Ineko Arima

First of a trilogy of films. During the Second World War, a Japanese conscientious objector named Kaji works as a supervisor in a Manchurian prison camp. He hopes to avoid duty as a soldier, but he also hopes to be helpful to the welfare of his prisoners. An escape attempt by Chinese prisoners results in Kaji's arrest for collusion. He faces the possibility of transferral to combat -- or worse

Two sisters live with their father. The younger sister is embroiled in an affair and becomes pregnant. The elder sister has run away from her husband and returned with her child to her parent's home. Both sisters are astonished when their mother, long thought dead, turns up alive. The sisters are even more stunned when they learn what their mother's life has been. (imdb)

A business man is often approached by friends for advice and help regarding marriage as well as family and romantic relationships. He is always very calmly and objectively able to give great insight and assistance to these particular situations. However, when it comes time for him to be objective regarding his oldest daughter, he finds it very difficult... (imdb)

What is the life of a Geisha like once her beauty has faded and she has retired? Kin has saved her money, and has become a wealthy money-lender, spending her days cold-heartedly collecting debts. Even her best friends, Tomi, Nobu, and Tamae, who were her fellow Geisha, are now indebted to her. Kin has two former lovers who still pursue her; one she wants to see, and the other she doesn't. But even the one she remembers fondly, when he shows up, proves to be a disappointment. (imdb)

The story is set around an American Air Force base which has attracted bars and brothels and the native Japanese who need this sordid world to scape by and make money to just barely survive. A love triangle develops among the dwellers of a falling down apartment building and a local gangster called Killer Joe. (imdb)

Teiko, a young newlywed, bids farewell to her new husband, Kenichi, in a Tokyo station, as he leaves to conclude business in Kanazawa, promising to return on December 12. But the 12th comes and goes with no word from Kenichi. Teiko's only clue to her husband's whereabouts is a couple of strange postcards she finds among his belongings. When Kenichi's employers invite her to Kanazawa to help them locate him, Teiko finds herself embroiled in a complicated mystery. (sansebastianfestival.com)

Bushido, a.k.a. "The Way of the Warrior" is the chivalrous code of the samurai that has influenced the Japanese way-of-life for centuries. This epic film spans several generations of a typical samurai family, and illustrates the intricate system of loyalty, honor and sacrifice which bound the samurai in ages past, and which, in many ways, persists to this very day. (amazon)

A comprehensive biography on Japanese film director Yasujiro Ozu.

Chikamatsu's Love in Osaka (1959) places Chikamatsu, the author of the original play, as a character in the drama. Relatively classical at first, the film grows increasingly self-conscious as it proceeds. Chikamatsu, initially an observer taking inspiration for his writing from the events he views, begins eventually to intervene in events, saving the heroine from suicide, substituting a gentler ending for the tragedy which seems likely. (Sense of Cinema)

A botanist woos the secretary of an industrialist whose company threatens the local water supply. (KG)

Set in a rural village in the Shinshu region, this melodrama about lovers of different social classes spans two generations: that of a mother, and her son. It depicts the anguish of people entangled in an old and exclusionary value system, and their escape from it, with numerous long shots and an experimental approach that intertwines two timelines. (filmex.net)

When a married woman has an affair with a young musician, feudal Japanese law requires that both offenders pay with their lives. However, the woman's husband blames himself for his wife's straying and attempts to thwart the law demanding capital punishment. (imdb)

The lives of three movie actresses unfold, transform and get exposed. Each of them owes their choice of profession to a respective traumatic event. (imdb)

Near the southern tip of the island of Shikoku, a bus snakes its way along one of the steep mountain passes of Kochi Prefecture. The driver of the bus, Yoshimi Misaki (Keiji Sada), plans to finally settle down and marry his bus conductor, Kaeko (Chieko Baisho), after years of pursuing Ichie (Ineko Arima), a woman he grew up with but was torn apart from by the war. (KG)

Longtime friends reunite only to find out that their bonds are not as strong as they thought they were. (imdb)

A human billboard and a shoeshine girl met a kid of five who got separated from her mother at a street of Ginza. They try to find a mother in a crowded town.... (KG)

Ogin, daughter of esteemed tea master Sen no Rikyû, holds unrequited love for one of his married pupils, Ukon. Ukon's strict Christian beliefs, however, lead to friction not just in their relationship, but endanger all their lives. When Lord Hideyoshi wishes to take Ogin as a concubine, they must all choose between fidelity to their beliefs, or love and honor.