self (archive footage)
This documentary composed of numerous testimonies and archives, filmed in Japan highlights the extraordinary career of the actress-director Kinuyo Tanaka and her singular ambition to impose a female point of view on cinema, reflecting her own vision of the world.
Self (archive footage)
Compilation of film footage documenting Japanese film star Kinuyo Tanaka's goodwill tour of the U.S. in 1949.
13歳にして売春宿に売られた少女が、苛酷な運命に耐えたくましく生きつづける姿を描く。四国の山奥で祖母とふたりで暮らしていた少女りん。13歳のとき、祖母が死に、瀬戸内海の小さな島に売春婦として売られる。やがて初潮を迎えたりんは客をとらされる。以来、りんは狂ったように働きつづけた。
Old Nun
A Swiss nun falls in love with a Japanese engineer.
Kiku Sasaki
莫大な財産を持っているおばあちゃんと孫の現代青年との心のふれあいを描く。脚本は光英司、監督は脚本も執筆している「続 愛と誠」の山根成之、撮影は「スプーン一杯の幸せ」の竹村博がそれぞれ担当。
Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director (Aru eiga-kantoku no shogai) is a 1975 Japanese documentary film on the life and works of director Kenji Mizoguchi, directed by Kaneto Shindo (Onibaba). It runs 150 minutes and can be found on the second disc of the Region 1 Criterion Collection release of Ugetsu (1953).
Old Osaki
女性史研究家・三谷圭子は、“からゆきさん”のことを調べる過程で天草で小柄な老女サキと出会った。サキがからゆきさんと確信した圭子は、彼女が経験した過去を聞き出すため、共同生活を始める。やがて、サキはその重い口を少しずつ開いて、あまりにも衝撃的な生涯を語り始めるのだった……。
A story about being scared of getting old.
the old family mistress
「男はつらいよ」シリーズ第10作。旅先で弁当を使わせてもらった旧家の奥様（田中絹代）から、テキ屋仲間の哀れな末路を聞かされた寅さんは、柴又へ帰ってくる。ところが寅さんの部屋は、御前様の親戚の大学助教授・岡倉金之助（米倉斉加年）が下宿中。面白くない寅さんは、また旅に出ようとしたが、門前で美容院を始めた幼なじみの志村千代（八千草薫）と再会し、思いとどまることに…
Shinjiro Ishiyama / Aodaisyô
Seventh movie of the Wakadaishō series directed by Kengo Furusawa
Madame Yasumoto
山本周五郎原作の『赤ひげ診療譚』を基に、巨匠・黒澤明監督が三船敏郎、加山雄三主演で映画化したヒューマニズム溢れる人情ドラマ。江戸時代の小石川養生所を舞台に、そこを訪れる庶民の人生模様と通称赤ひげと呼ばれる所長と青年医師の心の交流を描く。長崎で和蘭陀医学を学んだ青年・保本登は、医師見習いとして小石川養生所に住み込むことになる。養生所の貧乏くささとひげを生やし無骨な所長・赤ひげに好感を持てない保本は養生所の禁を犯して破門されることさえ望んでいた。しかし、赤ひげの診断と医療技術の確かさを知り、また彼を頼る貧乏な人々の姿に次第に心を動かされていくのだった……。
巨大な工場と、煙と音が交錯する街川崎。野上則子は、そんな街のかたすみに住む、高校生だ。家族は、タクシーの運転手の父竜太郎、工場で働く母千枝子、それに女房に死なれた竜太郎の弟亀三の子供ひろしの四人。母千枝子は、幼い日に別れた母静江への想いを筆に託して詩集をつくっていた。それを知った則子は、ステレオ欲しさに、母の詩集から一篇を抜き出し新聞に投稿し、賞金三万円を狙った。やがて、その詩は佳作に入選した。が、その喜びも束の間、父竜太郎が進行性肝炎で倒れた。戦争で受けた鉄砲弾が体に入っていたのが原因だった。夫の死とともに千枝子の生活は一変した。チンドンヤ夫婦を二階に同居させ、工場もやめて儲けの多い氷屋に転業した。そんなとき、新聞社を通じて捜していた千枝子の母静江が九州にいることがわかった。千枝子は信じられない嬉しさに茫然としながらも、何度も母のもとへ手紙を出した。が、返事はこなかった。数日後静江からの伝言を持った静江の次男松崎弥太郎が千枝子の許を訪れた。“逢いたくない、そっとしておいて”それが静江の答えだった－－静江はかつて、村に演習に来た兵隊と過ちをおかし、千枝子を生んだが、その後生活のために妾となり、料亭を転々として後二人の子供のいる松崎弥兵衛の後妻になったのだ－－竜太郎の病いは日ましに悪化し、遂にこの世を去った。生活は苦しくなった。千枝子はタクシーの運転手になり、則子はパチンコ店でバイトを始めた。そんなある日、突然千枝子の許に静江が上京してきた。長い別れが、一度は感情のもつれを引きおこしたが、親子の愛情はたちがたく、静江は再び千枝子の許に帰ってきた。初秋の爽やかな空の下、晴々とした則子の顔があった。
Tsuna
After her mother runs away from home, Tomoko is raised to be a geisha. One day Tomoko meets her mother in a red-light district in Tokyo and her life deeply gets in trouble.
Youth's Mother
Kenichi Horie is determined to challenge his family, the law and the nature crossing the Pacific to America in a small sailboat. Despite his careful planning many unforeseen events will test his determination.
Shizuko Sonobe
A Tokyo family escaping the war relocates to a Hokkaido village; their daughter is set to marry the local leader's son, but her siblings disapprove.
Oharu
The Fencing Master tells the story of a man trying to survive as the only world he knows is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Danpei Ichikawa lives for swordfighting – he was once a renowned kabuki swordfight choreographer, and as the Chairman of the New National Theatre Company, he wants nothing more than to choreograph the swordfights for the modern plays put on by the company.
Kishi, Fumiko's mother
Considered one of the finest late Naruses and a model of film biography, A Wanderer’s Notebook features remarkable performances by Hideko Takamine – Phillip Lopate calls it “probably her greatest performance” – and Kinuyo Tanaka as mother and daughter living from hand to mouth in Twenties Tokyo. Based on the life and career of Fumiko Hayashi, the novelist whose work Naruse adapted to the screen several times, A Wanderer’s Notebook traces her bitter struggle for literary recognition in the first half of the twentieth century – her affairs with feckless men, the jobs she took to survive (peddler, waitress, bar maid), and her arduous, often humiliating attempts to get published in a male-dominated culture.
Director
The basic story in Love under the Crucifix is about Ogin, daughter of a tea master, who are both Christians in feudal Japan. Ogin falls in love with a feudal prince, also a Christian who is already married, and that creates problems. Further, when the Shogun bans Christianity, the situation worsens.
Director
In the late 1950's prostitution was banned in Japan and if a woman was found exercising this profession they were sent to a reformatory. This is a story of one of these brave women Kuniko who is released from the reformatory and tries to build a new life.
Mother
Set in 1926 when Japanese tradition was much stronger, this drama looks at the inner workings of a small family, especially the relationship between a sister and brother.
Director
Pu Zhe , the younger brother of the Emperor of Manchukuo, Pu Wen, marries Ryuko the daughter of a long-established aristocratic family - all in the interest of the Japanese rulers , which legitimizes the relationship between Japan and its Chinese puppet state. To the surprise of all , a deep love between Pu Zhe and Ryuko develops. It is put to the test when Japan loses the war, Manchukuo is dissolved and the imperial court must flee. The lovers now have to separate: Pu Zhe tries to escape to Japan with his brother , while Ryuko flees with her daughter Eisei over the country. A film on the relationship between Pujie (1907-94) , brother of the " last emperor " Puyi and his second wife, Marquise Hiro Saga (1914-87).
Princess Yamato
The legend of the birth of Shintoism. In Fourth Century Japan, the Emperor's son Ouso expects to succeed his father on the throne, but Otomo, the Emperor's vassal, prefers Ouso's stepbrother, and conspires to have Ouso die on a dangerous mission he has contrived. But Ouso prevails in the mission and returns to his father's castle under a new name, Prince Yamato Takeru. Otomo plots to have the Prince sent into even greater danger, but Otomo is unaware that the gods have favored the Prince and the outcome is far from what any of them expected.
Myokan
The adopted son of an Osaka courier falls in love with a prostitute and, discovering that she is about to be purchased by a client, steals money from his employer to redeem her. Hunted criminals, the two young lovers take flight to Yamato, but, as in Chikamatsu's other domestic tragedies of love and duty (known as sewamono), they must be pursued and their passion destroyed by death. Favourite Uchida themes, such as the indenturing of a prostitute (cf. YOSHIWARA; A BLOODY SPEAR AT MT. FUJI), and his characteristic emphasis on performance and theatrical artifice re-emerge here; but the daring device of having Chikamatsu appear as a character - not unlike having Shakespeare interpolated into a film adaptation of one of his plays - is just one of many surprises this remarkable film holds. “Extraordinary” (Donald Richie).
Shige Ozawa
Based on the Nobu Koito story
Fumi
Two men at an ironworks encounter roadblocks: the first does not have the grades to get a job, while the other finds himself falling for a co-worker.
Kiyoko Hirayama
A man clashes with his daughter over her choice of fiancé.
Orin
70歳になると人減らしのため楢山で姥捨を行う村があった。69歳になるおりんは、息子の辰平と孫たちを世話しながら、辰平の後妻を探していた。辰平は去年、妻に先立たれていたのだ。楢山祭りの日、辰平は隣の村から妻を迎えることができた。おりんは楢山へ行く準備を始めるが、自分の歯が立派であることを恥じ、石臼にぶつけて折ってしまう。そして正月の数日前に突然「明日山へ行く」と言い出すのだった。
The beauty of the Japanese family system is portrayed through the women who greet a woman who went to America thirty years ago to visit her grave.
Omitsu, Heiichiro's mother
1957 drama from director Kôzaburô Yoshimura
Rie
In a military family, an illegitimate son is brutalized by his brothers. A patriarchal, feudalistic household where dissent is forbidden is used to reveal the whole imperialist system that afflicted Japan between 1921 and 1946. Winner of the Crystal Globe at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival.
Yukiko Matsumoto
In this Golden Globe winner for Best Foreign-Language Film, director Heinosuke Gosho -- a master chronicler of Japanese middle-class life -- presents the story of Kiyoshi Yoshida (Koji Shitara), who feels estranged from both parents after his father returns from war. How the boy adapts to life with the virtual stranger his father has become is the film's focus. Chikage Awashima, Yûnosuke Itô and Yoshiko Kuga also star.
Rika Yamanaka / Oharu
Otsuta is running the geisha house Tsuta in Tokyo. Her business is heavily in debt. Her daughter Katsuyo doesn't see any future in her mothers trade in the late days of Geisha. But Otsuta will not give up. This film portraits the day time life of geisha when not entertaining customers.
With one of the busiest film industries in the world, Japan was able to submit several films into competition at the 1957 Berlin Film Festival. One of the best of these was Arashi, directed by Hiroshi Inagaki of Rickshaw Man fame. Anticipating Hollywood's Table for Five by nearly a quarter of a century, the film concerns the efforts by a recently widowed high-school teacher to raise his four children alone. Chihu Ryu is terrific as the central character, while Izumi Yukimura is even better as Ryu's eldest daughter. For reasons unknown, Arashi is often omitted from "official" lists of Inagaki's films.
Prison Warden
The woman prison has a cast all with a story of their own and with no dull or routine day. There is an employee who is divorced after her husband had an affair. She loves the jailed criminals and almost sees them as family. One day at a workshop someone faints while working hard to make money because she has a poor boyfriend. Another inmate is knocked up Another is a mother and has her child with her.
The story of a novelist whose wife is confined in a mental hospital. His love for her drives him to write about her, though he runs into trouble when her parents accuse him of cashing in on her misfortune.
Director
Fumiko, mother of two children and wife of an unfaithful man, shares her family life with her budding vocation as a poet. The beginning of her successful literary career coincides with her divorce and her breast cancer diagnosis. In the last stage of her life, she meets a young journalist from Tokyo who wants to write a story on her life.
Neighbor's wife
Fumiko, mother of two children and wife of an unfaithful man, shares her family life with her budding vocation as a poet. The beginning of her successful literary career coincides with her divorce and her breast cancer diagnosis. In the last stage of her life, she meets a young journalist from Tokyo who wants to write a story on her life.
Housewives from four neighboring households casually gather at an old well at Kaneko's house in a residential area on the outskirts of Tokyo. If two people come together, they will talk about selling kimonos, if three people come together, they will discuss food shopping, and when four people come together, there will be laughter. Focusing on four housewives who gather at the edge of the well, it depicts the daily life of each household.
Director
Mokichi is the widowed father of three daughters, with whom he lives on the premises of a temple since the war. In the film all three daughters become involved in some sort of complicated relationships. The sisters and their attached Men are deliberately designed as allegorical figures on the changing social conditions. A wonderfully funny, sometimes droll comedy between Nara and Tokyo, Adagio and Allegro, Yesterday and Today - in search of a morning.
Yoneya
Mokichi is the widowed father of three daughters, with whom he lives on the premises of a temple since the war. In the film all three daughters become involved in some sort of complicated relationships. The sisters and their attached Men are deliberately designed as allegorical figures on the changing social conditions. A wonderfully funny, sometimes droll comedy between Nara and Tokyo, Adagio and Allegro, Yesterday and Today - in search of a morning.
Hatsuko Mabuchi
Yukiko's fiance learns her mother runs a geisha house and ends their engagement. She despises what her mother does until one of her clients shows interest and starts to woo her.
Tamaki
森鴎外の同名小説を、八尋不二と依田義賢が共同で脚色し、溝口健二がメガホンをとった文芸作品。特に美術と撮影はレベルが高く、ヴェネチア国際映画祭で銀獅子賞を受賞した。美しいラストシーンは、ゴダールが「気狂いピエロ」において引用したことでも知られる。 平安時代末期、農民を救うため将軍にたてついた平正氏が左遷された。妻の玉木、娘の安寿と息子の厨子王は越後を旅している途中、人買いにだまされ離ればなれになってしまう。玉木は佐渡に、安寿と厨子王は丹後の山椒大夫に奴隷として売られた。きょうだいはそれから十年もの間、奴隷としての生活を続けるが、ついに意を決して逃げ出すことにする。しかし追っ手に迫られ、安寿は厨子王を逃すため池に身を投げるのだった。
A sad and troubled man finds a new job five years after the end of WWII, where he writes love letters for other people.
Director
A sad and troubled man finds a new job five years after the end of WWII, where he writes love letters for other people.
Hisa Hosho
This film stars Tanaka Kinuyo as the mother of the heir to the Hosho name, a famous lineage of Noh actors. The heir, Hosho Yagoro, is played by Hasegawa Kuzuo who went on to become familiar among Ichikawa Kon fans as Yukinojo in An Actor's Revenge, which was also co-written by Ito, adding to the relatedness of An Heir's Place.
Miyagi
戦国の世、貧しい陶工・源十郎が若狭姫という女性と知り合い、生活をともにするようになる。だが美しい若狭姫の正体は死霊であった。それを知った源十郎は若狭姫を捨てて故郷に逃げるが、彼女の怨念は執拗に追いすがる……。「雨月物語」をベースに、川口松太郎らが脚色。
Hiroko Ogata
かつて東京・千住に立っていた「お化け煙突」の下で暮らす人々の日常を描いた人間ドラマ。。
Kuniko
A young student falls into a hopeless romantic attraction to a sick girl, whom he can only see from afar.
Masako Fukuhara
A teenaged girl witnesses her widowed mother's attempt to sustain her family.
Kuniko Ataka
Soichi Ataka is the eldest son of Ataka family. Although mentally challenged, he's a person with a gentle heart. Soichi's wife, Kuniko is devoted to her husband and together the couple runs the family farm. Their happy family life comes to an abrupt halt when Soichi's half-brother, Joji returns with his wife Masako after failing in a business.
A family of Kyoto textile workers struggles after tragedy.
Oharu
奈良の荒れ寺に集まる街娼たち。年老いたお春は羅漢堂に入り、過去に出会った男の面影を思い浮かべていた。御所勤めをしていた13歳のお春は、公卿の勝之介に宿に連れ込まれたところを見つかり、両親ともども洛外へ追放となってしまった。その後、松平家に取り立てられ嗣子をもうけたものの、側近の裏切りに遭い実家へ帰されてしまう。島原の郭に売られたお春は、気に入られた客の住み込み女中となるが、その妻に嫉妬され追い出されてしまった。さらに結婚相手が急死し、世話になった男の盗みが発覚して捕らえられるなど、流転の人生を歩むのだった。
Gensaburo Funaki and Oyuki were childhood friends, but Gensaburo misunderstood that Oyuki was hesitant to get married because he had to feed his father and younger brother. I left the town.
Michiko Akiyama
Set in post-war Japan, The Lady of Musashino tells the story of Michiko, a disillusioned young woman trapped in a loveless marriage. She confides in her younger cousin, Tsutomo, and the two become close, but decide not to consummate their affair. He instead becomes involved with the flirtatious Tomiko, who is also conducting an affair with Michiko's husband. When Michiko finds that her husband has abandoned her, she decides to take her fate into her own hands.
Oyû Kayukawa
Shinnosuke is introduced to Shizu as a prospective marriage partner, but he falls in love with her widowed sister Oyu. Convention forbids Oyu to marry because she has to raise her son as the head of her husband's family. Oyu convinces Shinnosuke and Shizu to marry so that she can remain close to Shinnosuke.
Yukiko Tsuji
A luckless geisha struggles to make a living for herself and her young son.
Onaka
A period mystery in which an unconventional priest exposes the truth behind the bizarre death of a maid in the shogun's harem. Kinuyo Tanaka stylishly plays a constantly intoxicated geisha in this all-star entertainment film.
Setsuko Munekata
Setsuko is unhappily to Mimura, an engineer with no job and a bad drinking habit. She had always been in love with Hiroshi but both of them failed to propose when Hiroshi left for France a few years ago. Now he is back and Mariko (Setsuko's sister) tries to reunite them. She too is secretly in love with Hiroshi.
Noriko Kuki
A jewelry store president begins to fall for the doctor treating her husband's illness.
Oiwa / Osode
Part 2 starts where the first film ended, with Iemon disposing of the bodies of his wife and Kohei, marrying upward, and being blackmailed by the evil Naosuke.
Oiwa / Osode
Iemon Tamiya is an impoverished masterless samurai who craves a better life, which he cannot have because of his marriage to Oiwa, who is completely devoted to her husband.
Eiko Hirayama
A woman's struggle for equality in Japan in the 1880s. Eiko Hirayama leaves Okayama for Tokyo, where she helps the fledgling Liberal Party and falls in love with its leader Kentaro Omoi, just as the party is being disbanded by the government.
Tokiko Amamiya
Tokiko is a mother patiently waiting for her husband's return from the war when her 4-year old son becomes ill. She takes him to the doctor for treatment but has no way of paying. She resorts to prostitution. One month later her husband returns from WWII to find his desperate wife, who tells him the truth. Together they must deal with the consequences.
Fusako Owada
敗戦後の大阪。結核で息子を失った大和田和子のもとに、夫の訃報がもたらされる。和子は会社社長の栗山の秘書となった。和子の妹の夏子はダンサーをしながら和子を捜しており、二人は偶然心斎橋で再会。夏子は和子のアパートで暮らすことになった。和子は栗山に身を任せていたが、ある日、栗山と夏子の関係に気づく。和子は男に復讐するため、アパートを出て売春婦になった。和子を捜すため心斎橋近辺を歩いていた夏子は、売春婦と間違われ警察に検挙されてしまう。
Sayoko Aihara
A Japanese war widow recalls her love affair with her deceased husband.
Sumako Matsui
The stage director Shimamura, who is bringing western theatre to Japan, falls in love with the outspoken actress Sumako Matsui, and leaves his family to be with her, while trying to keep his Art Theatre solvent.
Fumie Matsukawa
In postwar Japan a young woman is unable to marry her sweetheart because her family's in difficult circumstances and needs her income to keep afloat.
Okita
Utamaro, a great artist, lives to create portraits of beautiful women, and the brothels of Tokyo provide his models. A world of passion swirls around him, as the women in his life vie for lovers. And, occasionally, his art gets him into trouble.
Hiroko Hosokawa
A lawyer fights doggedly for a more just legal system to rid Japan of its draconian penal system.
Okinu
In A Tale of Archery, young, timid bowmaster Kazuma (Akitake Kôno) seeks to beat the archery record set by Hoshino Kanzaemon, a mysterious figure who, it is rumored, drove the previous champion (Kazuma’s father) to suicide. Possessed of much raw talent, Kazuma is also very much a coward, holing himself up in an inn run by the kindly Okinu (Kinuyo Tanaka) and generally avoiding confrontation of any sort. Despite his clandestine manner, enough of the locals know of Kazuma’s purpose and an attempt is made on his life. He is saved by Karatsu Kanbei (Kazuo Hasegawa), a samurai who offers to help Kazuma hone his archery skills, though it soon becomes clear that this apparently selfless stranger has several potentially shady ulterior motives.
Woman who sings lullaby
Hisshoka is a 1945 Drama film directed by four Japanese directors.
Shinobu Nonomiya
The first of five Musashi series, Shinobu and her brother Genichiro plead with the famous swordsman Musashi Miyamoto to teach them swordsmanship to avenge their father's death. The killers of their father see the sister and brother practicing with Miyamoto, and so enlist the help of another powerful swordsman, Kojiro Sasaki, which gives Sasaki an excuse to battle Miyamoto.
Waka
A widow raises her sickly son to be strong enough to join the army and fight on the front lines.
Japanese war movie.
Kempeitai fights American spies in Japan
Pretty Oshige is deceived by her first love. After this, she lives a hard lifestyle, working at a number of jobs. Her only pleasure is her nephew, who eventually becomes a merchant marine. When Oshige meets her old love ten years later, she is able to forgive him and even thank him for the path her life has taken.
A group of female doctors travel to a remote village during their summer holiday to offer free medical care to villagers. There they must battle prejudice and superstition as much as disease.
Emi
Emi Ota and her friend Okiku stay briefly at a mountain inn and then return to Tokyo. Later, Nanmura, a soldier on leave, steps on an ornamental hairpin in the public bath at the inn. Emi writes to the inn saying she has lost a hairpin and, when she discovers that it injured Nanmura, returns to apologize. The longer term visitors at the inn meet together to discuss the hairpin incident. These include a grumpy Professor, a young couple Mr and Mrs Hiroyasu, and an old man staying with his two grandsons. They hope to see a romance blossom between Nanmura and Emi, after Nanmura declares that there is something almost poetic in finding a hairpin in the bath.
Most of the students studying Ikebana with Kozoe Iemoto are daughters of rich Tokyo families. Kozoe meets and grows close to a doctor who proposes marriage but whose mother harbours ill feeling towards her because of an incident in the mountains where a child got into difficulties. Kozoe rejects the proposal but falls ill and when she recovers, decides to devote herself entirely to the world of flower arranging.
In the movies of those times, you can see young boys in the company scene often. Those boys were called kyuji (給仕), which means “waiter” literally. They are doing odd jobs in the company including serving tea, ushering visitors, buying tobacco, etc. Ordering lunch for the individual requests was also an important job. Those boys were hired often as soon as they graduated from elementary school.
A story of a store that makes Tabi socks.
Followup film to Osaka Elegy - Osaka Woman
Chiyo
Kinuyo is a daughter of rice cracker shop in downtown. She fell in love with her sister's boyfriend. It is a story whose theme is warm human relationships in a town of customs and manners.
Weed with Flowers
Eiko is an innocent young lady born into a wealthy family with nothing to offer. She was good at singing, and lived her life playing around with her cronies, organizing music concerts and so on. However, things change when her father's business fails and she was suddenly thrown out into the world without any foundation. Eiko has no one to support her after she loses her social status, and her only tutor, Shinnosuke (Natsukawa Daijiro) was the only one who was sincere. Eiko is a stickler for using everything she can get her hands on, and she quickly moves into Shinnosuke's house.
Okayo
A young student of traditional dance falls in love with a handsome young man who visits the dance school in order to take photographs.
Katsue Takaishi
A young doctor, Kozo Tsumura, falls for young nurse Katsue Takaishi. But she's got a secret: she's a widow with a son. Kozo and Katsue decide to run away to Kyoto, but her child suddenly became sick and she just missed the train and Kozo. She makes it to Kyoto finally, but is unable to meet him. Plus she isn't accepted into Kyoto society. She goes back to her hometown and tries to forget him. She quits the hospital to concentrate on her singing. She makes her professional debut with the hit "Aizen Katsura". Kozo is in the audience.
Chieko
The movie follows a young woman (Kinuyo Tanaka), a daughter of a high-ranking businessman and his neglected mistress, as she struggles to ease her mother's loneliness, while also having an affair with her father's subordinate.
Sabu Toshinobu is an archaeologist who has taken a liking to Kinuyo Tanaka, the daughter of an archaeologist at an inn in Izu, where he is visiting to conduct an excavation. Sabun gets along well with his childhood friend Michiko Kuwano, but his mother (Fumiko Okamura) is against her, so he gives up easily and ends up being married to Kinuyo Tanaka.
Sabu Toshinobu is an archaeologist who has taken a liking to Kinuyo Tanaka, the daughter of an archaeologist at an inn in Izu, where he is visiting to conduct an excavation. Sabun gets along well with his childhood friend Michiko Kuwano, but his mother (Fumiko Okamura) is against her, so he gives up easily and ends up being married to Kinuyo Tanaka.
Kinuyo Yamaoka
Kinuyo is a daughter of doctor of Chinese medicine, and Yasuo is a son of surgeon. Their families always fight like cat and dog. This relationship is ancestral. Although Kinuyo and Yasuo love each other, they have different thoughts toward treatments.
Yoko
Three men fall in love with the same young girl who works in a tonkatsu restaurant in the Shitamachi district of Tokyo.
The eldest daughter of a noble family is in love with an aviator while being courted by a fellow aristocrat she thinks is a dullard. Told from the perspective of Ryota. In this second part, we learn that Akemi is pregnant...
The eldest daughter of a noble family is in love with an aviator while being courted by a fellow aristocrat she thinks is a dullard. This part is told from the perspective of Akemi.
A musical film made for the inauguration of Shochiku's Ofuna Studio, with an all-star cast of the era.
Itsuko Kuriyama
Family drama. A middle-aged father has just married off his third daughter, but still has his nine year old son to raise whom he resents as he was unwanted. (British Film Institute)
Okoto
A period piece about the love of a wealthy blind woman, a teacher of koto and shamisen, and her devoted manservant. Based on a novella by Tanizaki Junichiro.
Oshige
In a back alley of the Shitamachi district of Tokyo, Kihachi bears witness to a series of romantic complications involving the inhabitants of the neighborhood. Considered to be a lost film.
Сумако
Jyuta, an honest owner of a taxi company, has a younger half-brother who is involved in the yakuza world and doesn’t get along well with his mother. Jyuta tries to correct him…
That Night's Woman
Osayo
The poor novelist Yamamoto is writing his novel, determined and with a headband around his head. With him, the novelist who is always in trouble paying his bills, is the girl Saya who becomes the model for his novel. Saya however is in love with a young driver. When he is forced to move into a spa town as the result of the jealousy of another man Saya is terribly sad. But with the help of Yamamoto the driver's rival can be revealed and Saya can finally be with her beloved.
Tokiko
A gangster tries to find redemption with the inadvertent help of an innocent shop girl and his jealous girlfriend will do anything to keep him.
Harue
Ryoichi and Chikako, brother and sister, live together. Chikako toils during the day and, at night, prostitutes herself to fund his college tuition.
Kaoru, a dancer
"The Dancing Girl of Izu" tells of the story between a young male student who is touring the Izu Peninsula and a family of traveling dancers he meets there, including their youngest girl. The student finds the naïve girl attractive even though he eventually has to part with the family after spending memorable time together.
Haruko, bride
This pair of gentle yet witty and inventive comedies from the director of The Neighbour's Wife and Mine typify both the formal experimentation of early Japanese sound cinema and the social milieux that Shochiku tended to depict. 'Virtually plotless, and feeling more like comic sketches than fully developed stories,' writes Arthur Nolletti, Jr, 'these light comedies, or farces, take a wholly trivial matter (often a socially embarrassing situation) and use it as a springboard for a succession of gags.' Much of the films' distinction comes from the wit of Gosho's direction, the imaginative use of the new sound technology and the charm of the acting, particularly of the heroines (Kinuyo Tanaka in Bride; Hiroko Kawasaki in Groom). Yet in both films, Gosho finds room for some shrewd observation of character and environment, subtly exploring the values and assumptions of the suburban petit bourgeoisie.
Oshige
When a young man inherits his father's lucrative business, he cheats the system to set up three of his college friends with jobs.
Yae
This 1932 adaptation is the earliest sound version of the ever-popular and much-filmed Chushingura story of the loyal 47 retainers who avenged their feudal lord after he was obliged to commit hara-kiri due to the machinations of a villainous courtier. As the first sound version of the classic narrative, the film was something of an event, and employed a stellar cast, who give a roster of memorable performances. Director Teinosuke Kinugasa was primarily a specialist in jidai-geki (period films), such as the internationally celebrated Gate of Hell (Jigokumon, 1953), and although he is now most famous as the maker of the avant-garde silent films A Page of Madness (Kurutta ichipeji, 1926) and Crossroads (Jujiro, 1928), Chushingura is in fact more typical of his output than those experimental works. The film ranked third in that year’s Kinema Junpo critics’ poll, and Joseph Anderson and Donald Richie noted that 'not only the sound but the quick cutting was admired by many critics.
Directed by Yasujirô Shimazu.
Wife of the playwright
A playwright moves to a rural neighborhood to avoid the distractions of the city, but he discovers there are plenty of ways to get sidetracked in his new home, too.
The three-hour Ai yo jinrui to tomo ni are / Love, Be with Humanity (1931) starts as a satire of alienation in the world of money, develops into a lumberland epic with a forest fire on Sakhalin Island, turns into a tragedy of King Lear dimensions, and manages to amaze the blasé audience with a happy end in the Wild West.
Kinuko
Two reporters find that they are repeatedly beaten to the scoop by a new female journaist, 'young miss'. They decide to team up with her to investigate a secret club for wealthy voyeurs. Considered to be a lost film.
A modern girl suddenly intrudes into a widower's family home.
Cafe's waitress
This bittersweet comedy tells the tale of a group of college roommates attempting to cheat their way through their exams. As the title goes, things don't work out for our roguish main character, but his classmates soon find themselves in a similarly sorry state...
A farmer’s boy, obsessed with his balsa-and-paper flying models and with dreams of real aircraft, develops a friendship with the daughter of the local squire, who introduces the lad to her pilot brother and his flying officer friends; through hard work, and despite the handicap of a lowly class status, he eventually succeeds in qualifying as a pilot and joining the air force.
Machiko Nomoto
Tetsuo Nomoto, a young graduated student tries to find a decent job by himself. Later on, he will marry his girlfriend, Machiko, whom he hides the fact that he has no job. Hardships come quickly, which forces Machiko to find a job in a bar. [Partially lost film; only 12 minutes survive.]
Omitsu
A young man torn between love and friendship.
勤勉な商事会社の新社員（諸口十九）が社長のカラボタンの事で出世をする。だがつまらぬことで彼の妻（筑波雪子）と喧嘩をし、妻が家出をして大騒ぎをするが、元に戻るという物語。
