then he sets his henchmen on the clerk to administer a beating.
Kanji Igawa
The heir to a family fortune discovers that a curse has been placed on it, put there centuries before by a band of samurai warriors. Adaptation of novel by Seishi Yokomizo
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.
Drama and intrigue about defense contracts and corruption.
This appears to be a labor of love. Its about a village which is given the opportunity to put on a musical. They would have to pay the overhead and, being that they are farmers and always busy and not rich, question the wisdom and feasibility of such an idea. A spokesperson for the acting troupe Ms. Kono lays out the whole thing and they must decide. You get little slices of rural life in Japan far, at least in sentiment, from Tokyo. The best thing about this film is that it has heart. The acting is good, but it is really about the simple storyline of outing on a show. Films rarely get made with such simplistic plots these days. Enjoy this little slice of what city people call “the simple life”.
Akiyama is an intern, disgusted with the noise pollution caused by the bullet trains and the heart attacks that noise has been causing in older hospital patients, plots to disrupt and, in ten days, destroy a unit of the operation. He warns the Japan National Railway, that, if nothing is done to reduce the noise, he will derail a bullet train. Takigawa is the police detective sent to stop him.
Funazu
An industrialist is diagnosed with terminal cancer. He is on a trip to Europe at the time, and a glimpse of a Japanese woman in that setting causes him to fantasize about her as the personification of his impending death. As his dialogue with his imagined mortality continues, he actually meets the living woman who is the template for his fantasy, and together they tour rural churches. Gradually he comes to some kind of peace about the diagnosis. When he returns to Japan, he is met with a series of challenges which profoundly test the lessons he has learned.
Bakyo is a talented but unsuccessful rakugo artist. The very successful Rokyu wants to take Bakyo under his wings, but Bakyo refuses, claiming that Rokyu's rakugo is compromised by the elements of kabuki. But Bakyo changes his mind and determines to learn (or steal) Rokyu's craft and makes it his own.
Mainly the story of Shinsuke and his stepmother, ranging from Shinsuke's infanthood to his mid-teens. Coal workers and the mines dominate nearly every aspect of the life of the characters. Shinsuke's father dies while bravely using dynamite to rescue a group of trapped Korean miners. Several older men attempt to help he and his mother cope, including a kind Korean and a Harley-riding yakuza.
The struggle of a young man and boys who try to create the environment where they can speak their minds freely.
Seiichi Ishizaki
On a beautiful island in Seto Inner Sea, Seichi and Minko make their living by transporting rocks to construction sites by boat. They cherish the deepest affection for this piece of land they call home, and the simple life they lead. But rapid industrial growth makes it all but impossible to continue their chosen living style, and they are forced to leave their beloved hometown in search of a brighter future. But their hometown lingers on their hearts, and they dream of a time when they may once again return.
Ota
The plight of U.S. Army deserters from Vietnam on the run in Japan, centering on the culture clash between the troubled Americans and the Japanese who try to help him.
Narrator
After going to prison for killing the boss of the Kanno gang, Seji Iwahashi (Tatsuya Nakadai) gets released early -- only to find that his former gang has merged with the Kannos. But with bitter resentments lingering on both sides, how long will it be before the bloodshed begins anew? Set in 1926 Japan, this serpentine crime thriller from director Hideo Gosha also stars Toshio Kurosawa and Isao Natsuyagi as Iwahashi's closest ally.
the boxer
A film adaptation of the second play from "The Man Who Turned Into A Stick" by Kōbō Abe himself.
Seiichi
The story is set in 1970 during the time of the first EXPO in Japan. The film’s main figure is a miner who suddenly becomes unemployed because the mine he worked in was shut down. He decides to resettle with his whole family to Hokkaido in northern Japan and start a new life as a farmer.
Masuo Masuda
This film follows the daily lives of a group of people barely scraping by in a slum on the outskirts of Tokyo. Yet as desperate as their circumstances are, each of them—the homeless father and son envisioning their dream house; the young woman abused by her uncle; the boy who imagines himself a trolley conductor—finds reasons to carry on.
After an encounter with a dying yakuza's son and at his sister Sakura's urging, Torajiro attempts to change his vagrant lifestyle and become an honest worker with a steady job.
Lt. Mitsuo Matsuzaki (uncredited)
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.
Takeuchi Shinjiro
A guilt-haunted samurai warrior attempts to stop a massacre taking place.
Sakurai
"Young People" is a story about the lives of four brothers and a sister, Sato. After the death of his parents, the older brother, Taro, who works in construction, decides to replace them. The second brother, Jiro, is a truck driver. The third, Saburo, is a student, dreams of a better future for the whole family are connected with him, with his career. Brothers and sisters are fighting to give him a higher education. And, finally, the youngest of the brothers, Suekichi, is also going to enter the university after graduation. The life of the Sato family is complicated. Taro is kind, but limited, not always able to find a common language with his brothers and sister Orie. The girl cannot stand the despotism of her brother, leaves her home and goes to work at the factory. With her departure, everything in the house goes upside down. Suekichi fails her university entrance exams, Orie is forced to return to her family.
Kempeitai Lieutenant
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.
A war breaks out on the streets between rivalry Yakuza clans.
Suspense film based on Ryuji Hori's non-fiction book about the kidnapping and murder of 4-year-old Yoshinobu Murakoshi in 1963.
Eigoro
Zatoichi's trek through 88 temples to atone for his violent past is interrupted as he stumbles into a village terrorized by a violent yakuza boss.
Man with Mole
A businessman with a disfigured face obtains a lifelike mask from his doctor, but the mask starts altering his personality.
Before leaving prison, Oida uncomfortably enters into an agreement with his cell mate: in exchange for a half-share of 30,000,000 yen, he is to assassinate three strangers given to him on a list. However, upon meeting his first potential victim, Oida has second thoughts. Yet, even as he tries to back out, the body count starts climbing. Oida must now try to alert the people on his list of their impending danger, and find out why they are being targeted in the first place.
Man on Boat
When her only relative, her elder brother is accused of robbing and murdering an old woman loan-shark, pretty, young Kiriko travels from her home in Kyushu to Tokyo to get Japan's top lawyer to defend her brother. Unfortunately her naive idealism is shattered when the lawyer refuses to take the case based on her insufficient funds. What follows is a long determined revenge plot that sees the heroine become a Tokyo bar hostess and worse to punish the lawyer. The plot thickens with another murder mystery and a sleuthing reporter.
Mosuke
Shiba, a wandering ronin, encounters a band of peasants who have kidnapped the daughter of their dictatorial magistrate, in hopes of coercing from him a reduction in taxes. Shiba takes up their fight, joined by two renegades from the magistrate's guard, Sakura and Kikyo. The three outlaws find themselves in a battle to the death.
Matsushima
Adaptation of novel.
This time, the investigation division is investigating the case of a man who confessed to killing a woman in a labyrinth 2 years ago, adhering to the constitutional provision that "confessing a suspect is not a crime." The 20nd work from the popular series "Keishicho Monogatari", which documents the activities of the First Investigation Division of the Capital Police Department.
Retainer
Down-on-his-luck veteran Tsugumo Hanshirō enters the courtyard of the prosperous House of Iyi. Unemployed, and with no family, he hopes to find a place to commit seppuku—and a worthy second to deliver the coup de grâce in his suicide ritual. The senior counselor for the Iyi clan questions the ronin’s resolve and integrity, suspecting Hanshirō of seeking charity rather than an honorable end. What follows is a pair of interlocking stories which lay bare the difference between honor and respect, and promises to examine the legendary foundations of the Samurai code.
Otsuka
A man wanders into a seemingly deserted town with his young son in search of work. But after a bit of bad luck, he joins the town's population of lost souls.
An early Okamoto yakuza film, though it's not in the Underworld series (along with The Last Gunfight and The Big Boss) despite being alternatively known as "Death of the Boss." While Okamoto did not write this film and took on the project because he was assigned and "just doing [his] job" according to an interview with Chris Desjardins in Outlaw Masters of Japanese Film, he did express a general excitement about working in action cinema (which shows through in this film's energy.)
Masui Ittôhei (uncredited)
Kaji is sent to the Japanese army labeled Red and is mistreated by the vets. Along his assignment, Kaji witnesses cruelties in the army and revolts against the abusive treatment against the recruit Obara. He also sees his friend Shinjô Ittôhei defecting to the Russian border, and he ends in the front to fight a lost battle against the Russian tanks division.
Narrator
A documentary about the eponymous Puerto Rican boxer
Goro
Junai Monogatari AKA Story of Pure Love is about two poor youths, Mitsuko and Kando, rebelling against society in various ways, who are desperately trying to be together despite tortuous circumstances. The film depicts their lives as thieves, menial laborers who can get little pay, society outcasts, and of course, lovers. Junai Monogatari depicts, mostly, their struggles within the Japanese reformatory system and Mitsuko's worsening sickness.
Takuro
The actor Koheiji is terribly in love with the wife of his best friend, the playwright Takuro; to get her, he would even kill Takuro.
