Keiji Sada

This movie takes a look at a very Westernized subarban Japan in the late 50's. It focuses mainly on the daily lives of a small community and the way its members interact (imdb)

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

The great actress and Ozu regular Setsuko Hara plays a mother gently trying to persuade her daughter to marry in this glowing portrait of family love and conflict (DVD Beaver)

Shuhei Hirayama is a widower with a 24-year old daughter. He gradually comes to realize that she should not be obliged to look after him for the rest of his life, and so he arranges a marriage for her. (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)

The film revolves around the character of Hachiro Kiyokawa, a farmer turned master swordsman and scholar. We first meet him after his arrest for the killing of a detective working for the Shoganate. As a supporter of the Emperor and a conspirator plotting to destroy the Shogunate and kill all foreigners, he is most wanted by the Shoganate forces who are interested in gaining power thru foreign technology. (imdb)

A psychological take on the classic myth.

The story of a troubled romance between a mechanic and a young, blind, upper class lady.

Yoshida's second Shochiku assignment turned away from the studio's dominant focus on troubled youth and generational conflict in order to paint a darker and more despairing portrait of society in a state of moral collapse. Taking sharp aim at Japan's harshly competitive corporate culture, Blood Thirsty follows a hapless salaryman whose desperate gesture to prevent the mass layoff of his colleagues is ruthlessly and absurdly exploited by his company for a deeply ironic advertising campaign. (sfs)

The year is 1932, and a woman, whose tenant-farmer fiancé is fighting in China, is raped by the landowners son(Nakadai), who has returned from the war with a crippling injury, and then forced into marriage with him. In four more chapters presented over three decades, their children undertake their own searches for love, while the parents try to make each other as miserable as possible. (imdb)

A pitiless take on Japan's professional baseball industry. An excoriation of the inhumanity bred by a mercenary, bribery-fueled business, it follows the sharklike maneuvers of a scout dead set on signing a promising athlete to the team the Toyo Flowers. (criterion.com)

SOMEWHERE BENEATH THE WIDE SKY (1954, aka KONO HIROI SORA NO DOKOKA NI) came near the end of Masaki Kobayashi's formative period as a director -- scripted by the sister of his mentor Keisuke Kinoshita (and scored by Kinoshita's brother), this drama of middle-class life in postwar Japan tells the story lower-middle-class workers in the city of Kawasaki, and their troubles and travails. (KG)

A romantic drama depicting the lives of two generations of a family who run a florist shop in Tokyo. (KG)

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

The plans of a trio of burglars are continually thwarted by the arrival of visitors to the house they plan to rob. (Hulu.com)

A widow's decision to return to her ex-lover is met with disapproval from her family. (hulu+)

Covering the years from 1932 through 1957, this is the story of the trials and tribulations of lighthouse keeper Keiji Sada and his wife Hideko Takamine. The narrative is given scope and variety by having Sada and his wife continually being transferred from one lonely outpost to another. (mubi.com)

A young war widow remembers her short time with her husband. (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)

A Japanese detective, Kikuchi, is framed for a murder and sent to prison. When he is paroled, he joins a private detective agency to investigate his case and investigates Mitsue Takazawa, the wife of a local trading firm whom is really a crime lord responsible for Kikuchi's imprisionment and now sets sights on Setsuko, a woman Kikuchi becomes romantically involved with. (imdb)

During an air raid on Tokyo, a young couple meet and fall instantly in love. They part, promising to meet again on the bridge but unfortunately neglect to tell each other their names. After the war, and after much waiting and dreaming, the young girl-Machiko by name-marries. The marriage does not work out, however, and she decides to get a divorce, only to discover that she is pregnant. (KG)

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

While he struggles with his feelings of guilt and sees his dead wife, Oiwa, everywhere the people around him begin noticing his strange behavior and his new wife decides to distance herself from him. (mydramalist.info)

The Kamiya family struggles to keep the town fishing association from going bankrupt as they deal with a dishonest captain and his degenerate crew. (imdb)

A 1949 drama starring Kinuyo Tanaka.

After WWII, an ex-soldier and his wife spend their lives working at modest jobs to raise their son and put him through school.

Tane, the lady proprietor of an inn for amorous couples, lives there with her three children. When her eldest daughter loses her fiancé due to the fact her mother is a mistress, her despair drives her to become a cabaret hostess.