Hiroshi Suzuki

From the king of Japanese exploitation films comes a criminal drama told in a semi-documentary fashion. The murder of the chief official of Kobe city's Customs triggers an investigation of a prostitution ring called the 'Yellow Line' that sells Japanese women. A hired assasin is betrayed by his organization, and kidnaps a woman who happens to be the girlfriend of a newspaper reporter.

A painter leaves his family to paint the homes of his rich clients. A lonely, ruthless samurai falls in love with the painter's wife and rapes her. He later murders the painter and his servants. From the afterlife, the painter's ghost seeks revenge on the samurai, and saves his wife and newborn child.

A samurai rescues a mischievous tanuki from hunters and sets it free. When the samurai's wastrel son hatches a plot to kill his father for his fortune, the magical tanuki is determined to protect its rescuer.

Boxing film directed by Teruo Ishii in his directorial debut.

20th film adaptation of the novel Ono ga tsumi (published 1900-1901).

Oiwa has been searching for the one who killed her father for a long time. She comes to Yedo and sees a man named Naosuke. The film is based on the kabuki classic: Toukaidou Yotsuya Kaidan (1826) written by Tsuruya Nanboku and is one of the most famous ghost stories throughout Japan.

Based on the novel by Kojin Shimomura. Story of a young boy and his adventures in the country. His idyllic life is shattered by the illness and death of his mother.

A university professor and his wife have two sons with infantile paralysis. Through trial and error, they struggle to open a school for disabled children at their own expense. Based on a true story, it features natural child performances under Hiroshi Shimizu’s skillful direction.

The tragedy of the geiko girl Ume and the men who try to pursue her.

번역일로 먹고 사는 마유미는 결혼을 하지 않아 주위 사람들의 걱정을 산다. 마유미는 결혼 생각이 없다며 대답을 피하지만 사실 그는 오랫동안 한 여성만을 좋아하고 있다. 한편, 마유미는 우연히 만난 친구에게 새로운 일을 제안 받는다. 바로 미군과 사귀는 여성들에게 영어 편지를 대신 써주는 일이다. 기노시타 게이스케 감독이 각본을 썼으며, 다나카 기누요도 마유미의 고객으로 잠시 출연한다. 1954년 칸영화제 경쟁부문 상영.

료스케는 "뽀빠이" 타입의 아버지로 전쟁 때 폭격으로 불타버렸던 가게를 재건하고자 밤낮으로 열심히 일한다. 그의 아내인 마사코와 두 딸인 도시코와 히사코 또한 가족을 위해서 끝없이 희생하며 최선을 다해 돕는다. 도시코는 피카소에 영감을 받아 빵을 굽는 근대적인 사고를 사진 빵집의 신지로와 사랑하는 사이다. 어느 날 아버지는 병으로 눕게 되고 그의 형제인 기무라가 찾아온다. 그는 아버지에게 무슨 일이 일어나면 자신이 일을 돕겠다고 한다. 기무라는 모든 사람들과 잘 지내지만, 도시코는 사람들이 엄마와 기무라 간의 염문에 대해 수군거리는 소리를 듣게 된다. 이기심이 발동한 도시코는 기무라가 떠나야 한다고 주장하고 결국 기무라는 그렇게 하는데... (서울시네마떼끄 나루세 미키오 회고전)

Obscure Japanese movie by director Kyotaro Namiki

A young botanical researcher moves to the highlands to collect plants for research, and falls in love with a nurse there.

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A romantic melodrama about the shifting relationship between Ryosuke and Miki as their precarious employment and social circumstances shift around them.

Adaptation of a novel by Yojiro Ishizaka, originally released in two parts.

A film by Kiyoshi Saeki

Three humorous love stories set in rural Japan.

Saheita, the final heir of a once rich and respectable family, can't refuse the many villagers that come to him for favours and money, even though he is on the brink of bankruptcy. Around town he is better known by his nickname Mr. Shosuke Ohara.

Police detective Heiji is assigned to catch the masked Maboroshi gang of robbers who have terrorized all of Edo leaving few clues as to who their leader is.

A newly hired daily newspaper writer covering the society beat receives an assignment to cover Tokyo at night by walking and observing it. He gets into the right frame of mind by dressing the part as a vagrant with not a penny to his name. He gets into trouble ending up at the police station slammer overnight. He has no material to write about and, with his assignment unfulfilled, faces a cross editor.

에도 시대, 산주산겐도 사당에서 매년 개최하는 궁술 대회는 많은 이들의 관심의 대상이다. 다이하치로의 아버지는 이 궁술 대회에서 패배한 후 스스로 목숨을 끊었고, 다이하치로는 어릴 때부터 우승을 꿈꾸며 궁술을 갈고 닦는다. 하지만 최고의 실력자 간자에몽 등 어려운 장애물이 기다리고 있다. 나루세 미키오의 첫 사극 영화.

Three IJN flyers Mikami (Susumu Fujita), Kawakami (Masayuki Mori) and Murakami (Akitake Kono) are good friends, and they are all renowned for their torpedo techniques. Mikami is posted as a staff officer at a base on an island in the Pacific. Kawakami and Murakami later joins him as the base squardron is reinforced. The enemy task force approaches the island and all three of them attack the fleet, killing themselves in the process.

조만 국경인 만포진에는 국경 경비대가 주둔하고 있는데 해마다 겨울이 되면 마적들이 경비대를 습격하곤 하였다. 어느날 밤 마적단의 한 청년이 만포진에 살고 있던 가족들을 살리려고 습격 전에 가족들을 대피시키려고 하였다. 그러나 아버지는 피하기를 거부하고 오히려 그 사실을 경비대에 신고한다. 마적떼와 경비대 사이에 전투가 벌어지고 경비대가 위기에 몰리는 순간, 출동한 지원병력이 마적들을 전멸시킨다.

What is marriage? Young couple in match-making wanted to know before they decide. They visited married couples of sisters and brothers. Love comedy in 1942.

Two young girls, Nobiko and Tomiko, go to the same school. The less fortunate girl Nobiko is one of the top students, while the rich girl Tomiko is not. At one time Tomiko's father was quite fond of Nobuko's mother.

This film attempts to reconstruct the tension of the Battle of Shanghai through an episode in an understated way, introducting its story in a documentary mode. In the film story, Japan's marine regiment protects Japanese residents and Chinese refugees-women and young children-from rampant street fighting, Shanhai Rikusentai unsparingly uses its first eight minutes for an official-mannered self-justification of the war. From the viewpoint of explaining Japan's military operation,the narration refers to the city s spatial division in sync with maps on screen.

The Whole Family Works, Mikio Naruse's adaptation of a Sunao Tokunaga novel, feels more of a piece with the writer/director's quietly observant and psychologically charged later work. For the Naruse-familiar, it is an anomaly only in its placement within his filmography—indeed, this could be a film made by the elder, stasis-minded Naruse momentarily inhabiting, through a metaphysical twist of fate, his stylistically exuberant younger self. Set in depression-era Japan around the time of the Sino-Japanese War (which the director evokes, during a brief dream sequence, by dissolving between children's war games and actual adult warfare), The Whole Family Works gently observes a family coming apart at the seams. Ishimura (Musei Tokugawa) is the jobless father of nine children.

“Widely acclaimed as the first full-scale historical film epic in Japan, Kumagai’s adaptation of Ogai Mori’s celebrated novel is an indictment of the bushido tradition of saving face through harakiri. The 19 vassals of Lord Hosokawa ask permission to commit harakiri with him, as a demonstration of their loyalty. Only Yaichiemon Abe is refused permission, forced instead into the vassalage of his lord’s successor. Humiliated and derided, Yaichiemon eventually commits harakiri without permission. His eldest son is then punished for Yaichiemon’s suicide, and when he resists, is sentenced to death. The entire Abe clan rebels upon the son’s execution, and the clan is annihilated.” --Alan Poul, Japan Society

Part 2 of a 2-part romance (fist part - Kafuku zempen) based on a story by noted author Kikuchi Kan. In the second half, we discover that Toyomi is pregnant -- and while Shintaro and Yurie are on their extended honeymoon, she bears his child, a girl named Kiyoko. She is supported in adversity by Michiko -- and gets considerable moral support from not only her own mother but also from Shintaro's mother and siblings. Even more surprisingly, Yurie strikes up a friendship of sorts with her. When Yurie learns that the child is Shintaro's, she convinces Toyomi that it would be best to let Shintaro (and her) raise Kiyoko, so Toyomi can get on with making a proper life for herself. Tearfully, Toyomi agrees. Sometime later, Michiko goes to visit Toyomi -- and sees her at work, as a kindergarten teacher.

As suggested by the title, this film takes up the theme of the city, beginning with a series of traveling shots from Chiyo's point o view on a bus leaving the countryside and entering the metropolitan cityscape. After some fruitless job hunting in downtown Tokyo, Chiyo accepts a job as a bar hostess in Shiba ward. Well away from glamorous Asakusa and Ginza, this is a neighborhood bar where the women are dirt poor, each having only one kimono to their name....

The otherwise promising young man Asaji (Heihachirô Ôkawa) and his younger brother Yuji (Hideo Saeki) face blighted lives because of society's disapproval of their illegitmacy and déclassé family.

This film is based on a real Meiji era performer -- and tells of Tochuken's partnership with his wife (played by Chikako Hosokawa) who played shamisen for his songs/recitations), his affair with a geisha (Sachiko Chiba), and the deterioration of his partnership and marriage.

A story of two sisters, the older being more traditional, the younger a "moga" ("modern girl"). Their widowed father runs the family sake shop, but is running into financial trouble, causing him to tamper with his stock; Meanwhile, his long-time mistress yearns for something more serious. Amidst this, the older sister is introduced to a well-off suitor: A university boy, much more intrigued by the less traditional little sister. A doddering grandfather, an officious uncle and busybody neighbors also don't make the lives of the hardworking members of the family any easier.

The main focus is on the 5 member band of a small circus as it runs into problems while touring rural Japan. It also pays lots of attention to the two daughters of the aging and irascible ringmaster-circus owner. The high points are the sound (and score) and cinematography featuring a lot of vertiginous panning (appropriate - as high wire trapeze artists are also an important element in the film). A fascinating side-light on 30s Japan.

아버지가 집을 나간 후 키미코는 어머니와 단둘이 살고 있다. 키미코는 아버지를 되찾기 위해 산골 마을을 찾아가지만, 아버지는 이미 전직 게이샤 오유키와 동거하고 있다.

Among the tight-knit neighbours are a poet, his actress wife, a bachelor budding author, a tobacco shop owner-cum-landlady, an insurance salesman and his nosy and greedy wife. Enter a young and seemingly high-class couple who just so happens is open to purchasing life insurance from their swift neighbour. In the meantime, life is imitating art across the street, which may end up providing for either a happy ending or a rude split - eventually that is.

술집을 전전하며 샤미센을 연주하는 오소메, 클럽 댄서인 치에코, 그리고 건달을 애인으로 둔 오렌의 이야기를 그린 영화. 오렌은 최근 사고를 치고 도망간 애인을 숨겨주고 있다. 하지만 이 사실을 오소메가 알면서 세 자매는 곤란한 입장에 처한다. 나루세 미키오가 연출한 첫 유성 영화. (2015 한국시네마테크협의회 - 나루세 미키오 특별전)

The film generally regarded as Japan’s first true musical was also the first film made entirely in-house by the pioneering studio P.C.L., a company founded specifically to take advantage of emergent sound technology. P.C.L. worked in collaboration with a brewer’s firm, Dai Nihon Biru, who met the production costs of the film in full, and whose products are featured in the film in an example of the sophisticated and modern merchandising typical of the studio’s early work. The film is partially set in a beer hall, and its story concerns a beer seller at a train station and her relationship with a music student trying to create a hit song. Director Sotoji Kimura was to become a company stalwart, making such films as Ino and Mon, while actress Sachiko Chiba would emerge the studio’s first real star, appearing in such films as Wife Be Like a Rose.