Shojiro Ogasawara

At the residence of a feudal lord in a mountain province, a young lord, accompanied by his vassals and courtiers, listens to the rokyoku singer Toraizo at a leisurely pace. The title of the play is "Notes of Lord Mito's Travels. This play caused great turmoil in the feudal lord's house. The young lord was more impressed than anyone else by Lord Mito's benevolent management and actions, but he made the mistake of trying to follow in his footsteps...

A rambunctious and ribald tale of a troupe of travelling actors who alternate highlights of kabuki theatre with strip shows.

Story of a resourceful hobo (Kobayashi), a con woman (Takamine) who pretends to be a victim of the Nagasaki A-bomb, and two orphaned children who become a most atypical Japanese family.

After an argument with his father a son leaves his home and comes back only, as an adult, many years later just to cause them problem after problem.

Focuses on the mutual antipathy of two groups of children in an Izu village.

An irreverent take on a medieval Noh drama, Hokaibo sees Enoken play the titular monk whose lusts drive him to murder.

Jidaigeki by Tai Kato

During a packed game at Korakuen Stadium, Eagles’ star Tsubota faints, while singer Kyoko Tsukita collapses on stage at Cabaret Copacana. Goro Hayatori, deputy director of Hayatori Hospital, grows suspicious of Akuri, founder of the new religion “Reihi-kyo,” who had predicted these incidents. Together with his fiancée Mitsuko Nogata and friend Chief Kamimura, he investigates Akuri. It’s revealed that Akuri conspired with Dr. Sakurada, a psychiatrist, using a brainwave-disrupting ray to cause Tsubota and Tsukita’s collapse. Disguised as “Busujima,” Sakurada operates from a nearby villa. Meanwhile, Dr. Stanley from Monotor Republic plans to assassinate conglomerate Maurice and enlists Sakurada to create a half-animal man. Soon after, Akuri predicts Tsubota’s death as Sakurada aims to showcase the creature’s power for profit.

Kaji is sent to the Japanese army labeled Red and is mistreated by the vets. Along his assignment, Kaji witnesses cruelties in the army and revolts against the abusive treatment against the recruit Obara. He also sees his friend Shinjô Ittôhei defecting to the Russian border, and he ends in the front to fight a lost battle against the Russian tanks division.

Japanese comedy film.

A poignant story about a young couple, Setsu and Chozo, who are torn apart to save Setsu's father's restaurant.

Japanese comedy film.

A scrap iron carrier arrived at Tokyo bay. The ship swarmed with the stevedores, the souvenir seller and the hookers. The crews of ship were oppressed by arrogant captain and his officers. The crews caused an uprising. A manager of stevedore ordered his employee leader to suppress an uprising...

A group of five rookie insurance salespersons, driven to desperation by the impossibility of their work in Japan's failing postwar economy, form a plan to rob a cash delivery truck in order to provide for their families.

Pinku from 1965.

There is an inn named Asano Ya in the port town, and a beautiful woman works there. Every year, during a local festival, travelling artists and teachers gather from all over the country, including sesame oil sellers and organ grinders. The day before the festival, trouble arises with some horses.

A university student moves into an apartment building and becomes involved with a waitress. The landlord then attempts to evict the tenants and sell the building through illicit means.

A private detective is hired to find a missing man by his wife. While his search is unsuccessful, the detective's own life begins to resemble the man for whom he is searching.

In this first episode, we are introduced to Takezo, what Musashi used to be before he became the man of legend. His beginning are not exactly auspicious. He sides with the Toyotomi at Sekigahara, and as a result finds himself on the losing side of the historic battle. He and his friend Matahachi manage to escape the slaughter although the latter is wounded in his leg. They stumble across the young Akemi who makes her living with her mother Oko by robbing corpses of their armor and anything else they can sell. Oko takes it into her head to seduce Matahachi, which she does first by skillfully sucking the gangrene from his blood, and then just by sucking.

A beautiful hostess of a small restaurant moonlights as a well-trained assassin tasked with taking the life of a wealthy businessman...

In a time of continuous civil wars ravaging the fields of feudal Japan, the eldest son of a very poor peasant family, living alongside the bridge over the Fuefuki river, decides to serve a warlord to escape his miserable condition, being soon followed by his younger brothers. Although not all the men of the family take this tragic path of death, women of the family will be doomed to endure the pain of loss during the next five generations.

In Burma during the closing days of WWII, a Japanese soldier separated from his unit disguises himself as a Buddhist monk to escape imprisonment as a POW.

In this outing of Harenchi Gakuen the students undergo a health check after school, but all is not what it seems. Teacher 'Beard Godzilla' has kicked out the infirmary's doctor and taken his place. A trio of students notice the trick and dress up as medical professionals to assist the female portion of the school body. A newspaper has caught wind of this.

Two obaachans become fast friends listening to music in front of a record store. They both boast about their loving sons but in reality, one had just escaped a retirement home and the other was looking for an escape from her son and daughter-in-law. With nowhere to go, the two wander around, befriending a cosmetics salesman and a kind waitress who give them beer. This biting social satire starring two memorable grandmothers, scripted by Yôko Mizuki, picked up on Japan’s aging population problem far ahead of its time.

When a wealthy, selfish family decides to take care of an elderly hobo who collapsed near their home, they are beset by visits from his numerous friends.

The female members of the family of the Minister of Health and Welfare, who has just proposed a program of birth control, become pregnant one after the other. - Nikkatsu

Period film from 1934.

Based on Kakuko Mori's autobiography, about her life and retirement from acting due to her increasing blindness.

An ageing fishing boat, Dai-go Fukuryu Maru ("Lucky Dragon No. 5") sets out from the port of Yaizu in Shizuoka Prefecture. It travels around the Pacific line fishing. While the ship is near Bikini Atoll, the ship's navigator sees a flash. All the crew come up to watch. They realize it is an atomic explosion, but take time to clear their fishing gear. A short time later, grey ash starts to fall on the ship. When the ship returns to port the sailors have been burned brown. They unload the fish, which are then transported away. They visit the local doctor and then go to Tokyo for an examination. It turns out they are all highly radioactive. Their symptoms become worse, and the contaminated fish causes a panic.

As a bid to win contacts, ship building companies wine and dine political leaders, inviting the geisha Hidekoma and Hidechiyo to entertain the politicians.

The anonymous partnership Investment Economic Association, led by its president Ryuichi Amano, collected money from many ordinary people and paid out large dividends, making it famous as "Japan's only investment bank for ordinary people." On the other hand, Detective Muneharu Matsumoto of the Metropolitan Police Department's Second Investigative Division has suspicions about this organization, and has been spying on the business association for many years. However, Matsumoto was having a hard time getting any solid proof of the nature of the incident...

Japanese comedy film.

1961 Japanese movie

This 1932 adaptation is the earliest sound version of the ever-popular and much-filmed Chushingura story of the loyal 47 retainers who avenged their feudal lord after he was obliged to commit hara-kiri due to the machinations of a villainous courtier. As the first sound version of the classic narrative, the film was something of an event, and employed a stellar cast, who give a roster of memorable performances. Director Teinosuke Kinugasa was primarily a specialist in jidai-geki (period films), such as the internationally celebrated Gate of Hell (Jigokumon, 1953), and although he is now most famous as the maker of the avant-garde silent films A Page of Madness (Kurutta ichipeji, 1926) and Crossroads (Jujiro, 1928), Chushingura is in fact more typical of his output than those experimental works. The film ranked third in that year’s Kinema Junpo critics’ poll, and Joseph Anderson and Donald Richie noted that 'not only the sound but the quick cutting was admired by many critics.