Kenji Mizoguchi

This is a scar born from a knife strike in the back of the young Mizoguchi, coming from an enamoured jealous prostitute. This event enabled him to become the great cineast of women, and much more !

A poor peasant, after years of scraping, becomes a rich and powerful Osaka merchant. Mizoguchi Kenji's final project; he died before completing it and directing duties turned over to Yoshimura Kozaburo.

赤線地帯にある特殊飲食店「夢の里」の主人は、国会に上程されている売春禁止法案が可決されたら売春婦はみな投獄されると、女たちを慌てさせる。より江はなじみ客と結婚するが、夫婦生活が破綻し舞い戻ってきた。一人息子のために働くゆめ子だったが、その息子から縁を切られ発狂してしまった。やすみは自分に貢いでくれた客に殺されかけた。ラジオが売春禁止法案の否決を伝えると、「夢の里」は再び客の呼び込みを始めた。そしてそこには、店を辞めたやすみに代わり、下働きだったしず子の姿があった。

Special Forces commander Captain Tadamori returns to Kyoto after successfully defeating the uprising of pirates in the western sea of Japan. But because the high courtiers dislike career soldiers gaining power and influence, they ignore the will of ex-Emperor Toba and refuse to reward the captain. Reward recommender Lord Tokinobu is punished, and the captain sends his son Kiyomori to the Lord's residence, where he falls in love with Tokiko, the Lord's daughter. Meanwhile, Kiyomori finds out that he is possibly the ex-Emperor's son... Written by L.H. Wong

In eighth century China, the Emperor is grieving over the death of his wife. The Yang family wants to provide the Emperor with a consort so that they may consolidate their influence over the court. General An Lushan finds a distant relative working in their kitchen whom they groom to present to the Emperor. The Emperor falls in love with her and she becomes the Princess Yang Kwei-fei. The Yangs are then appointed important ministers, though An Lushan is not given the court position he covets. The ministers misuse their power so much that there is a popular revolt against the Yangs, fueled by An Lushan.

In 17th century Kyoto, Osan is married to Ishun, a wealthy miserly scroll-maker. When Osan is falsely accused of having an affair with the best worker, Mohei, the pair flee the city and declare their love for each other. Ishun orders his men to find them, and separate them to avoid public humiliation.

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.

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。

祇園ではちょっと名の知れた芸妓・美代春の許に、母を亡くしたばかりの少女・栄子が舞妓志願にやってきた。栄子の熱意に負けた美代春は、彼女を引き受けることに。やがて、1年間の舞妓修行を経て、初めて店に出た栄子。ほどなく大会社の御曹司・楠田に見初められる。一方、美代春も楠田の取引先である神崎から言い寄られるのだったが…。

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。

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。

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。

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。

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.

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.

Hamako has just started working for her personal hero, Madame Yuki. Her romanticized view of the Madame is broken immediately, though, as she is introduced with a ever-growing list of the Madame’s personal problems.

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.

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。

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.

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.

A lawyer fights doggedly for a more just legal system to rid Japan of its draconian penal system.

Hisshoka is a 1945 Drama film directed by four Japanese directors.

Kiyone Sakurai, an apprentice swordmaker makes a sword for his guardian, Kozaemon Onoda. Onoda breaks the sword while defending his lord which eventually leads to his death at the hands of Naito, when Naito demands to marry his daughter Sasae. Sasae vows to avenge her father's death and pleads for Kiyone Sakurai to make a special sword for her. So Kiyone and his fellow swordmaker Kiyotsugu go to the master swordsmith Kiyohide Yamatomori to learn their craft and forge the sword. - Will Gilbert

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.

In 1701, Lord Takuminokami Asano has a feud with Lord Kira and he tries to kill Kira in the corridors of the Shogun's palace. The Shogun sentences Lord Asano to commit suppuku and deprives the palace and lands from his clan, but does not punish Lord Kira. Lord Asano's vassals leave the land and his samurais become ronin and want to seek revenge against the dishonor of their Lord. But their leader Kuranosuke Oishi asks the Shogun to restore the Asano clan with his brother Daigaku Asano. One year later, the Shogun refuses his request and Oishi and forty-six ronin revenge their Lord.

A Man of the Arts

Followup film to Osaka Elegy - Osaka Woman

Followup film to Osaka Elegy - Osaka Woman

In late 19th century Tokyo, Kikunosuke Onoue, the adopted son of a legendary actor, himself an actor specializing in female roles, discovers that he is only praised for his acting due to his status as his father's heir. Devastated by this, he turns to Otoku, a servant of his family, for comfort, and they fall in love. Kikunosuke becomes determined to leave home and develop as an actor on his own merits, and Otoku faithfully follows him.

A village romantic drama. (Now lost.)

A story of a servant girl whose life is upturned by her doomed love for a spineless young man.

A story of a servant girl whose life is upturned by her doomed love for a spineless young man.

Umekichi, a geisha in the Gion district of Kyoto, feels obliged to help her lover Furusawa when he asks to stay with her after becoming bankrupt and leaving his wife. However her younger sister Omocha tells her she is wasting her time and money on a loser. She thinks that they should both find wealthy patrons to support them. Omocha therefore tries various schemes to get rid of Furusawa, and set themselves up with better patrons.

Umekichi, a geisha in the Gion district of Kyoto, feels obliged to help her lover Furusawa when he asks to stay with her after becoming bankrupt and leaving his wife. However her younger sister Omocha tells her she is wasting her time and money on a loser. She thinks that they should both find wealthy patrons to support them. Omocha therefore tries various schemes to get rid of Furusawa, and set themselves up with better patrons.

Ayako becomes the mistress of her boss so she can pay her father's debt and prevent him from going to prison for embezzlement.

Ayako becomes the mistress of her boss so she can pay her father's debt and prevent him from going to prison for embezzlement.

Based on Soseki Natsume’s 1908 novel of the same title, Poppy is an ornately complicated story of desire and ambition. Fujio is beautiful, talented, well-heeled, and engaged to Munechika, a rising young diplomat. She has promised him a gold watch, a family heirloom, as an emblem of their engagement. But she falls in love with Ono, a student employed to tutor her in English, who is attracted by her beauty and wealth. Ono is himself bound by an engagement to Sayoko, the daughter of his mentor, Professor Inoue. The self-centered Fujio is ready to forsake everything for Ono, but he is prevailed upon to go ahead with his marriage to Sayoko. Fujio then offers the watch to Munechika who, perceiving Fujio’s true feelings, hurls the watch into the sea.

When a civil war threatens to break out, two geishas flee from their village with aristocrats. During the long journey, the socially inferior women prove to be morally superior to their betters.

Kenji Mizoguchi is credited as “supervisor” on this rare Japanese genre film, which stars the stunning Isuzu Yamada (Osaka Elegy, Throne of Blood) as a professional criminal, part con woman and part martial artist, who falls in love with a young man from the straight world.

In Tokyo, Osen is the servant girl of an unscrupulous antiques dealer, Kumazawa, who takes in the penniless Sokichi Hata. Kumazawa mistreats Sokichi and Osen, while swindling some Buddhist monks out of their temple treasures. When Kumazawa is arrested, Osen agrees to help Sokichi finance his dream of going to medical school. They live in a humble room, and eventually the only way Osen can find enough money for them is to prostitute herself during the day, without Sokichi knowing. (Will Gilbert)

A sad love film where the action takes place in Kyoto, in a trading house.

A sad love film where the action takes place in Kyoto, in a trading house.

明治二十三年頃、北陸一帯を巡業する見世物の中に、今評判の水芸の太夫"瀧の白糸"がいた。美人で勝気な男勝りで通っている白糸が、一日の興行を終え、浅野川の辺りでホッとした時間を過ごしていると、フトした奇縁で知り合った村越欣弥と思いがけない再会をした...。

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. Released in 2 parts. His only release of 1931

Tōjin Okichi is a 1930 film by Kenji Mizoguchi based on the novel by Gisaburo Juichiya. Only 4 minutes have survived. The fragment has been published on DVD coupled with The Downfall of Osen (1935) by Digital MEME in 2007.

While returning by boat to Japan, Yoshie Fujiwara meets a rich woman who suggests him to become a singer thanks to an impresario friend of hers.

The Morning Sun Shines is a fiction-documentary film by Kenji Mizoguchi and Seiichi Ina. The film is a combination of a drama about a reporter, and documentary footage about newspaper production. Only 25 minutes of footage has survived.

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi.

A classic melodramatic love tragedy addressing social inequality in feudal Japan, depicted in Kenji Mizoguchi's typical style. The nostalgic scenes of 1920s Tokyo provides a valuable visual experience set against the background of the title song, "Tokyo March." (Sadly, only 24 minutes of the film now survive.)

This film is about the curse of a jealous woman destroying the lovers on the run.

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi.

Mizoguchi’s 30th film is the earliest surviving example of his work, and his only film of the 1920s to survive complete. Song of Home finds the director already concerning himself with the collision of traditional and modern values. The film is structured around the contrast of two country-bred boys: a coach driver who has never left his home, and a student who returns from Tokyo with city-slicker affectations and Western jazz records. Produced by the Ministry of Education, the film has a simplistic lesson-plan at its heart, but what lingers in the mind after viewing are its more ineffable qualities: The dulcet, lyric, evocation of a disappeared rural past.

An Expressionist film about masses downtrodden by authoritarian capitalism. (Now lost.)

An adaptation of Anna Christie, considered lost.

One of Mizoguchi's first films, considered lost.

One of Mizoguchi's first films, considered lost.

An old potter despairs of having only two daughters and no son, hoping his apprentice will one day bring him an heir. The apprentice meets the eldest daughter but is disgusted by her. He decides to marry the younger daughter, who is in love with another man.