(archive footage)
A narrative feature made from a collage of clips from various films around the world.
A young girl is striving for stardom. In order to get a lead role in a new production, she agrees to stand-in for a famous star whose rich patron died in her arms one night. The real-life drama gradually comes to mirror the story of the play being performed by her.
Small Old Man
When Wabisuke's father-in-law unexpectedly dies, the family goes through a series of random events and occurrences as the funeral unfolds over three days in their home.
Ryuji Hoshi
A high-school girl inherits a declining yakuza organization, which seeks to repair its fortunes under her leadership.
Doctor
Shingen, um poderoso Senhor da Guerra, seriamente ferido, ordena ao clã que use algum sósia para o substituir caso faleça - para manter a sua morte em segredo, evitando assim o ataque dos seus inimigos. Mas este é um vulgar criminoso que tem de aprender a transformar-se num grande líder e comandar um exército de 25.000 leais guerreiros Samurai…
First live action "Barefoot Gen" sequel.
Doctor
Two semi-slackers with an ultra-intimate friendship work, slack and drink in a freezing Hokkaido town.
Tai Kato’s early 20th century set yakuza epic about an ordinary merchant girl (Hiroko Maki) who crosses paths with an assassin (Tetsuya Watari). The encounter sends her to jail as a suspected accomplice. Years later she marries a yakuza boss, whose gang is affiliated with working class people.
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.
Minoru visits his home on Okinoerabu island for the first time in thirty years. Seeing the old man who used to be in love with his mother, Minoru recalls the old days spent on the island with his young, beautiful mother.
Fearless Edo-period police inspector Hanzo Itami, nicknamed The Razor, has developed his own unique way of extracting information for his inquiries. His first adventure sees him investigating his superior officer's mistress, whom he suspects of having ties with a reputed criminal on the loose.
Pinku from 1971.
7 de agosto de 1942. O Exército dos EUA envia uma grande frota naval para atacar Guadalcanal. Isso marcou o início da contraofensiva do Exército dos EUA no Pacífico. Guadalcanal teve que ser defendida até a morte! Após seis meses de batalha mortal, as munições e os suprimentos da guarnição japonesa foram exauridos. Sofrendo de fome, feridas, malária e disenteria amebiana, eles foram finalmente derrotados e a contraofensiva dos militares dos EUA que conquista Guadalcanal espalha-se de ilha em ilha como uma avalanche. Bougainville, o arquipélago de Bismarck, Nova Guiné, Makin, Tarawa e finalmente, a 7 de julho de 1944, os defensores de Saipan escolheram o caminho dos "gyokusai". (Gyokusai = morte honrosa em vez de rendição, seja lutando contra a morte ou suicídio).
Suicidal Old Man
Vários contos na vida de habitantes de favelas de Tóquio, incluindo um jovem mentalmente deficiente obcecado com a condução de seu próprio bonde. Ao mesmo tempo trágico e transcendente, esse filme de Akira Kurosawa acompanha o cotidiano de um grupo de pessoas maltrapilhas em uma favela nos arredores de Tóquio. Por mais desesperadoras que sejam suas circunstâncias, cada um deles - O pai e o filho sem teto imaginando a casa de seus sonhos; A jovem abusada pelo tio; O garoto que se imagina um condutor de bonde - encontra razões para continuar. O inesquecível Dodes'ka-den foi feito num momento tumultuado na vida de Kurosawa. E todas as suas esperanças, medos e paixão artística estão em exibição fervorosa neste filme, seu primeiro filme gloriosamente a cores. (e 12 - Estimado 12 Anos)
An outlaw pushes the residents of Edo's red light district to rebel against a growing number of stifling, moralistic laws.
Owner of the Yamatoya
Successful and married with children, paper-mill owner Jihei knows better than to contradict the strict social and moral codes of 18th-century Japan. But when he meets the lovely courtesan Koharu, he becomes a man obsessed. Koharu returns his love, even foregoing other customers while Jihei schemes to somehow buy her freedom. His efforts yield ruinous consequences for his business and his family life, and Koharu is meanwhile purchased by another client.
Século XV. Com a eclosão das guerras civis, dois jovens tentam incentivar a população, desgastada pelos flagelos, resgatando a Festa do Gion então revogada pelo governo.
Shinshichi, father
In the 19th century Edo period, sisters Oshizu and Otaka have sacrificed their personal happiness to work and care for their ailing father. Otaka falls in love, but can’t accept a marriage proposal since her older sister needs to marry first. When Oshizu learns of this decision, she takes matters in her own hands.
An inspirational teacher is the focus of this Japanese drama. After his friend kills himself, Natsuki takes a teaching job on an isolated island. His new students, the children of ignorant fishermen, can see no value in education; therefore, they have no desire to learn. Natsuki then introduces the children to volleyball. The kids are immediately fired up by the game. After winning the island tourney, they go on to win the national championship. Suddenly learning has taken on a whole new dimension. Meanwhile Natsuki gets married. Unfortunately for his wife, he refuses to leave the island.
Omatsu's grandfather
Sem compaixão e em busca de sua glória pessoal, um samurai vaga pelas aldeias espalhando morte, sangue e desprezo, até que é desafiado por um guerreiro tão hábil quanto ele.
The Artist
A former comic is on the run from the mob.
佐平
Three stories revolve around independence, a man searching for his wife, and a poor craftsman trying to make money.
Rokusuke
No Japão do século 19 , em um hospital de caridade o Dr. Niide (Toshiro Mifune), um médico duro mas honrado, conduz um jovem estagiário sob sua orientação ao longo de inúmeros casos difíceis.
Ambientado em tempos feudais, médico novato, Yuzo Kayama, é enviado para uma enfermaria pobre esperando ser apenas passageiro, mas está furioso ao saber que ele deve ficar. Ele tenta provocar sua dispensa, mas é frustrado pelo médico-chefe "Barba Vermelha" (Toshiro Mifune), um homem cujos métodos são tão carinhosos quanto imprevisíveis.
The Sengoku Era was coming to an end. The monopoly of the ever powerful shogun, Ieyasu Tokugawa, was at a near. Only one man was brave enough to stand in Ieyasu's way - A lone wolf samurai by the name of Kagekatsu Uesugi. Inspired by Uesugi's courage to revolt, a young samurai warrior, Touzou Kuruma decides to join the fight. Their target: the Tamonyama Castle.
A musical romance.
Jinbei
Shiba, a wandering ronin, encounters a band of peasants who have kidnapped the daughter of their dictatorial magistrate, in hopes of coercing from him a reduction in taxes. Shiba takes up their fight, joined by two renegades from the magistrate's guard, Sakura and Kikyo. The three outlaws find themselves in a battle to the death.
Miyuki Sasa
Frustrated with the bad behavior of his lord, Inaba Yajuro (Otomo) declares that he is leaving the clan and sets off on a journey that leads him into a small town besieged by a violent group of brigands. In a kind of homage to Kurosawa's 7 Samurai, the townspeople have been unable to defend themselves and Inaba sets out to teach them how to stand up for themselves. Meanwhile the vile Lord Yasumasa has sent the 4 finest swordsmen in the clan out to hunt Inaba down and kill him. Led by the magnificent Ichibei (Konoe), a master of weaponry in his own right, everything points to an ultimate showdown between the former friends in a battle to the death.
Gonza was a handsome young laborer, a footman and spear-carrier, working hard for his meager wage. All Gonza wanted was to marry his young sweetheart, but despite their mutual poverty, her status as the daughter of a samurai blocked their path to happiness. A chance opportunity to achieve samurai status would come one day, but Gonza will regret trusting the so-called honorable samurai who extended this fateful offer, and the terrible price he'd pay, fighting for his life in one of the most blood-spattered samurai battles ever filmed.
A young factory worker struggles to figure out what she wants to do with her life.
The womanising master of a run-down dojo hires an unemployed samurai to make himself look good instead of learning the skills himself. He lives to regret this laziness when he falls in love with the daughter of a higher class samurai and is informed on their wedding night that he must defeat her before their marriage can be consumated....
Junkyard Cook
Um executivo de uma empresa de calçados torna-se vítima de extorsão quando o filho de seu motorista é sequestrado e pedem resgate.
O executivo Gondo (Toshirô Mifune) hipoteca tudo o que tem na tentativa de assumir a Companhia Nacional de Sapatos, para manter a empresa fora das mãos dos outros executivos incompetentes e gananciosos. Contudo, o mesmo dinheiro que ele arrecada pode pagar o resgate que possivelmente irá salvara vida de uma criança, levando o executivo a tomar decisões extremas e elaborar procedimentos policiais. A resolução desse dilema - a perda certa da empresa vs a perda provável da criança - cria um drama distinto, e um elaborado procedimento de polícia cria um segundo. (e 12 - Estimado 12 Anos)
The story tells of a group of samurai who were left leaderless (becoming ronin) after their daimyo (feudal lord) was forced to commit seppuku (ritual suicide) for assaulting a court official named Kira Yoshinaka, whose title was Kōzuke no suke. The ronin avenged their master's honor after patiently waiting and planning for over a year to kill Kira. In turn, the ronin were themselves forced to commit seppuku for committing the crime of murder.
Japanese drama.
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.
An ambitious young woman uses her sex appeal to solve financial problems in her family, including a brother in debt to the yakuza, and a father who stole money from his firm to repay his son's debt.
Takebayashi
No Japão por volta do século XVIII, nove jovens decidem apresentar uma acusação de corrupção em seu clã ao superintendente local. No entanto, o grupo é traído, mas o ronin Sanjûrô Tsubaki (Toshirô Mifune), um samurai desalinhado e cínico, os salva dos homens do superintendente. Então o tio do líder dos clãs rebeldes, o Chamberlain Mutsuta (Yûnosuke Itô), é seqüestrado e sua esposa e filha são detidas e feitas prisioneiras do superintendente que tenta forçar Mutsuta a escrever uma falsa carta de confissão declarando ser corrupto. Sanjûrô ajuda o grupo a resgatar o Chamberlain e sua família.
The first instalment in Toho's popular Wakadaishō (Young Guy) series.
Tazaemon
A história ocorre em 1860 e baseia-se na chegada de um ronin a uma cidade que sofre com a guerra entre duas gangues. Kuwabatake Sanjuro, que significa "Amoreira de 30 Anos" (Toshirō Mifune), aproveitando a sua perspicácia tenta ganhar dinheiro e, ao mesmo tempo, livrar a cidade das gangues rivais, ora associando-se a um grupo, ora associando-se a outro, tirando proveito da situação e manipulando-os, devido ao despreparo estratégico dos dois grupos, que é demonstrado através de diversas cenas satíricas durante o filme.
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.
Tsunekichi Yamada
A single mother from the country raising a 6th grade boy comes to Tokyo, leaves the boy to live with his uncle's family, runs a struggling grocery store, and works a local inn. The boy befriends a girl, the daughter of the innkeeper...
Assistant-to-the-Chief Wada
Um jovem vingativo se casa com a filha de um industrial corrupto, a fim de buscar justiça pelo suicídio de seu pai. Uma história de Kurosawa sobre o escândalo corporativo no Japão do pós-guerra. Um jovem tenta usar sua posição no coração de uma empresa corrupta para expor os homens responsáveis pela morte de seu pai. (e 14 - Estimado 14 Anos)
Batasuke, peddler
É uma história da violência que aborda a delinquência juvenil nas ruas mais marginais de um bairro pobre de Tóquio. O grupo vai diminuindo devido a suicídios, assassinatos, guerrilha entre gangues e acidentes ocorridos quando do seu envolvimento em fogo oposto e tiroteios. Atormentados por problemas de álcool, comércio de sangue humano e drogas, os membros do grupo entram numa viagem sem retorno de desespero e de morte certa.
An adaptation of the popular Sazae-San comic strip.
Kumakichi Furukawa
Story of young love in the hills.
Rakuzo the sake seller (uncredited)
Edmund Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac, transplanted to Japan. A poet-warrior with an oversized nose (matched only by his great heart) loves a lady. But she sees him only as a friend, so he helps another man to woo her by giving him the poetry of his own heart.
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.
Gentaro Matsuda
An Ishiro Honda film.
Matashichi
Ambientado no século dezesseis no Japão, um solitário samurai escolta uma jovem princesa fugitiva através do território inimigo.
An adaptation of the popular Sazae-San comic strip. The first entry in the series shot in TohoScope.
Mr. Takakura
Two detectives begin a stakeout based on the slim chance of catching a murderer whom they suspect will try to reunite with an old flame.
Adaptation of the popular Sazae-San comic strip. The first entry in the series shot in color.
The Actor
Japão medieval. Em um cortiço degradado de Edo, um homem idoso (Rokubei) e sua amarga esposa (Osugi) alugam quartos e camas aos pobres e miseráveis. Os inquilinos são apostadores, prostitutas, pequenos ladrões e vagabundos bêbados, todos lutando para sobreviver. A chegada recente de Kahei, um homem idoso misterioso, afetuosamente chamado de vovô, dá pelo menos a esperança que há uma vida melhor lá fora, em algum lugar. (e 14 - Estimado 14 Anos)
A study of uneasy relationships among the inhabitants of a tiny rural community.
Noodle vendor
Two sisters find out the existence of their long-lost mother, but the younger cannot accept the fact that she was abandoned as a child.
An adaptation of the popular Sazae-San comic strip.
Historical drama about a sleep-eyed ronin
A young man and woman are determined to marry despite opposition from her parents.
Historical drama about a sleepy-eyed ronin.
An adaptation of the popular Sazae-san comic strip. The first entry in Toho's Sazae-san series.
Yoshizo (Rumiko's father)
Period romantic drama.
Yayoshi (Father)
Okamoto
Kiichi Nakajima, um idoso proprietário de fundição, convencido de que o Japão será afetado por uma guerra nuclear iminente, resolve transferir sua família para a segurança no Brasil. Sua família decide que seja declarado incompetente e o Dr. Harada, um conselheiro do Tribunal Doméstico, tenta arbitrar. (e 12 - Estimado 12 Anos)
Gorosaku
Forced on the road by yakuza obligations, a man sets out on a reckless journey to Tsumagoi. Movie posters for local cinemas were often displayed at sento (public baths) too. The handwritten text on the bottom here announces the film will play at Hassen for 3 days.
Tokugoto Izumi
An Ishiro Honda film.
Saito
Two youths - the serious son of a Buddhist abbot and his rakish pal - quarrel over a restaurant keeper's daughter. When one of the youths die the other boy and the girl find they cannot forget him.
Sano
An Ishiro Honda film.
Mariko's grandfather
When an invisible man is run down by a car it’s up to an eager young reporter and a strange clown to bring a dangerous gang to justice.
Toku, a factory worker gives food to a starving woman, Tsuru, who then follows him home. He shares a shack in a shanty village in Kawasaki with his friend Pin-chan. The two men try to get rid of her but then let her stay when she gives them money. Tsuru tells the people of the village that she lost her job due to a strike, then was robbed of her severance pay, then sold to a brothel in Tsuchiura. She ran away with a friend from Kawasaki. Toku and Pin-chan sell her to a geisha house and spend the money. She is thrown out. The owner demands his money back. Tsuru earns the money to pay their debt by working as a prostitute outside the station. The other prostitutes beat her. She fends them off with a policeman's revolver and is then shot dead by the police.
Dirigido por Hideo Suzuki
Manzô - Father of Shino
No século XVI, durante a era Sengoku, quando os poderosos samurais de outrora estavam com os dias contados, pois eram agora desprezados pelos seus aristocráticos senhores. Kambei (Takashi Shimura), um guerreiro veterano sem dinheiro, chega em uma aldeia indefesa que foi saqueada repetidamente por ladrões assassinos. Os moradores do vilarejo pedem sua ajuda, fazendo com que Kambei recrute seis outros ronins (samurais sem mestre), que concordam em ensinar os habitantes como devem se defender em troca de comida. Os aldeões dão boas-vindas aos guerreiros e algumas relações começam. Katsushiro (Ko Kimura) se apaixona por uma das mulheres locais, embora os outros ronins mantenham distância dos camponeses. O último dos guerreiros que chega é Kikuchio (Toshiro Mifune), que finge estar qualificado mas na realidade é o filho de um camponês que almeja aceitação.
An Inn at Osaka, rarely seen outside Japan, follows the story of an insurance company executive from Tokyo, Mr. Mito, who is demoted to the Osaka office. He takes a room at a small inn and tries to rebuild his life. Notable for its exquisite framing and cinematography, An Inn at Osaka allows its complicated plotlines to disappear behind the minutiae of penury and humiliation that Mito and others suffer during the post-war economic and social reconstruction.
Kimura
Ten years into a marriage, the wife is disappointed by the husband's lack of financial success, meaning she has to work and can't treat herself and the husband finds the wife slovenly and mean-spirited: she neither cooks not cleans particularly well and is generally disagreeable. In turn, he alternately ignores her and treats her as a servant. Neither is particularly happy, not helped by their unsatisfactory lodgers. The husband is easily seduced by an ex-colleague, a widow with a small child who needs some security, and considers leaving his wife.
A math teacher loses his job while falling in love with a local girl.
A married couple looking for an apartment move in with the husband's co-worker, a widower. The husband becomes jealous of the widower and his wife.
Drunken man B
Takasaki-Shochou
An Ishiro Honda film.
A screwball tale of a suspected “lady thief” and the detective who is on her trail, following her from Osaka to her home village, where she is going to hold a memorial service for her father. Of course, the detective falls in love with his prey.
Sub-Section Chief Ono
Burocrata de longa data, que não liga para nada que não o interessa, descobre que está com câncer. Decide, então, construir um playground em seu bairro, tentando descobrir um sentido para sua vida.
Aoyama
Following the Second World War, the lives of various people in a poverty-stricken area of Tokyo are entertwined. Pachinko parlor girls, shoeshine boys, a maker of costume jewelry, and a streetcorner artist all struggle to make their livings and to find happiness in difficult surroundings.
Isaburo
Jidai-geki by Kiyoshi Saeki
Once an average and seemingly ordinary Tokyo girl, she suddenly finds herself as a TV star owing to her discovery by a casting company, which noticed photographs that her cousin had sent. When another actress falls ill she is given the role instead. Her first film is a success propelling the young actress to popularity, her own fans, money and a house. While everything looks dandy from the outside not all is well within the family however.
Innkeeper of Oiso no Yado
A movie directed by Nobuo Nakagawa
Doctor
A high-born woman named Okuni travels around the country with Gohei, a samurai retainer who is in service to her. They are in search of Tomonojo, who has killed the man who was Okuni’s husband and Gohei’s master, and they cannot return to their lord’s home until they have fulfilled their duty of hunting down and killing Tomonojo.
Shunpei Goto
When a group of young geologists declares a mountainside marked for residential development unstable, they are met with scorn on two fronts. On one end, they must contend with the local villagers who balk at the prospect of relocation; on the other, they face the ambitions of the headstrong lumber baron, whose actions will only further destabilize the land. Their pleas for reason ignored, the scientists can do little but observe as nature runs its inevitable course.
Old man Omura
In a small town, according to the homecoming of Professor Ishinaka, the youth culture group was overwhelmed to make a presentation for the summer festival, but because of lack of funds, she works part-time at the spectacle of a tour, a haunted house Especially. The ghost was a struggle amongst the people, it was a great success in filling the crowd, but in the circus hut next to it, Kenji who was supposed to have disappeared was pitiful.
Kawashima
A Hibari Misora musical about an impoverished girl and her brother in Postwar Japan.
Director Hiroshi Inagaki's early version of the life and death of famed swordsman Sasaki Kojiro. Otani Tomoemon gives a brilliant performance as Sasaki Kojiro, who rises from humble beginnings to national fame, and a young Toshiro Mifune appears as the legendary master swordsman Miyamoto Musashi for the first time and essentially sets the standard for future portrayals.This masterpiece is based on the original story as written by noted author Murakami Genzo and is far superior to any other versions. Following Kojiro from his earliest days through his fateful meeting with Musashi, this movie is filled with exciting and dramatic moments culminating in the best version of the final duel ever seen on film.
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.
Also known as Crazy Uproar.
Adaptation of a novel by Yojiro Ishizaka, originally released in two parts.
Melodrama by Kiyoshi Saeki
Shôjirô
Tokunaga
Woman melodrama by Shiro Toyoda
Three humorous love stories set in rural Japan.
Mr. Okamoto
Teacher Yukiko finds herself in opposition to conservative faculty and villagers after defending a student for being in a relationship with a young man from Tokyo.
Soutaro
In a village subsisting on it herring fishery, a one-eyed criminal named Jakoman terrorizes the inhabitants. One of them, the son of the head of one of the fish companies by the name of Tetsu, decides to overthrow Jakoman and his cohorts.
The mistress of a crook real estate broker comes to terms with her soulless existence after an artist paints her portrait.
1948 Japanese drama film.
Directed by Daisuke Ito.
The premature death of a young mother serves as inspiration for her husband and son.
A bizarre murder at a hot springs resort threatens to disrupt an Edo detective's (Hasegawa) vacation. When his hot-blooded wife (Yamada) starts snooping around, however, he finds himself reluctantly drawn in to the case.
Kamezo
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.
Sonoda - the bus driver
Okoma, a witty young woman working as a conductor in an old, rickety bus in Kōfu, Yamanashi (rural Japan), has a creative idea that could avert the dwindling number of passengers when her job and the bus company itself are at stake.
Ine Onoda, a filha mais velha de uma família de fazendeiros pobres, cria um potro desde que nasce e passa a ama-lo muito. Quando o cavalo cresce, o governo ordena que seja leiloado e vendido ao exército. Ine luta para impedir a venda.
Hyoroku Ichikawa - the Forelegs
This film depicts a troupe of wandering kabuki players traveling through rural Japan.
9th directorial work by Yamamoto Satsuo.
Wartime propaganda filmed by the Japanese in occupied China, Shirley Yamaguchi portrays an orphan rescued from the streets by a kindly Japanese merchant marine officer. Part spy thriller and part Shanghai travelogue, it was part of a popular series known as "Chinese Continental Friendship" made by the occupying Japanese in China.
Chocolate and Soldiers (チョコレートと兵隊, Chokorēto to Heitai) is a 1938 Japanese war film directed by Sato Takeshi and one of the most effective Japanese propaganda films of the late 1930s. The American director Frank Capra said of Chocolate and Soldiers "We can't beat this kind of thing. We make a film like that maybe once in a decade. We haven't got the actors. It shows the common Japanese soldier as an individual and as a family man, presenting even enemy Chinese soldiers as brave individuals. It is considered to be a "humanist" film, paying close attention to the human feelings of both the soldier and his family. Cinema theorist Kate Taylor-Jones suggests that Chocolate and Soldiers provided "a vision of the noble, obedient and honourable Japanese army fighting to defend the emperor and Japan.
Sahei
Drama about a couple and how they found themselves related with music, their egos and each other.
Venice Film Festival 1939
A colourful study of theatrical life. Two acting troupes vie for the Kyoto market during the Genroku Era. Tojuro, an extremely popular actor, feels the limits to his acting when he sees his rival troupe put on a new type of play featuring its star, Nakamura. He has the famous Chikamatsu write a new play but cannot get used to the character he is to play in it.
Kaita
Hide-chan (Hideko Takamine) and her family are on a trip to Tokyo. While visiting a fairground, a pickpocket (Kamatari Furukawa) steals the father's wallet. While everyone is trying to hunt down the thief, Hide-chan decides to make the most of it and enjoy her stay, while the thief and his main pursuer (Akira Kishii) play hide-and-seek among the funfair's spectacles and freakshows
An early Tōhō salaryman musical.
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.
Shogetsu
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.
Ochi Tofu
1936 P.C.L. adaptation of Natsume's novel.
Uncle
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.
Tadakichi
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.
Shingo (Kimiko's uncle)
Kimiko, a Tokyo white-collar working girl, lives with her serious, intellectual, haiku-writing mother. Kimiko seeks to marry her boyfriend but needs her absent father to act as the go-between and negotiate the marriage. Kimiko travels and finds her father living with a second family.
Adaptation of Fumiko Hayashi's novel.
Baido Noso
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.
Uranari
1935 P.C.L. adaptation of Natsume's novel.
Yopparai - the Drunkard
Three sisters earn money for their bossy mother by being samisen street musicians. This means mainly playing a banjo type instrument for tips in bars...
Enoken plays a magician real powers come from his magical hat. A jealous theater owner sends girls, then goons, to keep Enoken from performing his grand show!
Based on the comic by Yutaka Asou
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.
