Masao Oda

LEAD TOMBSTONE tracks the progress of a young sociopathic rake who had, immediately post-WW2, rescued his country farmer mother from rape by stabbing the offending American soldier in the back with a pitchfork. Once grown, the boy continues his violent life as a hoodlum on the run, repaying an outlaw couple who have sheltered him by raping the wife, then, at his boss’s behest, murdering the husband. He’s also not above strangling a girl in her bathtub for kicks. The one spot of normalcy in his life is his shop girl girlfriend, an innocent who, once she discovers his other life, confronts his boss… (from OUTLAW MASTERS OF JAPANESE CINEMA by Chris D)

The Wayside Pebble is an effective drama about the hardships of a childhood spent with a brusque, cold-hearted father and a submissive mother. The year is 1910 and the place is a small Japanese village. Goichi is suffering because he wants to go to school, but his family is too poor to afford that luxury. Even when a kind friend agrees to help out, Goichi's father refuses to give in to his son's request for an education. Instead, he sends Goichi off to work as an indentured servant for a cold-hearted merchant and his family. As tragedy strikes and the suffering of the young boy increases, he begins to look for some way out of his bleak situation.

Three Iga ninja are on a hunt for Chidoken, a Takeda ninja sent out to assasinate Lord Nobunaga.

In the fourth installment, Musashi's potentially greatest opponent Kojiro jumps in and out of the story at the oddest and most coincidental moments. As his great love Otsu has succumbed to madness. Musashi then sets off to beat the functionaries of a treacherous clan in an arranged duel. 73 against one. Boastful Kojiro watches, secure in the knowledge that only he is a worthy opponent.

A laid-back man tries to become a member of the yakuza.

After a salary-man's fiancée attempts suicide, he recounts his gruesome family history which saw generations of his ancestors suffer and sacrifice themselves for the sake of their cruel lords.

Van Hekken, an old gangster, arrives in Tokyo to direct a bank hold-up in order to get a very valuable diamond.

ナショナル・シューズの権藤専務は、自分の息子と間違えられて運転手の息子が誘拐され、身代金3千万円を要求される。苦悩の末、権藤は運転手のために全財産を投げ出して3千万円を用意する。無事子どもは取り戻したが、犯人は巧みに金を奪い逃走してしまい、権藤自身は会社を追われてしまう……。

This is a factory area in downtown Tokyo, and Hikaru, nicknamed Pika-chan, is a nurse at the Mihara Clinic, a friend of the poor.

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”.

周平（笠智衆）は、妻とは死別し、長男の幸一（佐田啓二）は結婚して家を出て団地暮らし。いまは娘の路子（岩下志麻）と次男の和夫（三上真一郎）と３人安らかに暮らしていた。 ある日、周平はいつものように友人の河合（中村伸郎）、堀江（北龍二）と酒を飲みに行く。 話題は路子の嫁行きの話になり、まだ路子を嫁にやることなど考えてもいなかった周平は悩み始める…。 日本映画界の巨匠・小津安二郎監督の最後の作品で、妻に先立たれた男とその子供達の幸せの中にもなぜか潜む孤独と寂しさを描いた作品。

The remake of Yoshikawa's novel continues with the second installment in which Takezo, soon to be Miyamoto Musashi, emerges from the Himeji Castle after three years of intense contemplation and philosophical study and starting on his epic quest to complete his skill in the Way.

Three young yakuza, Fujitaro, Matsugoro and Kanjuro, travel the country fighting evil.

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.

A carpenter, Shigetsugu, learns a lesson of love and humanity from five orphaned children and an affectionate woman named Oritsu. It's a winning combination of drama and humor. The warm friendship that grows between the carpenter, the woman and the children making this into a true masterpiece.

Story of romance and rivalry between two ad agencies vying for the same account with a pharmaceutical firm.

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.

A touching story about a young boy, Genta, who bravely takes on life's challenges in hopes of finding a better life for himself and his sickly mother.

This Japanese film speculates on the events which lead the U.S. and the Soviet Union into a nuclear Armageddon.

Japanese soldiers stranded in Manokwari, New Guinea, improvise a theater play to keep their spirits up and endure the extremely difficult conditions.

A sad love story between young Umihiko Kojima and a beautiful girl named Yukiko Shino.

The university professor Ozeki Hitoshi (Ryu Chishu) is regarded as an eccentric by people in his surroundings. When his daughter Tokiko is asked to marry a colleague, she and her mother are overjoyed, but Hitoshi is not satisfied with the situation.

After their father quarrels with local military men, Anju and Zushio are forced to flee, but they are captured and sold into slavery. When their mother dies, they are sold to Sansho the Bailiff, a cruel man who subjects them to hideous torments. While Anju falls into a lake and is transformed into a swan, Zushio escapes and after being adopted to a nobleman grows to a young man. He will then fight to defeat the evil Dayu and free all the slaves.

A young son of a master of the Kuwana clan gets disowned for his rebellious behavior. After he goes from the mountains to the ocean defeating the evil, he becomes a fine man.

新婚一週間目に夫が消えた! 生きているなら証言して! 連続殺人を包む謎の霧! 鍵を握る三人の女! ! 広告社に勤める憲一は、新婚7日目に金沢へ出張、そのまま消息を絶った。妻の禎子は金沢へ出掛け、単身捜査に乗り出すが、手がかりはつかめなかった。やがて憲一が広告社に勤める前に、巡査の風紀係だったことが判明し、事件はそれに絡んでいる模様。そして意外な事実が明るみになってくる。野村芳太郎監督が、北陸を舞台に人間の孤独と悲しさをスリリングに描いた傑作。

The story is of two people. One is deaf, the other deaf and mute. They marry after meeting at a school reunion, and the film follows their trials and tribulations ... and joys.

On his way to Tokyo one night, a truck driver picks up a country girl and has his way with her amidst a forest. A few days later he loses his job after a run-in with some punks, but is offered a job by a gangster impressed by his fighting skills. He tries to make amends with the girl he ravished, but becomes caught up in the ways of the underworld...

In a time of continuous civil wars ravaging the fields of feudal Japan, the eldest son of a very poor peasant family, living alongside the bridge over the Fuefuki river, decides to serve a warlord to escape his miserable condition, being soon followed by his younger brothers. Although not all the men of the family take this tragic path of death, women of the family will be doomed to endure the pain of loss during the next five generations.

A semi-documentary story about the vicissitudes in the life of an elderly fisherman.

An employee in an assurance company threatens to commit suicide when management announces a massive layoff, the company uses this threat to its own advantage by turning the incident into an advertising campaign. With the success of the campaign, however, he is no longer a desperate man pointing a gun to his head, but a potential leader who wishes to take advantage of his failed suicide.

In this Japanese drama, a village girl goes to Tokyo and becomes a hooker to support her ailing mother. While there she meets an unmarried teacher (at least he says he's unmarried) and falls in love. When she learns that he lied and is married to a woman whose child was fathered by another man, she is crushed. He returns to his wife. The woman becomes more distraught when she learns her uncle has misused the money she has sent. As the final straw, her mother dies, and the girl becomes sick.

On a quiet spring day in the suburbs, a stray dog found the corpse of a baby. Three days after his death, the blood group of the victim was determined. Detectives Hayashi, Kaneko, Nagata and Yamagata begin their investigation, suspecting the parents of the murdered child. They use a towel, baby diapers and bruises on the baby's body as clues in the investigation. Who killed the baby?

This subversive period film features a hotheaded young samurai, Kurodo, who threatens to commit harakiri in response to the humiliation meted out to his family by the Shogun. The film critiques the inhumanity of feudal obligations, and Uchida’s direction slyly satirizes the contemporary cinematic audience, whose taste for onscreen bloodshed is mirrored in a crowd gathering to watch the protagonist’s planned suicide. The Master Spearman is imbued with Uchida’s characteristic blend of dark humor and stylized action, and Ryutaro Otomo gives an admirable performance in the lead.

Chuji Kunisada returns to his home village to find that Jubei Matsui, the corrupt magistrate, has been responsible for virtually destroying Kunisada's family. A final tragedy leads Kunisada to join with a band of rogues living in the forest in robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, always with an eye toward avenging himself on Magistrate Matsui.

A taxi driver hits a woman on the streets. He takes care of her while she gets better. While realizing they're both at a brink in their lives they'll start falling for each other against their odds.

Suspense drama about a married salaryman whose affair with one of his co-workers is compromised when, returning from a clandestine meeting with his lover, he runs into a neighbor who is later accused of murder. Questioned by police about the neighbor, and blackmailed by his lover's neighbor, the salaryman's lies lead him on a path to destruction.

夫を亡くした圭子は、外国人マスターが経営する銀座のバー“ライラック”の雇われマダムだった。よく店に来ていた利権屋の美濃部が、かつて圭子の下で働いていたユリに店を持たせ、そちらへ頻繁に出入りしているようだ。マスターからはユリのように体を張って売り上げを回復させろと言われてしまう。ある日、狂言自殺をするつもりだったユリが本当に死亡した。葬儀の席で圭子は美濃部に食ってかかるが、血を吐いて倒れてしまう。酒の飲み過ぎで胃潰瘍にかかっていたのだ。やがて圭子は客に体を許すようになるが、その度に裏切られてしまう。

When a wealthy, selfish family decides to take care of an elderly hobo who collapsed near their home, they are beset by visits from his numerous friends.

Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582) was a major daimyo during the Warring State period of Japanese history. He was the second son of Oda Nobuhide, a deputy military governor with land holdings in Owari province. Nobunaga lived a life of continuous military conquest, eventually conquering a third of Japanese daimyo before his death in 1582. Telling the story of his rise to prominence as he leads an army of 4,000 men against the 40,000 troops of Lord Imagawa Yoshimoto to prevent the arrogant daimyo from crushing the Oda clan and taking control of the entire nation. From a newly restored anamorpic widescreen print, this is the ultimate warlord movie.

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).

On a post-war peaceful day in Japan, Toyomatsu Shimizu, a barber as well as a good father and husband, is suddenly arrested by the Prefectural Police as a war criminal and sued for murder.

Kiku and her brother Isamu are social outcasts, children of a prostitute mother and black GI father, in postwar Japan.

Based on Matsumoto Seicho's classic mystery novel of the same name, the story centers around a group of detectives who are determined to find the truth behind an apparent double suicide.

A war widow with a young boy manages a farm with her bossy mother-in-law. When a reporter comes to interview her, the two begin an affair. He turns out to be married and won't leave his wife. Her older brother tries to marry off his children and hang on to/ extend his farm through an advantageous marriage in the face of threatened land confiscation and the desire of his children to get comfortable urban jobs instead of the backbreaking work in the paddy fields under parental control.

A movie adaptation of Funayama Kaoru's novel of the same name, which depicts the story of a modern youth who is attracted to the evil path. Saburi Shin, a well-known actor who also demonstrated his skill as a director in a bold social work, embodies a person with a complicated dilemma in a shadowy manner, and is a dramatic work that plays a part in the lead role.

Five boys escape from their life of bondage on an island 10 miles off Hiroshima, and are picked up in the Inland Sea, drifting in an open boat.

The story follows a university student who moves into an apartment building and becomes involved with a waitress. The landlord then attempts to evict the tenants and sell the building through illicit means.

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...

幕末の混沌とした時代、にぎわいを見せていた品川宿の遊郭旅籠の相模屋にひとりの町人・佐平次が訪れる。女郎のおそめを気に入り豪遊するが、実は佐平次は一文無しだった。その翌朝、佐平次は金がないことを若い衆に打ち明けるが、口八丁でその場に居座ってしまう。そして金を返済するためと相模屋で番頭まがいの仕事を始めた佐平次は、下働きから女郎衆、遊郭に出入りする人々のトラブルを持ち前の度胸と機転で解決してみせ、さらにお礼の金をしっかりためこんでいた。また、相模屋に逗留し攘夷の計画を練る長州藩士の高杉晋作、久坂玄瑞らとも交友を深め、いつしか佐平次は遊郭内で一目置かれる存在になっていく。

山間の小駅。この駅の灯だけが、真暗闇に侘しく光っていた。ホームには、水害で不通になった列車が立往生。午前二時を指す時計の掛かった駅の待合室には、傲慢そうな重役夫妻、セールスマン、男女学生、オンリーさんの夏子、老夫婦、小粋な三十女と愛人、家出した田舎娘など足止めをくった乗客でごった返していた。この騒ぎから取り残されたように静かに佇む乳呑み児を抱いた時枝の側には、一本の手錠でつながれた刑事と殺人犯・森が立っていた。一同はバスで次の駅まで出ることになったが、いよいよ出発という時「銀行を襲撃して現金二千万円を奪った二人組のギャングが、この方面に立ち廻った形跡がある」という悪い知らせが入った。 動揺した乗客は次々とバスを降り、十四名を乗せたボロボロのバスが暗夜の中を出発した。ギャングと山崩れの恐怖に怯える夜が明けると、一同には明るさが戻ったが、時技と森だけは暗い表情を崩さなかった。行く手には、とうてい渡れそうもない朽ち果てた橋。しかしバリバリと音をたてながら、バスは危うくも橋を渡りきった。さらにバスが進むと、前方に青年が飛び出してきた。バスに乗り込んで来た二人連は、大きなボストンバックを提げていたー。

Roppeita is big in size, clumsy and full of energy. When his grandfather orders him to move out to Tokyo to save a sinking milk delivery business a distant relative of his runs, he encounters the most strangest of clientele.

Japanese drama film.

Japanese film.

Emi Ikushima, a star actress in the Roses, is half-hearted, but she wasn't disappointed by the news of her father Enmy's sudden death, and she performed enthusiastically on the stage that night, attracting a crowded audience.

Japanese drama.

A botanist woos the secretary of an industrialist whose company threatens the local water supply.

Upon discovering that her father has a mistress, a young girl befriends the "other woman" and her child. Realizing that her half-sister is doomed to being regarded as an outcast, the heroine sets about to spiritually legitimize the girl.

In the thriving Tokyo neighborhood of Ginza, a woman in the process of selling her estranged husband’s art collection attempts to identify the man who painted her own portrait fifteen years prior.

酒のいさかいから主人を殺された槍(やり)持ち権八のあだ討ちを、旅芸人母子、小間物屋、大金を持った男と大泥棒など、東海道を旅するさまざまな人々の人生の縮図を通して描く傑作時代劇。 仲間稼業の権八は東海道を、若様酒匂小十郎の槍持ちをつとめて、供の源太と江戸へ向った。同じ道を旅する一行は、小間物商人の伝次、身売りにゆく田舎娘おたねと老爺の与茂作、あんまの藪の市、巡礼、旅芸人のおすみ母子、挙動不審の藤三郎という男、最後に権八の槍に見とれた浮浪児の次郎等である。折柄、街道には大泥棒風の六右衛門詮議の触れ書が廻っているが、権八はそれ所ではない。朗らかで気立てが優しいが、酒乱癖のある若様を守って旅を終るのが主命である。供の源太が酒好きなので気が気ではない。一行は袋井に一宿したが、藤三郎が大金を持っているのに目をつけた伝次は、さては大泥棒とつけ廻すが、隣室で藪の市に肩を揉ませている巡礼こそ大泥棒六右衛門なのである。その夜、おすみの使を受けて権八も悪い気がせず外へ出ると、その隙に小十郎は源太を連れて酒を飲み始めたが、駈けつけた権八に制せられ事なきを得た。また旅が始まったが、大井川の近くで何処かの馬鹿殿様が始めた野立ての為通行止になり、大井川を前に長逗留となった。隙を狙って六右衛門は馬鹿殿の路銀を盗んだが、うっかりして顔を見知られた次郎に発見され、来合わせた権八の槍に怖気が出て簡単に縛についた。与茂作が女衒久兵衛におたねを渡して帰ろうとすると藤三郎に引留められた。五年前預けた娘を引取る為、稼ぎ貯めた金を持って来たのだが、娘は亡くなっていたのだ。小十郎は、素朴な人々を見て武士の世界に嫌気がさし、又源太と居酒屋に入った。権八の駈けつけた時は遅く、小十郎と源太は酔いどれ武士の手に無惨な最期を遂げていた。数日後、骨箱を抱えて国元へ出立する権八がいた。

An ethical, young tax collector new to his area encounters increasingly absurd individuals and groups coping with their post-war woes.

Students in a small rural school love their poor but unconventional teacher Mr Matsukuma although he is misunderstood by most of the villagers and is forced to leave. After his departure there is great depression but there is a chance to rekindle the lantern of the title and the values Matsukuma represented ...