Chieko Nakakita

Searching for his brother, Ryota stows away on a boat belonging to a criminal alongside two other teenagers. The group shipwrecks on Letchi island and discover the Infant Island natives have been enslaved by a terrorist organization controlling a crustacean monster. Finding a sleeping Godzilla, they decide to awaken him to defeat the terrorists and liberate the natives.

In postwar Tokyo, a blunt, alcohol-soaked doctor diagnoses a swaggering young yakuza with tuberculosis, forging an uneasy bond that’s tested when the gangster’s ruthless former boss returns and drags him back toward the swampy underworld he can’t escape.

A young salaryman and his wife struggle within the confines of their passionless relationship while he embarks on an extramarital affair.

After their lord is tricked into committing ritual suicide, forty-seven samurai warriors await the chance to avenge their master and reclaim their honor.

In post-WWII Osaka, a middle-aged woman is forced to examine her dreary life and marriage when her husband's young and flirtatious cousin arrives for a brief stay to escape an arranged marriage.

A married Japanese forester during WWII is sent to Indochina to manage forests. He meets a young Japanese typist and promises to leave his wife. He doesn't and after the war, she turns up and the affair resumes.

Saotome is a white-collar worker on the brink of a burnout who one day strikes up a friendship with Gen, a boorish drifter who approaches life one day at a time.

A young army surgeon, Kyoji Fujisaki, accidentally contracts syphilis during a WWII field operation. Back at his father’s clinic, he treats himself in secret and breaks off his engagement rather than risk his fiancée’s future, even as he confronts the irresponsible patient who infected him—testing his ethics, pride, and capacity for sacrifice.

Two broke sweethearts wander war-scarred Tokyo on a single Sunday, stretching 35 yen as they chase housing, small pleasures, and a little hope.

After her anti-fascist professor father is dismissed, Yukie navigates love, political repression, and wartime upheaval—ultimately forging her own path in pre- and post-WWII Japan.

War widow Reiko rebuilds and runs the grocery shop in the house of her husband's family. Many years later, their business is threatened by a newly built supermarket and Reiko's in-laws plan to convert their small shop into a supermarket, to her detriment.

Keiko, whom everyone calls Mama, narrates her story: she's a hostess on the Ginza, 30, a widow. She describes life's vicious cycle: acting cheerful around drunks, dressing and living well to convey confidence, needing money for these expenses and for her demanding mother and brother, and knowing she's growing older.

The legend of the birth of Shintoism. In Fourth Century Japan, the Emperor's son Ouso expects to succeed his father on the throne, but Otomo, the Emperor's vassal, prefers Ouso's stepbrother, and conspires to have Ouso die on a dangerous mission he has contrived. But Ouso prevails in the mission and returns to his father's castle under a new name, Prince Yamato Takeru. Otomo plots to have the Prince sent into even greater danger, but Otomo is unaware that the gods have favored the Prince and the outcome is far from what any of them expected.

Once an average and seemingly ordinary Tokyo girl, she suddenly finds herself as a TV star owing to her discovery by a casting company, which noticed photographs that her cousin had sent. When another actress falls ill she is given the role instead. Her first film is a success propelling the young actress to popularity, her own fans, money and a house. While everything looks dandy from the outside not all is well within the family however.

Young women at a precision optics factory in wartime Japan push to exceed production quotas, enduring illness, injury, and personal hardship to “serve the country.” Led by Tsuru Watanabe, they fight fatigue and setbacks to keep their line moving—even when duty collides with grief.

A teenaged girl witnesses her widowed mother's attempt to sustain her family.

A Japanese family is torn apart by the tensions of an avoidable nuclear world war between the superpowers.

No description available.

Sanae is left a widow after her prestigious husband dies, but holds the proceeds of a million yen insurance policy. Being childless, her former in-laws have no objection to her return to her own family.

A married couple looking for an apartment move in with the husband's co-worker, a widower. The husband becomes jealous of the widower and his wife.

In the wake of the 1956 Prostitution Prevention Law, a young woman recently released from one of Japan's new rehabilitation centers struggles to build a new life.

A young woman tries to raise money to open her own coffee shop. She arranges a loan when her rigid family won't help and then her husband becomes jealous of the loan officer.

Anzukko (Little Peach) is the daughter of a successful writer. She turns down each one of her suitors, until she marries a beginning writer named Ryokichi. Their life quickly sinks into despair.

An ingratiating bride develops warm ties to her father-in-law while her cold husband blithely slights her for another woman.

After a successful fashion designer receives a disturbing package, a series of bizarre murders begins to claim the models around her. As rumours of a grotesque, fanged killer spread, detective Kōsuke Kindaichi investigates the secrets connecting the victims, their employer and a mysterious figure from the past.

In postwar Japan, two sisters—a film studio script girl and a revue dancer—become swept up in the growing labor movement when workers around them strike for better conditions. As their conservative father opposes their activism, his own dismissal forces him to confront the realities of class struggle and join their fight for a fairer future. Now considered a lost film, Those Who Make Tomorrow was produced by Toho to promote unionization during Japan’s Allied Occupation.

No description available.

A woman remembers her own marriage when dealing with the love life of her son.

Five years after the end of the Second World War, Reikichi, a repatriated veteran, translates love letters for Japanese women to American GIs, while searching for his lost love, Michiko.

Fumiko and Ryōtarō Namiki's marriage has gone stale, with both constantly arguing over what to do on a day off, or about her cutting out recipes from the newspaper before he finishes reading it. Their animosities are witnessed by Fumiko's niece Ayako, who visits to complain about her own husband's inattentiveness, and their new neighbours, the Imasatos.

Directed by Hiroshi Inagaki, the drama, set in the brothels of Shimabara in post-war Kyoto, is a moving look at the lives of women of tenacity and resilience.

Ten years into a marriage, the wife is disappointed by the husband's lack of financial success, meaning she has to work and can't treat herself and the husband finds the wife slovenly and mean-spirited: she neither cooks not cleans particularly well and is generally disagreeable. In turn, he alternately ignores her and treats her as a servant. Neither is particularly happy, not helped by their unsatisfactory lodgers. The husband is easily seduced by an ex-colleague, a widow with a small child who needs some security, and considers leaving his wife.

No description available.

The story of Kiyoko, a young woman who has successfully managed to make a break with her dysfunctional family who have been trying to arrange a marriage for her with a disagreeable man whom she has rejected.

A woman marries, gives birth to a stillborn child, and divorces, falls in love with a hotel-keeper, only to find herself subordinated to his drive for success, takes up with a tailor who cannot console himself with her strong personality.

A sequel to Geisha Konatsu (1954).

No description available.

No description available.

Otsuta is running the geisha house Tsuta in Tokyo. Her business is heavily in debt. Her daughter Katsuyo doesn't see any future in her mother's trade in the late days of geisha. But Otsuta will not give up. This film portrays the day time life of geisha when not entertaining customers.

Tashiro coincidentally meets his best friend Sugimoto in a bar very close to the apartment in which Sugimoto’s wayward wife is found dead. Although Tashiro is not a suspect in the police investigation, he is racked with guilt and confesses to his wife, Masako. In an effort to further relieve his tortured sense of guilt, he then confesses to Sugimoto. Neither his wife nor his friend can believe that he could have been involved.

A young Tokyo couple’s blissful newlywed life is turned upside down when an unexpected pregnancy arrives, sending them on a whirlwind quest for support from eccentric relatives and well-meaning neighbors.

When the only son of a working class woman is fatally struck by a car driven by the adulterous wife of a company president in a hit-and-run, the victim's mother changes her identity and infiltrates the couple's home to work as their maid, plotting to murder their similarly-aged son.

No description available.

When Sergeant Okubo's brother is murdered at a Japanese outpost in Northern China during the Second World War, Okubo poses as a war correspondent and seeks out his brother's killer.

Easily bored, but still innocent and naive countryside girl discovers partying in Tokyo is a ton of fun. Yakuza-to-be is an acquaintance who tries to rape her, and the typically bland but very-good-here the first boyfriend.

1961 Japanese movie

The story is of two people. One is deaf, the other deaf and mute. They marry after meeting at a school reunion, and the film follows their trials and tribulations ... and joys.

Story of an ex-sailor, caught up in a murder mystery involving gold dust buried in Manchuria, while romancing a woman whose father may be the center of the intrigue.

A squadron of Japanese fighter pilots realise that they are never going to win the war when they understand that Japanese military tactics have little regard for life. Seeking the companionship of any woman who will have them, they spend their days indulging in every fantasy in order to escape the overwhelming fear of death looming just over the horizon.

The story is about the social problems faced by Japan's indigenous Ainu, mostly centered on the reactions of the characters to their oppressed state.

Tora-san returns to his family home to learn that his brother-in-law cannot go to Mitsuo's (Tora-san's nephew) athletic event. Tora-san volunteers to take his place, but gets into an argument with his brother-in-law's boss and returns to the road. He meets a young woman in Niigata who, unbeknownst to him, is a popular enka singer.

A widowed high-school teacher tries to raise his four children alone.

Edmund Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac, transplanted to Japan. A poet-warrior with an oversized nose (matched only by his great heart) loves a lady. But she sees him only as a friend, so he helps another man to woo her by giving him the poetry of his own heart.

In the Edo period, a nameless ronin accepts an assignment to go to a mountain pass and wait. Near the pass he stops at an inn where a collection of characters gather, including a gang set on stealing shogunate gold that's soon to come over the pass. When the Ronin's assignment becomes clear, to help the gang, he's ordered to kill the inn's residents, including a woman he's rescued from an abusive husband. He's reluctant to murder innocent people; then he learns that the gold shipment is a trap and he's part of a double cross. How he sorts through these divided loyalties tests of his samurai honor, and perhaps of his love for a woman.

Gang of robbers quarrel about the loot, but when one of them gets killed, his younger brother seeks them out to ice them one by one.

Keiko Yukawa is a former prostitute and the newest inmate at White Lily, a female rehabilitation facility.

The story of an airport and its air traffic control crew in a remote and northern Japanese town. Three of the air traffic controllers are female with one of them working with her dead fiancé's sister. The engaged man had gone to war and never returned.

Inspired by the "Shimoyama Incident," which caused a great stir in society in 1949, the year before its release, this masterpiece suspense film thrillingly depicts the fate of a man caught up in a crime.

During the raging war between the Toyotomi and Tokugawa clans, the swordsman Mohei (whose family has been completely decimated) is recruited by Toyotomi to overcome the seat of power, Osaka Castle. Mohei's daredevil skills will be put to severe tests.

Tobe is a small-time crook who runs a prostitution business of blonde girls, as well as sells pornographic pictures. He frequents a cafe run by two women, one of them a young widow with a son. They like him and think that he is an ordinary office worker. One day, Tobe accidentally discovers pictures of an acquaintance, Kanzaburo, with a woman and sets out to blackmail him. He soon finds out that Kanzaburo died in a train accident but things may not be what they seem

The real mother of the two children of a respectable university professor is not his wife, but his mistress, the hostess of a Ginza bar the family frequents.

At a coastal hot spring inn, a group of women navigate work, personal struggles, and unexpected scandals. When a guest threatens to expose one maid's past, she must decide whether to run or face it—with help from a kind local officer.

Three humorous love stories set in rural Japan.

Toho-produced crime drama involving the drug trade.

Ayako, a young woman from a rural fishing village, is sold by her family into a brothel when her father takes ill. There, she is quickly stripped of her innocence and illusions.

A group of criminals whose diamond heist goes wrong retreat to a WWII era bunker where tensions begin to rise.

Four fishermen friends are caught up in a piracy plot.

Based on the life and career of novelist Fumiko Hayashi, she bitterly struggles for literary recognition in the first half of the 20th-century – her affairs with feckless men, the jobs she took to survive (peddler, waitress, bar maid), and her arduous, often humiliating attempts to get published in a male-dominated culture.

Postwar Tokyo. Pin and Toku live in the squatter area of Kappanuma. Pin and Toku are avid gamblers. They take in Tsuru, a slightly demented woman who has run away from a geisha house.

Suspense drama about a married salaryman whose affair with one of his co-workers is compromised when, returning from a clandestine meeting with his lover, he runs into a neighbor who is later accused of murder. Questioned by police about the neighbor, and blackmailed by his lover's neighbor, the salaryman's lies lead him on a path to destruction.

A wealthy young man, engaged through family arrangement, meets a humble shop girl after she finds his lost ring. Their growing affection challenges class boundaries and family expectations, leading to a sincere romance that defies convention.

With his simple appearance, eyes shining with love and a sense of justice, and voice burning with youthful passion, the eleven students felt unexpectedly in each other's hearts that "this teacher will surely be our confidant," and looked at each other and nodded their heads. This was the beginning of their collective affection for the new Ms. Shiono. The school for girls is a sacred place where the hearts of hundreds of innocent girls should ferment beautifully and freely for the day when they will become wives and mothers to come. How can we abandon them in such a state? Even after the nightmarish war was over, the nightmare remained at Shuei Girls' School.

No description available.

No description available.

A skilled country doctor's talents are such that he can even perform operations as difficult and novel as removing a patient's kidney for the first time in Japan. Unfortunately for him, however, his wife's addiction to gambling is of such a magnitude that he is down to selling his underwear to make money. The image sticks and he becomes known as the 'underwear doctor.' On the other hand, his successful surgery's patient is so grateful he himself wants to become a physician.

Two youths – the serious son of a Buddhist abbot and his rakish pal – quarrel over a restaurant keeper's daughter. When one of the youths dies, the other boy and the girl find they cannot forget him.

In 1887, two businessmen, Echigo-ya and Kitahara, compete for railroad construction authorization from the government. The minister states that a local noble must not object, and his missing younger brother is the only one who could sway him. Meanwhile, Omitsu, a hotel employee tired of Echigo-ya’s wife’s arrogance, teams up with Kitahara to stage a scheme where a vagrant young man pretends to be the noble’s lost brother, aiming to trick and embarrass the wealthy woman.

1962 Japanese movie

A Tokyo family running a liquor store overcome impotence and dysfunction as they induce an understanding through each other of how to deal with their individual problems.

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An irresponsible salaryman works his way to the top of the corporate ladder.

During the early days of the war a young student, Makito (Kazuo Funaki), falls in love with Yuko (Mayumi Ozora), the widow of a naval officer. She, however, is living with the memories of her husband and it is her younger sister, Yumiko (Nana Ozaki), who grows fond of the student. Then, one day, a young naval officer, Tadayuki (Ken Ogata), a friend of her late husband, comes to see the widow and she becomes attracted to him. Though Makito is inspired to study for the navy, he is much upset when he learns that Yuko and Tadayuki are to marry.

Part 2 of the 'Onna bangaichi' series

Story about a poor Japanese woman living near an American army base who resorts to prostitution.

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A timid salaryman is the subject of this black comedy.

Ryô is a young leopard, Maki a rhythmical wave. The barrier between a teacher and a student gives way to the passionate embrace of a man and a woman desperately in love.

A group of hustling peddlers swindle rural towns with fake goods, facing betrayals, close calls, and constant setbacks as they chase survival and dream of a better future.

1962 Japanese movie

Sequel to "Irresponsible Age of Japan".

A romance with political overtones about the relationship of a sheltered bourgeois woman and a doctor who devotes himself to caring for the poor. Over a ten-year period - from 1936 through the war - they find each other and are separated again by the events of those tumultuous days.

No description available.

Story of rebellious youth follows the 19-year-old son of a Hokkaido farmer who has an affair with the daughter of a wealthy trading company president.

After the son of a wealthy man is kidnapped, a tenacious young reporter decides to find the culprit.

An Ishiro Honda film.

An Ishiro Honda film.

After killing a detective in a botched robbery, Keiichi (Natsuki) is on the run as police stake out the homes of his sisters, mother, and girlfriend.

No description available.

1961 Japanese movie

A story of unhappy youths and the perils of lack of sex education.

Salaryman comedy.

No description available.

Comedy about a dress designer at a big Tokyo department store, and his relationship with three female associates.

1962 Japanese movie

Based on the comic by Kaoru Akiyoshi

1964 Japanese movie

Every year, at the festival, familiar merchants such as Toraemon, a magic trick, Tokubei, a blowgun, Kaji, acrobatics, and Unsaibo, a ritual, gather toward the port town.

No description available.

1962 Japanese movie

Minako, a ballerina who has been dating since her school days, and Koheta, a banker. It was Koheta who was finally about to get married as a result of his promotion, but just then, a big change occurs in Minako's body..

Fusako, a girl raised in a geisha house, tries to escape her dark past and faces repeated heartbreaks. After an unexpected pregnancy, she has an abortion and decides to start a new life away from the geisha world.

Japanese prison exploitation movie. Part 1 of the 'Onna bangaichi' series

Set during Japan's Bakumatsu period, the film follows Fukuzawa Yukichi, a poor samurai's son who defies societal norms to study Dutch and English. Despite facing opposition from his family and nationalist factions, he founds Keio University, becoming a key figure in Japan's modernization amid political turmoil.

1962 Japanese movie

No description available.

No description available.

A doctor is surprised when her long-lost love is transferred to the same hospital, and even more surprised to discover that he has a wife and child. Will she be able to confess her feelings to him before her worsening heart disease claims her life?

An Ishiro Honda film.

Action melodrama.

Adapted from a poem, which was composed by poet and sculptor Kotaro Takamura, Chieko-Sho is the story of the artist's wife Chieko. The poet meets a woman, who also as an artist illustrates, one day. They marry and have a good life spending many years together. One day, however, she loses her mind and has to be confined to a hospital. The poetry was some of star Hara Setsuko's favourite even before her involvement in the film.

No description available.

No description available.

Salaryman comedy.

1962 Japanese movie

The story follows a man haunted by debt and crime, who flees with his mistress on a tense journey marked by betrayals and desperate choices. The film explores greed, betrayal, and the tragic downfall of a man consumed by money and despair.

No description available.

No description available.

1945 Japanese movie

Thriller about three escaped convicts, one of whom (Sato), plans to murder the wife of a detective (Ikebe) whom he blames for the suicide of his pregnant mistress.