Kamatari Fujiwara

A crafty ronin comes to a town divided by two criminal gangs and decides to play them against each other to free the town. (imdb)

Kanji Watanabe is a longtime bureaucrat in a city office who, along with the rest of the office, spends his entire working life doing nothing... (imdb)

When a powerful warlord in medieval Japan dies, a poor thief recruited to impersonate him finds difficulty living up to his role and clashes with the spirit of the warlord during turbulent times.

Ryunosuke is a sociopathic samurai without compassion or scruples. When he is scheduled for an exhibition match at his fencingschool, the wife of his opponent begs Ryunosuke to throw the match, offering her own virtue in trade (imdb)

In Kurosawa's HAMLET-like story of corporate scandal in post-war Japan, a young man attempts to use his position at the heart of a corrupt company to expose the men responsible for his father's death. (imdb)

Lured by gold, two greedy peasants escort a man and woman across enemy lines. However, they do not realize that their companions are actually a princess and her general. (imdb)

In 18th Century in Japan, the paper merchant Jihei (Kichiemon Nakamura) falls in love for the courtesan Koharu (Shima Iwashita), but he can not afford to redeem her from her master and owner of the brothel, since he spent all his money in the place with Koharu. Jihei's wife Osan tries to keep her husband with his two children and asks Koharu to leave him. The two lovers make a pact of double suicide to escape from the rigid rules of the Japanese society of 1720 and stay together after death. (imdb)

In a slum flophouse, a collection of beggars and thieves bewail their lot in life, and Osugi, the landlady, fights with her sister, Okayo, over the man they both desire, the thief Sutekichi (imdb)

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. (imdb)

Hanzo is not your typical constable. He is well known in Edo. He is equal parts Dirty Harry, Robocop, and John Holmes. Hanzo's techniques are far from clean. His ends justify his means. (IMDB Comments)

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)

In Osaka's slum, youth without futures engage in pilfering, assault and robbery, prostitution, and the buying and selling of identity cards and of blood. (IMDB)

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. (imdb)

The context here is tightly drawn in scope around a couple and their colleagues and friends, and the intended theme of marital discord is consistent and pervasive. The plot weaves around within these constraints, bringing out the various aspects of the eternal battle of the sexes. (imdb)

As the teenage bus conductress O-Koma, Takamine might best be described as beatification personified, and it is her continuously cheerful demeanor that effectively masks the film's underlying current of satirical bitterness. (Slant Magazine)

Okuni (played by Michiyo Kogure) is the wife of a samurai, who was murdered (in an underhanded fashion) by a former suitor, Tomonojo (So Yamamura). So she and one of the retainers of her husband, Gohei (Tomoemon Otani, a famed kabuki artist, during a brief stint in the movies) go seeking the murderer, planning to seek revenge. However, the two have no real clue as to where to seek Tomonojo and their quest seems endless. (imdb)

In the furious The Girl in the Rumor, as tight, absorbing, and intricate a 55-minute film as any ever made, a confrontation between two sisters is staged and cut as a series of complementary, mirroring, responsive movements in and out of frame, resulting in a dizzying pattern in which the two sisters ceaselessly replace each other. (Chris Fujiwara)

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. (imdb comments)

This film depicts a troupe of wandering kabuki players traveling through rural Japan. (imdb)

As the titular, exceedingly popular performing duo (respectively a samisen player and a Shinnai singer) they enact a tragicomic tale of unrequited love that--save for a deeply affecting, pathos-ridden final scene--is far removed from director Mikio Naruse's usual cinema obsessions. (slantmagazine)

A veteran police officer and his younger partner search for a fugitive in heat of the summer.

Ryuji Nagami's script mandates a fairly straightforward comedy of nonconformism and antisocial behavior, and also tends to lean too hard on its comic contrivances. Most of the film is low-key and digressive, and Naruse does some nice, relaxed character work with the supporting players, a few of whom are suspended between comic relief and villainy.... (Dan Sallitt)

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. (imdb)

A child, living with relatives after his mother left him, experiences a series difficulties.

Based on an original story by Ishizaka Yojiro, the film has a reflexive element by which it comments on its own process of taking the materials of everyday life and transforming them into narrative. This realist conceit is enhanced by the rural setting, which is photographed with some care, including the mountainous landscapes and the farmhouse interiors. (Catherine Russell)

Mother Never Dies offers a neat ideological harmonization of family, capitalism, and country in which the patriarchy is consolidated around the national spirit through the memory of a self-sacrificing mother. (Catherine Russell)

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. (mubi.com)

Based on Machiko Hasegawa's newspaper comic of the same name that started back in 1948, follows the day-to-day comedic activities of the extended Isono family: Fune and Namihei, their three children Sazae, Katsuo and Wakame, Sazae's husband Masuo Fuguta, and their child Tarao.

A car strikes an unseen object; blood spreads from an invisible source which becomes visible as the bleeding man dies. He carries with him a suicide note dedicated to his only friend, who is also an invisible man. An eager young reporter tracks down Takemitsu Nanjo, a war veteran who makes his living visibly, painting his face like a clown's and carrying advertising signs. His favorite neighbor is a little blind girl whose mother is running afoul of local gangsters.

A teacher at a continuation school who is not getting ahead in the world goes to the Ginza and is hit by a car. A student he asks to help him demands money, and the girl he loves snubs him. (Audie Bock)

An attempt is made to suppress a journalist's investigation of collusion between a rural police chief and the local gangster bosses. (The Movie Database)

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. (The Movie Database)

Shinkichi, a peasant employed as a cloth-dyer, has a dream: in the midst of the civil war which ravages Japan, he hopes to revive the long-banned custom of the Kyoto Gion Festival, and by doing so, bring together the warring clans and rampaging brigands in peaceful celebration. (imdb)

Ine Onoda, the eldest daughter of a poor family of farmers, raises a colt from birth and comes to love the horse dearly. When the horse is grown, the government orders it auctioned and sold to the army. Ine struggles to prevent the sale. (imdb)

When a man of some stature and lineage decides to launch a business by renovating and converting his mansion into a hotel and putting his domestic staff like the chef and maid to work in the new venture, his wife cannot accept the change and decamps to another house. It is opening time and a girl arrives seeking a job and is given one. The clientele are not as desired, however, and instead of a classy lot the hotel is attracting shysters, pickpockets and lovers. (imdb)

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. (imdb)

The story is of two people. One is deaf, the other deaf and dumb. They marry after meeting at a school reunion, and the film follows their trials and tribulations ... and joys. (Letterboxd)

Based on the comic strip of the same name, follows the day-to-day activities and adventures of Sazae Fuguta and her family.

Story is based on the popular novel of the same name. It follows the title character as he grows from a reckless and rambunctious youth into a respected teacher.

Neri (Kumiko Akiyoshi) and Akio are brothers and sisters. After the death of their parents, Akio made a living as a removal man, using the family truck to help local students move to new apartments. Neri spent time away from home, living with her boyfriend, Kozou. When things between the young couple turn sour, Neri decides to come home. (nikkatsu.com)

Set in a rural village outside of Tokyo, 'Brother And Sister' is a dark drama of obsessive family relationships marked by both violence and tenderness. Mon, the eldest daughter of an authoritarian father who has come into hard times, moves to Tokyo to earn a living. When she returns home pregnant, her brother Inokichi's rage sends her back to the city where she takes up the life of a streetwalker. (Mydramalist)

1936 P.C.L. adaptation of Natsume's novel.

One month has passed since Japan plunged into the Pacific War, but it has not yet touched the suburban life. The state of the suburbs where you can see from the train window is relaxing. It is not much different from now. Ms. Takamine, a female student, goes hiking with some of her colleagues in the suburbs.

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. (imdb)

The life history of a woman who faced disillusion from her husband and disappointment from her son, but lives to welcome her grandson. (bfi.org.uk)

Toyomatsu Shimizu, a barber, father and husband, is suddenly arrested by the Prefectural Police as a war criminal and sued for murder. According to the accusation, he "attempted to kill a US prisoner", which was an order from his superior. He is sentenced to death by hanging. Prior to execution, he writes a long farewell letter to his family "If I ever incarnate, I hate to be a human being any more.... Oh yes, I would like to be...a shellfish living on the rock-bottom of the sea."

Gonza wants to be a samurai, but not for the reasons we usually see. He is in love with the daughter of an impoverished samurai who has nothing left but his pride and refuses to allow his daughter to marry anyone but a samurai.

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 into the case.

Director Hiroshi Inagaki’s early version of the life and death of famed swordsman Sasaki Kojiro.

Sachiko Chiba is the daughter of a cosmetics manufacturer. She is a modern girl who works because she wants to as a kindergarten teacher, who entertains her charges with stories and songs. She gets roped into performing on the radio and becomes a celebrity. Sadao Maruyama is a test pilot for his father's airplane manufacturer. They fall in love, but their fathers quarrel over women having a career.

Many years ago, Atsushi Watanabe was the guy who lowered the crossing barrier on the local railroad. Kamatari Fujiwara and Akira Kishii were railroad employees who almost got his daughter, Setsuko Himemiya, killed. Watanabe was promoted to station master. The other two men were fired, but kept on by Watanabe. Now they want to use the talent competition at the local festival to launch a career as professional entertainers.

A satirical take on yakuza films, the storyline of the film involves a teenage delinquent schoolgirl named Izumi Hoshi who inherits her father's clan. (Wikipedia)

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… (KG)

A series of snapshots from the life of a fictional actress named Shirley serves to weave together thirteen paintings by Edward Hopperinto a fascinating synthesis of painting and film, personal and political history.

Class-A Kyoto, a strip joint in Kyoto, is raided by the police. Shohei, a salesman who happens to be there, gets caught in the middle of it and is fired from his job. Having nowhere else to go, Shohei reluctantly becomes the manager of the place... The film is a comedy full of pathos about the connection between strippers called "special delivery" and the "pimps" who hang on to them.

An adaptation of the popular Sazae-San comic strip. The first entry in the series was shot in TohoScope.

An adaptation of the popular Sazae-San comic strip.

Masuo and Sazae are enjoying their newlywed life in their new house, even though they are in company housing. Masuo's colleague is invited to thank him for the newlyweds, but Masuo has been told by Managing Director Hanamura to go on a business trip to Kansai. Before long, Masuo contacted Sazae to come to Osaka.

An adaptation of the popular Sazae-San comic strip.

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 with a vision of the noble, obedient and honourable Japanese army fighting to defend the emperor and Japan.