Sotoji Kimura

Hikoroku Laughs a lot

Lost Film directed by Sotoji Kimura

With one million yen in stolen cash, Kurita plans his escape to Hokkaido with an unwilling bar girl named Katsumi.

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

The film generally regarded as Japan’s first true musical was also the first film made entirely in-house by the pioneering studio P.C.L., a company founded specifically to take advantage of emergent sound technology. P.C.L. worked in collaboration with a brewer’s firm, Dai Nihon Biru, who met the production costs of the film in full, and whose products are featured in the film in an example of the sophisticated and modern merchandising typical of the studio’s early work. The film is partially set in a beer hall, and its story concerns a beer seller at a train station and her relationship with a music student trying to create a hit song. Director Sotoji Kimura was to become a company stalwart, making such films as Ino and Mon, while actress Sachiko Chiba would emerge the studio’s first real star, appearing in such films as Wife Be Like a Rose.

Ino tries to control Mon’s every move, but she becomes a fallen woman, having an affair with a student, Obata whereas her sister San remains a “good girl.” The mother is very supportive of her daughters, but, the father, Akaza, who is the stonecutter foreman on the damn, lacks control of his family.

Film adaptation of the stage version of Samuil Marshak's "Twelve Months"

Film adaptation of the stage version of Samuil Marshak's "Twelve Months"

Enoken plays a magician real powers come from his magical hat. A jealous theater owner sends girls, then goons, to keep Enoken from performing his grand show!

1962 Japanese movie

1962 Japanese movie

Japanese propaganda film

Walking home late one night, a down-on-his-luck sewage worker runs into a drunk businessman with a briefcase full of cash. His impulsive decision will lead to a long, dark night of the soul, while his lady love, a bar hostess, tries to cope with her sudden change of fortune.

Based on the comic by Yutaka Asou

"Karayuki-san offers a no-holds-barred depiction of the discrimination faced by a former prostitute who returns to Japan from Singapore with her mixed-race son." - Alexander Jacoby (Oxford Brookes University)

Adaptation of Fumiko Hayashi's novel.

Japanese propaganda film

Miyamoto Tokunosuke works at a Detective Agency in the heart of Tokyo. When his lover Ranko tells him that she's pregnant, he begins to worry. His company hasn't paid his backsalary and he doesn't know how he will pay for the new baby. His friend Suihei tells him about a job at a bar, but on his way there, Tokunosuke meets a mysterious man who sells him a newspaper...for tomorrow!

1933 film directed for PCL by Sotoji Kimura