Reizaburô Yamamoto

When Takeo is released from prison for attacking Handa, a rival yakuza lord, the last thing on his mind is taking over the position of his recently deceased father, boss of the Asahina clan. As he and his older brother Aikawa contemplate their options, they soon entertain the idea of falling in love with maidens and leaving the yakuza life altogether. But their exit proves more difficult than planned when their rival clan steps in to exact a little revenge.

After a battle with rival criminals, a small-time gangster is treated by an alcoholic doctor in post-war Japan. The doctor diagnoses the young gangster's tuberculosis, and convinces him to begin treatment for it. The two enjoy an uneasy friendship until the gangster's former boss is released from prison and seeks to take over his gang once again. The ailing young man loses his status as gang boss and becomes ostracised, and eventually confronts his former boss in a battle to the death. (imdb)

The Yagyu family's elder son sends an old, cheap-looking pot to his younger brother, ignoring that the pot contains a map showing where a treasure of a million ryo has been hidden. He tries to recover it but his brother's wife has sold it to some junk dealers. The pot ends up with Yasu, a kid whose father was killed and who Tange Sazen now looks after.

In Older Brother, Younger Sister, director Mikio Naruse's adaptation of an oft-filmed popular novel by Saisei Murô, the eldest daughter (Machiko Kyô) of a rural family comes home pregnant, testing some already tenuous family bonds. (Slant Magazine)

This film relates the life of a legendary thief, Jirokichi the Rat in an exquisite original story and through the revolutionary use of dynamic intertitles (imdb)

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.

Hanako-san (1943, TOHO, MAKINO Masahiro), a thoroughly light and joyful musical comedy, influenced by Busby Berkeley films, against the national policy under wartime, was made into a film from comic serials by SUGIURA Yukio published in a magazine.

The Blue Pearl depicts the melodramatic, but keenly-observed interplay between a young man from Tokyo and two ama (pearl divers; literally "women of the sea") in a superstitious coastal town. Though raised within the same tradition-bound crucible, the two women - Noe and Riu - are portrayed as diametric opposites; the former meek but affectionate, the latter strong-willed but jaded by a tryst with metropolitan life.