Kōji Mitsui

A period mystery in which an unconventional priest exposes the truth behind the bizarre death of a maid in the shogun's harem. Kinuyo Tanaka...

In feudal Japan, during a bloody war between clans, two cowardly and greedy peasants, soldiers of a defeated army, stumble upon a mysterious man who...

Manao Horiuchi movie

An actress returns to Tokyo after a successful stint in Hollywood to reclaim—with the help of her gangster brother—the daughter she...

After handing in a report on the treatment of Chinese colonial labor, Kaji is offered the post of labor chief at a large mining operation in...

In this loose adaptation of "Hamlet," illegitimate son Kôichi Nishi climbs to a high position within a Japanese corporation and marries the...

The tale of a feudal swordsman who cynically takes no responsibility for anything, relegating it to others, and then taking the credit.

Residents of a rundown boardinghouse in 19th-century Japan, including a mysterious old man and an aging actor, get drawn into a love triangle that...

In the midst of an attempt to take over his company, a powerhouse executive is hit with a huge ransom demand when his chauffeur's son is kidnapped by...

Ishihara Kiyoshi plans to marry the woman he loves, Chiee, a coffee shop girl. After an accident, Chiee loses her memory. A romance movie whose...

1962 Japanese movie

1962 Japanese movie

1962 Japanese movie

An aging actor returns to a small town with his troupe and reunites with his former lover and illegitimate son, a scenario that enrages his current...

A vacationing entomologist suffers extreme physical and psychological trauma after being taken captive by the residents of a poor seaside village and...

When a theater troupe's master visits his old flame, he unintentionally sets off a chain of unexpected events with devastating consequences. A remake...

A lost film by Masahiro Makino

A teenage goldsmith with a dark past tragically falls in love with a young nude model.

A rural village elder plans an event on the return of a farmer's daughter from the city, unaware that she has become a Westernized burlesque artist.

A talent scout moves sharply, dead-set on signing a promising athlete to the baseball team the Toyko Flowers.

Three robbers escape with loot from a heist before one of them kills the others. Their corpses wash up near the aftermath of a maritime calamity,...

A group of rank-and-file Japanese soldiers are jailed for crimes against humanity, themselves victims of a nation refusing to bear its burdens as a...

A young man discovers that the woman who raised him is his stepmother. His stepbrother, who is unaware of the revelation, resents his mother for...

The sexual experiences of the passionate Sakiko, from her fling with her boss in her first job to her ending up as a prostitute.

Inoue was something of a rarity in the sense, that he was a Shochiku house director who seems to have worked mostly in period films, often with big...

At the end of the Edo period - On his way back after being invited by the three Mikados of Higashi Shirakawa, Kurama Tengu was attacked by the...

Chikuzen, a ronin named Yoh Daisuke, after pacifying some ruffians at the theater of Onna-Kata Ogino Sawanojiki, formed a bond with the theater's...

During the tumultuous end of the Tokugawa shogunate, the Tengu Party rose in rebellion in Mito. Friends from their hometown, Tanaka Genzo and Fujita...

After an argument with his father a son leaves his home and comes back only, as an adult, many years later just to cause them problem after problem.

This period film is inspired by one of the most notorious scandals to have taken place in Edo-period Japan. The heroine, Ejima, was a lady of the...

Tokiko is a mother patiently waiting for her husband's return from the war when her 4-year old son becomes ill. She takes him to the doctor for...

On February 4th of the 16th year of the Genroku era, Yatō Uemon no Shichi reminisces while waiting his turn for seppuku at the Mizuno residence....

1962 Japanese movie

A widow works as an insurance seller to raise her three children

The timid first love of high school students! A whisper of love between a young man and a girl! The experiences of a middle-aged couple with a child!...

Kintaro goes on a journey to his hometown to meet his mother and sister. His love for singing leads him to a perceptive and cheerful girl named...

The story focuses on the widower Nemoto, ostensibly a businessman, who has one son, Kanichi, the hero of the title. Nemoto remarries; his new wife is...

A gangster tries to find redemption with the inadvertent help of an innocent shop girl and his jealous girlfriend will do anything to keep him.

The story deals with Fuji, nicknamed Waka-danna (Young Master), the star athlete on his university's rugby team. The son of a wealthy soy sauce...

Aspiring to an easy job as personal physician to a wealthy family, Noboru Yasumoto is disappointed when his first post after medical school takes him...

This film follows the daily lives of a group of people barely scraping by in a slum on the outskirts of Tokyo. Yet as desperate as their...

A celebrity photograph sparks a court case as a tabloid magazine spins a scandalous yarn over a painter and a famous singer.

Mikio Naruse’s final silent film is a gloriously rich portrait of a waitress, Sugiko, whose life, despite a host of male admirers and even some...

1958 Japanese movie

During the 17th Century roving bands of hatamoto were causing trouble in the new capital city of Edo and constantly fought with the townspeople at...

A dying businessman intends to will his fortune to his three illegitimate children, whose whereabouts are unknown, so a bevy of lawyers and...

The anonymous partnership Investment Economic Association, led by its president Ryuichi Amano, collected money from many ordinary people and paid out...

The story of a group of young people who organise their own travelling symphony orchestra to provide music for people living in remote villages...

1958 Shochiku adaptation of Natsume's novel.

Based on the play ”Mabuta no haha” by famed author Shin Hasegawa, this is the first major starring role for Tomisaburo Wakayama. This...

A sad and troubled man finds a new job five years after the end of WWII, where he writes love letters for other people.

Japanese life during the past thirty-five turbulent years is depicted in this film through the eyes of two police detectives. One is Henmi, who comes...

Set in the 1860s, the final years of the Tokugawa Shogunate, The Fireflies focuses on Tose (Awashima Chikage), the mistress of the Teradaya, a small...

The Americans are swiftly closing on Okinawa, an island just south of the Japanese mainland. The Imperial command sends top generals and several army...

Japanese comedy film.

Japanese film.

Historical drama about a sleep-eyed ronin

A father curries favor with his bosses to further his career, but his wife has lost faith in him. She returns to her family home while they rent out...

A vengeful contractor hires a series of young killers to target a woman muckraker. Trouble brews when an amateur marksman shows up his eclectic...

A melodrama by noted auteur and father of director Yoshitaro Nomura, Hotei Nomura. This is apparently the first adaptation of Izumi Kyoka's The...

Christ in Bronze is a 1955 black-and-white Japanese film directed by Minoru Shibuya. It was entered into the 1956 Cannes Film Festival.

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

Venice Film Festival 1939

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

This Japanese action-adventure is set in the 17th century when all forms of swordplay were banned. One fighter, an excellent swordsman believes the...

A Japanese comedy from the end of the silent era (it has music) from a popular series. A feud, a practical joke and romance are the set up for some...

A 1948 Japanese film.

A study of uneasy relationships among the inhabitants of a tiny rural community.

The plot opens with the hero (Tsuruta) leaving prison, having served time through taking the blame for a fellow gang member’s crime. However,...

An investigation into a drug smuggler who is assassinated in front of an insurance building sets two detectives, Sumikawa and Akine, into a sprawling...

A father and son are both heavy drinkers. However, the son dies in an accident at a bar, leaving behind a fiance…. A unique social satire that...

Japanese comedy film.

The daughter of the wealthy Soga family is kidnapped and her fiance is murdered. But the kidnappers, Tatsu and Sanko are unaware that Tatsuko is the...

A young couple is harrased by an uncle.

Life and love in corrupt postwar Tokyo, as a young couple struggles against both the law and the mob.

The story tells of Tsuchiya, a university professor and a widower who is in love with a widow who runs a small restaurant, and his son is in love...

Japanese comedy film.

First ninkyo yakuza picture at Toei directed by Teruo Ishii

Prosecutor Takayama investigates the sudden death of a third baseman in the middle of a game.

A Hibari Misora musical about an impoverished girl and her brother in Postwar Japan.

Drama about a famous one-eyed, one-armed samurai swordsman of the middle of the Tokugawa period by the name of Tange Sazen. By chance, Tange gets an...

Owner and workers of a tiny medicine factory fall in love with a lovable girl.

Machiko and Haruki’s drama continues. Two meet again in Hokkaido only to be separated again.

Machiko Ujiie and Haruki Atomiya first meet and fall in love on Ginza’s Sukiyabashi Bridge during the Great Tokyo Air Raid in March 1945....

Alongside Tokyo's Sumida River is a ragpickers' settlement known as Ant Village. One night, a young Catholic girl, Satoko Kitahara, who has been...

The story of the trials and tribulations of a lighthouse keeper and his wife.

A young woman is attacked by a serial rapist and murderer whom her detective father is investigating. Though she survives, the impact of the event...

A power struggle in the fief of Okazaki causes the death of Namiji, a nobleman's daughter. As her fiancé seeks revenge, he finds Namiji's cat...

The obstinate black market trader Okyo lives together with her son Seitaro, who works as a mechanic for a bus company. She also looks after her son's...

Shuhei Horikawa, a poor schoolteacher, struggles to raise his son Ryohei by himself, despite neither money nor prospects.

Yasugoro, goes to live in a quiet town where he falls in love with the priest's daughter-in-law. His does not declare his love because she is...

A fishing union depends on two brothers to make up the losses caused by the dishonest captains they replaced.

In 1919, a group of Japanese immigrants arrives in Hawaii. Among them Yoshio Inoue and his wife Kishimo and Sumi, a young woman ready to get married...

The seventh film in the popular series starring the Yotamono trio (Mitsui, Abe and Isono). Summer came and the three of them decided to open a store...

A young Tokyo salary man and his wife struggle within the confines of their passionless relationship while he has an extramarital affair.

Eiko is an innocent young lady born into a wealthy family with nothing to offer. She was good at singing, and lived her life playing around with her...

It chronicles the experiences of a neighbourhood doctor, whose taste for tonkatsu (a popular Japanese dish, similar to a pork schnitzel) earns him...

A group of prisoners attempts to break the Abashiri prison. This film can be considered a sequel to the Abashiri Bangaichi series, written and...

Fourth entry in Toho's Wakadaishō series directed by Jun Fukuda and released on a simultaneous screening with Matango. Filmed on location in Hawaii.

A group of shady politicians want to make money after a typhoon by claiming the schoolhouse has been destroyed and then cashing in on building a new...

Following the detonation of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese military and the government clash over the demand from the...

A story of a store that makes Tabi socks.

Also known as Crazy Uproar.

One day an innocent-looking girl in white clothes appears on board of a ramshackle boat The owner of the boat, Okin, decides to let Mari stay with...

An ageing fishing boat, Dai-go Fukuryu Maru ("Lucky Dragon No. 5") sets out from the port of Yaizu in Shizuoka Prefecture. It travels around the...