Sachiko Murase

The story centers on an elderly hibakusha, who lost her husband in the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki, caring for her four grandchildren over the summer. She learns of a long-lost brother, Suzujiro, living in Hawaii who wants her to visit him before he dies. American film star Richard Gere appears as Suzujiro's son Clark.

Blind swordsman/masseur Ichi (known as Zatoichi, or "Masseur Ichi") angers a local yakuza gang when he defeats several of them in a wrestling match. When he finds that his long lost love Tane is nearby and romantically involved with a tough samurai in the employ of the gang, he remains in the village... (imdb)

Blind swordsman Zatoichi, jailed briefly, is implored by another prisoner to aid him in proving his innocence of a crime for which he is sentenced to death. Zatoichi is reluctant to get involved, because he knows how often such involvement has led to trouble in the past... (imdb)

Kinichi and Akiko meet when they visit their fathers in prison. After successfully gambling on a bicycle race, they spend an enjoyable day together at the beach. Akiko, who tries to make money as an artist's model to pay for her mother's medical expenses, now has to find 100,000 yen to pay off the company from which her father embezzled. Kinichi also requires 100,000 yen as bail for his father, who is accused of election fraud. (imdb)

Takakura playsa cop training to be a sharpshooter for the Olympic games, he divorces his wife and abandons his daughter when he discovers she's had an affair. Later his coach is gunned down by a fleeing criminal. Years later Takakura returns to his snowy hometown and starts an affair with a middle-aged bar owner. (imdb)

This is ostensibly a sex-education film -- with hardly any education! -- but it's incredibly beautiful. The spring and early summer scenery in Nagano (probably) echo the budding sexuality of the film's young characters. A good dose of German romantic poetry also adds to the barely sublimated sexual atmospherics. The film isn't perfect; the cast is obviously inexperienced and the film hypocritically avoids a frank discussion of sex.... (imdb comment)

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

The language of modernity in Sincerity consists of a discourse of class and cosmopolitanism that contradicts the quiet harmony of village life. (KG)

Sudo and Mori are two university students who make money by picking up rich girls in dance clubs and conning them into giving them cash. Mori is the brains of the operation, and Sudo is the suave dancer who picks up the girls. Over the course of the film, Sudo becomes involved with three different girls and is drawn into the gangster milieu, which he seems unable to resist even though he is responsible for his mother, grandmother, and sister, Masako. (Catherine Russell)

The lives of a master sculptor and his young apprentice are changed forever when they meet an evil witch during a snow storm. (imdb)

Based on a Tanizaki Junichiro tale of male devotion passing into love and masochism. Okoto is blind, but her family can afford to pamper her. She takes up the koto and the family's young servant Sasuke faithfully escorts her to her music lessons. She often treats him disdainfully, but she insists on his company, and so gossip grows up around them. Sasuke's loyalty is tested when Okoto is wooed by a vacuous but persistent suitor.

An old woman has died and her widower with dementia confesses to killing her. After this, the story goes back in time to show the events leading up to her death. (imdb)

The sweet but naive denizens of a charming port town are hoodwinked by a couple of con men who prey on them at the outset of the war. But the hustlers' plan backfires when they come down with severe cases of conscience. Kinoshita's directorial debut is a breezy, warmhearted, and often very funny crowd-pleaser that's a testament to the filmmaker's faith in people. (imdb)

In postwar Japan a young woman is unable to marry her sweetheart because her family's in difficult circumstances and needs her income to keep afloat. (imdb)

A 1949 drama starring Kinuyo Tanaka.

A half brother and sister work at a hotel in Hakone respectively as a porter and a souvenir shop clerk. They are close. One day a woman named Hasegawa checks into the hotel in order to recuperate in a calm environment with fresh air. She is the mother of the store employee. The mother and daughter were separated due to the Kanto earthquake. The girl was practically raised by her older half-brother.

A young officer must choose between love and duty. (imdb)

Born to a prestigious family, Natsuko is not impressed by any one of her suitors. Determined to spend her life serving god, she sets off to a convent in Hokkaido and meets a young bear-hunter with whom she begins an adventure.