Takenori Mori

Uta’s mother died when she was six years old; her father she never met. She was forced to adopt a traveller’s life when her grandmother died, and now she is a dancer and part of a family of actors who travel from town to town, setting up street performances. A way of escape from this marginal existence arises when she gets the chance to move to tea merchant Hiramatsu’s place, where she is asked to teach his daughter to dance.

A spirited young teacher challenges the conservative school employing her with liberal thinking and teaching methods.

Two childhood friends go their own ways but meet again some years later after they have both married. They get re-acquainted, meet each others’ families, and all is well. Then the disagreements start...

A pair of blind masseurs, an enigmatic city woman, a lonely man and his ill-behaved nephew—The Masseurs and a Woman is made up of crisscrossing miniature studies of love and family at a remote resort in the mountains. With delicate and surprising humor, Hiroshi Shimizu paints a timeless portrait of loneliness and the human need to connect.

During college military training exercises, the bond between two friends and athletic rivals is tested when one of them becomes involved with a woman who may be a prostitute.