Nobuo Yamada

In the winter of 1945, Sakura the elephant gave birth to a baby elephant at Tokyo Fujimi Zoo under the watchful eye of the zookeeper Shota Tanabe. Around the same time, Shota's wife, Setsuko, also gave birth to a son. Hanako, the baby elephant, grows up while deepening her bonds with elementary school students who love zoos. However, as Japan enters the Pacific War, the military orders the animals in the zoos of five major cities to be killed.

When a young soldier is killed while trying to prevent his younger sister, Kaoru, from being sold into a life of prostitution, his commander, Col. Miyagi, tries to honor his dying wish to rescue his sister. Upon finding Kaoru at a party working as a geisha and later rescuing her from committing suicide, Col. Miyagi allows her to move in with him. Over time, the two grow close, but in spite of Kaoru's growing feelings for him, Col. Miyagi is unable to bring himself to return her love. On the night of his deployment to war, Col. Miyagi finally admits his feelings for Kaoru, but will they ever be able to enjoy a peaceful life together now that a very violent and bloody military revolt is under way...

After the war-time government orders the disbanding of the Big-Six baseball league, the teams of Waseda and Keio universities play one final game before they are drafted into the armed forces and face the hardships of military service.

Taking the Chilean coup as an example, a group of young officers plan to overthrow the Japanese government on V-J Day. They aim to abolish the post-war constitution, restore the national army and revive the traditional spirit of Japan. As the conspiracy is exposed, the coup squadrons are wiped out one by one. The remaining squadron takes over a night train bound for Tokyo.

Drama and intrigue about defense contracts and corruption.

Akira, a Japanese expat working in Amsterdam, falls in love with a Japanese woman at Schiphol Airport who he thinks is his high school love.

Based on the novel of the same name by Seichô Matsumoto.

Adaptation of the novel by Toyoko Yamasaki.

Follows a young med student's relationships with two women: a dangerous affair with a childhood friend and his mother's struggle to rebuild their estranged relationship.

Final part of epic drama about war and its effects upon human beings, follows the fortunes of the Godai family through the Sino-Japanese War through the Soviet Union's sudden attack upon Japanese troops at the end of the war.

Directed by Koreyoshi Kurahara in 1971, Sunset Sunrise (Hi wa shizumi, hi wa noboru) is a “hippie” road movie chronicling the trek that a handful of people take in order to reach Katmandú, the capital of Nepal.

Second part of an epic drama of war and its effects upon human beings, follows the fortunes of the Godai family from 1935 through Japan's invasion of China. Based on the novels by Jumpei Gomikawa, who also penned The Human Condition.

It was five years ago when Minako spent a night with Sozo, younger brother of her ex-husband. She now lives in a local town with a rich old man who owns a dry goods store. Minako travels to Tokyo on business every three months, during which time she continues to meet Sozo, who has married the daughter of his respected teacher.

Keisuke Godai, head of the upstart Godai family conglomerate, plans to strengthen ties with the hardliners in the Kwantung Army as they plan military expansion into Manchuria.

A Japanese racing driver for Nissan named Godai (Yujiro Ishihara) have a rivalry with a French driver named Pierre (Jean-Claude Drouot). Godai is enlisted to race in an annual endurance race, The East African Safari Rally. Peripheral to this is the story concerning Godai's former lover Yuko (Ruriko Asaoka), a fashion designer, and her friend Anna (Emmanuel Riva), who happens to be Pierre's wife.

A Yasuzō Masumura film about a love affair starring Ayako Wakao. The literal title is The Two Who Got Wet.

Love story of a working-class boy and girl.

A man is involved in a fatal car accident, and though he is blameless, his company transfers him to a remote branch in a small town. Before he leaves, he gives the man's widow a large sum of money that she uses to move back to her hometown.

A gang lord hires Kamimura, a hit man, to take out a rival boss who's gotten greedy.

A crime film from 1966

Hiroko, who has a weekly magazine reporter as her lover is assigned as a public health nurse in a remote village. However, there is widespread poverty and ignorance beyond her imagination.

Musical actress Noriko feels frustrated by the futility of her affair with a married man. Then she is offered a role in a new production that appears to mirror her own private life... An excellent work that stylishly depicts its gradually evolving heroine.

When the man who seduced the famous painter Otoko as a teenager--and then wrote a bestselling novel about it--reappears in her life, her pupil--and lesbian lover--hatches a plot to destroy the man and his family.

The tragic tale of Kiyono, a young woman from the mountain who fell in love with Takuji, a fisherman's son, and her devotion to him during a time of war.

Assassination begins with the events of 1853 when "four black ships" anchored at Edo Bay, sparking civil unrest and the major political manoeuvring that saw the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate. At a time when assassination had become a disturbing political tool, Shinoda's film follows Hachiro Kiyokawa, an ambitious, masterless samurai whose allegiances drift dangerously between the Shogunate and the Emperor.

Akira, a young, jazz-obsessed drifter, returns to his squat, a ruined church, and finds Gill, a wounded African-American GI, on the run after the death of a white GI. Despite terrible misunderstandings and culture clash, Akira agrees to help Gill escape towards the sea, dodging military police along the way.

A musical film with Yūjirō Ishihara and Ruriko Asaoka.

Joe Shishido is an ambitious bike racetrack tout who becomes inadvertently involved in a triangle with a vulnerable prostitute (Izumi Ashikawa) and her brutal yakuza pimp (George Ai).

A celebrity, dissatisfied with his personal and professional lives, impulsively leaves fast-paced Tokyo to deliver a much-needed jeep to a remote village. When his controlling manager, the woman he loves, follows, the two must reconcile while dodging reporters.

Hanjiro is a struggling painter that shares a tiny apartment in the back streets of Ginza with his jazz pianist friend who works at a bar. When he and his sweet heart, Hisako decide to get married, Hanjiro is faced with a tough decision. Needing to buy a ticket back home to tell his mother the good news, he compromises his creative principles for love and sells his portrait of Hisako. Hisako heads to the station to see him off, but gets hit by a car...

Kawanishi Kyu and Tomoda Ryoji, two waifs, are inmates of a Reform School. One night, the boys succeed in a mass escape and split up. Kyu and Ryoji hear the sirens shrieking behind them and panic. Kyu pretends he has been hit by a small truck and Ryoji demands that they be taken to a hospital, little dreaming that Nagai, the driver, is the official guardian of juveniles. The next morning the two boys hear a light knock, and Nagai's daughter, Noriko enters, but surprise is changed to fear as they see her father approaching with Kume, the Juvenile Officer. Their one thought is escape but Kyu discovers his leg is stiff and it pains him to move. In the excitement, he had not realized he had really been hit by the truck. He sends Ryoji away while he waits alone for Officer Kume. Nagai takes Kyu under his wing, while Ryoji finds himself again in the hard-boiled world.

Japanese action film set in Arabia.

Um delinquente juvenil sai da penitenciária e imediatamente embarca num tumulto de raiva à solta, a maior parte desta direcionada à namorada do jornalista que ajudou a mandá-lo para a prisão.

At Tokyo Gakuen University, Takema, son of Tatsunosuke, chief of the Waku gang, is a freshman who wishes to prepare himself for a better life away from gang activities despite the wishes of his father who wants him to assist strengthen the gang against the Kawano group. Takema's classmate, Akiko, is the daughter of Eiko who operates a restaurant, and through her he obtains a lodging in the house of Shiu, a dancing mistress. The students enjoy their life, but most have their troubles. Sakamoto works as a laborer on the docks to help pay for his schooling, and Akiko worries over the relationship between her mother and Sakurai, a corrupt politician, suspected to be involved in graft over jet aircraft.

Maki, a porter at the Sakura Hotel, finds a body in Room No. 2 and picks up a piece of paper on which is written "one-third of the key", also the part of a key. From a newspaper he learns that the dead man is an official who has been detained as a suspect in a bribery case involving 150,000,000 yen and that another suspect named Matsunaga is still in custody. Maki realizes that if he can obtain the other two-thirds of the key, he will be a multi-millionaire.

Seven years ago, Ishimatsu Toshio, a talented radio producer at Zen Nihon Hōsō, witnessed a crazed drug addict murder his wife and then commit suicide, though Toshio was able to save the lives of their two children. Just transferred from Shimizu to Tokyo, Toshio hopes to produce a program that will expose the drug trade in Tokyo. One day, Toshio stops into a noodle shop where he is mistaken for a drug dealer and passed a bagful of drugs. The real dealer arrives in time to follow Toshio home. That night Toshio is attacked by the dealer, who turns out to be Kenji, one of the children Toshio had saved. Kenji can't bring himself to kill Toshio, so he runs away and goes into hiding from the mafia. While continuing to investigate the drug trade, Toshio searches for Kenji to get Kenji's testimony for his program.