Ichirō Sugai

A bad day gets worse for young detective Murakami when a pickpocket steals his gun on a hot, crowded bus. Desperate to right the wrong, he goes undercover, scavenging Tokyo’s sweltering streets for the stray dog whose desperation has led him to a life of crime. With each step, cop and criminal’s lives become more intertwined and the investigation becomes an examination of Murakami’s own dark side.

In 11th-century feudal Japan, following the exile of an idealistic governor, his wife and children are separated by slave traders; the children, Zushio and Anju, are sold into brutal servitude under the cruel bailiff Sansho.

No description available.

Ittōsai, who trained in the Itto-ryu style deep in the mountains of Nara, joins a professional baseball team.

During the Edo Period, a noblewoman's banishment for her love affair with a lowly page signals the beginning of her inexorable fall.

Fleeing a distressing family situation, Eiko, a very young girl, becomes an apprentice to Miyoharu, a veteran geisha. Both, determined to preserve their professional integrity, must face the selfishness and ambition of several petty people.

When the wife of a 17th-century Kyoto scrollmaker is falsely accused of having an affair with his best employee, the pair flee the city and find themselves truly falling for one another.

Genji, the illegitimate offspring of a Japanese potentate, goes by the philosophy of "love 'em and leave 'em" as a matter of course. Only when his heart is broken by Awaji does Genji realizes how much pain he himself has caused.

One night, a college student is found dead, his body charred black. The victim’s girlfriend, Nobuko, vanishes right before the eyes of the authorities’ search team.

Japan, 1137. The Taira family, a samurai clan, becomes involved in the disputes between Emperor Toba and the monks of Mount Hiei.

1963 Toei film

A few years after his breakthrough, Sanshiro resumes his path to judo mastery—testing his discipline against an American prizefighter and later facing vengeful karate brothers. As rival schools and public spectacle push him toward violence, he must reconcile strength with restraint and the true spirit of his art.

Among Yoshimura’s complex and political works, this episodic film, set in the early 1930s, follows the life of a young left-wing student activist disenchanted by the increasingly hawkish state of Japanese society.

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Gamera escapes from his rocket enclosure and makes his way back to Earth as a giant opal from New Guinea is brought back to Japan. The opal is discovered to have been an egg that births a new monster called Barugon. The creature attacks the city of Osaka by emitting a destructive rainbow ray from his back, along with a freezing spray capable of incapacitating Gamera.

A middle-aged husband of a younger woman finds her youth intimidating to the point that he cannot become aroused. His solution involves the introduction of his daughter's lover to his wife.

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

A hotheaded youth in 1880s Meiji Japan apprentices to judo master Shōgorō Yano, trading brute jujutsu bravado for discipline and humility. As Sanshirō matures, he proves judo’s spirit against old-guard challengers—including a deadly duel—while falling for his vanquished opponent’s daughter. Based on the novel by Tsuneo Tomita, son of Tomita Tsunejirō, the earliest disciple of judo.

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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 former Buddhist monk turned erotic filmmaker, Subuyan lives with hairdresser Haru and her two teenage children. Shooting two skin flicks per day, he somehow manages to stay out of the clutches of the yakuza, but real trouble starts when Haru discovers him lusting after her daughter.

In postwar Tokyo, Noriko lives with her extended family. Although she enjoys her career and her social life, her more traditional family worries about her single marital status at the advanced age of 28. 40-year-old business associate Takako proposes, Noriko's family press her into accepting, but when her widowed childhood friend Kenkichi returns to the neighborhood, she finds her heart leading in another direction.

Two men clash over the beautiful star of a motorcycle show.

A story of yakuza lynching during the Edo, Meiji, and Showa periods.

Based on the novel by Torahiko Tamiya.

In the Meiji period, a schoolteacher tries to hide his lower-class upbringing as he supports a visiting liberal intellectual.

A mysterious magician with a Japanese mother who came to Nagasaki’s Nankin-machi from the mainland in search of his father’s killer.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, a brilliant tactician, is a loyal subject of the emperor, despite his grave misgivings about leading Japan's navy into war with the United States. He opposes the attack on Pearl Harbor, but, overruled, he leads his forces to the best of his ability.

Ginko, a poor cobbler's daughter, becomes a geisha to support her family. She passes from one geisha house to the next, trying to find love and hope in the process. No matter how hard she tries, she just can't escape her sad fate.

Following a yearlong attendance upon his shogun in Edo, samurai Hikokuro makes a long-awaited return to his home and doting wife, Dane. Initially greeted by the effusive welcome of his family, spiteful whispers also reach his ear about an adulterous affair carried on, in his long absence, between his wife and a famous drummer. With Hikokuro’s honor imperiled by rumor, his family insists on a formal investigation into the veracity of the gossip. Through the combined testimony of many witnesses, a tale unwinds around the visits of a traveling musician hired to tutor the family heir, the spurned attentions of the man who started the rumor, and the ultimate truth behind the accusations. The conclusion of events prove as much an indictment of bushidō as it is of the reluctant parties involved. Adapted from a 1706 play by Chikamatsu Monzaemon and based on a true case.

A vengeful contractor hires a series of young killers to target a woman muckraker. Trouble brews when an amateur marksman shows up his eclectic competition.

Aiba is a gang boss who has just got out of jail, and finds everything has changed. His old gang has broken up, and only a few people still respect him. So he becomes a consultant to another gang who are about to be clobbered by a much larger gang moving in from out of town. Aiba proves a crafty tactician, and does very well at playing gangs off against each other in order to save the smaller gang. His advice is not always taken by those he tries to help, but he is generally proved right.

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Fascinated with women from an early age, Yonosuke had his first sexual encounter at the age of seven. From that day on, he recklessly and forwardly pursues women, feeding his fascination and experience. As Yonosuke's salacious behavior brings much cause for shame to the family, his father eventually breaks relations with him. Expelled from the family, 19-year-old Yonosuke embarks on a pilgrimage of lust, traveling far and wide to acquaint himself with women of all walks.

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Akio Tsukaro, dreaming of working for a beauty school's flag shop one day, stayed at Bunta Tadokoro without being involved in salon art, even though he graduated from beauty school. One day, Akio saw Michiko, a beautiful girl raining in Ginza. Since then, Akio has become unforgettable with the mascot that Michiko has taken away...

A servant girl is seduced and abandoned by her lover, a man from a higher social class, forcing her to navigate a harsh world as an itinerant performer to survive and raise their child.

A thriller of deduction and duels, in which a newspaper reporter bravely takes on a gang in the city’s skyscraper district over a mysterious recording by a diva.

Set in post-war Japan, a group of five, four men and one woman, gathers in the basement of a butcher shop to dig up a cache of morphine buried during the war. A grimly humorous tale of twisted relationships as one by one each of the group is eliminated.

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A group of pirates sail the treacherous Pacific ocean in search for wealth.

When Ryuji - the Gun Slinger, a drug addict leaves hospital to which he was taken after a gunfight by a notorious killer named Gin of Colt, he is employed as a bodyguard by Yo Sangen, chief of a narcotics smuggling ring.

An emotionally charged tale of love and passion set on a remote island lighthouse, where a mysterious woman arrives out of nowhere to cast a shadow over a wedding.

Kamezo, a manzai comedian, had been taking a break from performing while his partner Tsuruko was giving birth, but Tsuruko announced that she was retiring from the stage. That child was, in fact, the son of Takashi Yashiro, a politician with a promising future. Believing that a relationship between a politician and a female manzai comedian would bring unhappiness to Yashiro and his wife, Tsuruko changed her address and was even preparing to leave the stage. Tsuruko’s alcoholic father, having caught wind of this, snatched the child, Yoko, and squandered the small sum of money he had received from Yashiro on drinking.

On a small island, inhabited by only fourteen hundred people, a young fisherman's son, Shinji falls in love with Hatsue, the daughter of the richest and most difficult man on the island. Despite their differences in class, they begin to meet and rumors spread of them having an illicit affair. Soon after, Shinji jumps into a stormy sea to help a ship in distress. The vessel turns out to be owned by Hatsue's arrogant father, who now becomes an understanding and sympathetic parent and allows the two lovers to marry.

American Sergeant falls in love with a Japanese woman.

Adaptation of Junichiro Tanizaki's novel whit the same name. It is perversely erotic relationship between a young salaryman and his teenage wife whom he 'adopted' at first as to 'train' her to be his idealistic modern woman.

It was a sanatorium in the highlands. Patients such as Totsuka, Hirota, and Hashida were battling their illnesses under the devoted care of Michiko, a nurse so beautiful and noble that she was nicknamed “The Messenger from the Moon.” When Totsuka learned that Hirota, who was about to be discharged, secretly loved Michiko, he devised a plan and arranged for them to spend some time alone in a birch grove. Hirota and Michiko made a firm vow for their future, but around that time, an unexpected visitor arrived at Hirota’s hospital room.

Police beat a murder confession out of four innocent men who are then sentenced to death. Based on a true story.

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A man driven mad amid the ravages of war, a woman who never found true love, and an innocent young man—all drawn once again to the military port now returned to peace.

The mistress of a crook real estate broker comes to terms with her soulless existence after an artist paints her portrait.

A film filled with eroticism and humor, set in the Northern Alps where a naked woman has appeared, as depicted in the article “Naked Woman Appears in the Jungle,” and featuring a showman and a newspaper reporter.

Tomoraka Tasaka's first postwar work.

A silk mill worker living through a dark and twisted youth… What is chastity? A powerful work that speaks to society through the anguished expression of a woman twisted by torment.

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Taki no Shiraito is a very independent young woman with a famous water juggling act in a travelling carnival troupe. She falls in love with an orphaned carriage driver Kinya Murakoshi, and pledges to put him through law school in Tokyo. She always encloses money in her letters to him, until one hard winter there is no work to be found.

A yakuza man who dreads being released from prison, yet the day of his release arrives. Awaiting him are a woman’s burning gaze and the muzzle of a gangster’s gun…

Two car manufacturers spy on each other to try to find out details and prices of a new sports car each is about to launch.

The sexual experiences of the passionate Sakiko, from her fling with her boss in her first job to her ending up as a prostitute.

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Story of a Beloved Wife is an autobiographical work based on Shindo's first marriage. Jūkichi Uno stars as a struggling screenwriter, and Nobuko Otowa stars as the wife who supports him through his early struggles.

A song drama based on the autobiographical song "The sun is laughing" by composer Endo Minoru. It tells the story of a young man who moves to Tokyo with a big dream of becoming a composer, and despite the unfamiliar city life, sticks to his original intentions with the gentle encouragement of his young wife, and takes the music world by storm.

A reformed gangster agrees to help a former yakuza member.

The "Ginza Whirlwind" (Akira Kobayashi) uncovers a diamond smuggling operation led by a Chinese man behind the opening of the new nightclub "Monaco", and teams up with the daughter (Ruriko Asaoka) of a man the smuggler killed during the war. First in the "Ginza Whirlwind" series.

The young yakuza who have arrived in the city are being taught the beauty of work and the pleasure of learning by hard-working young people of the same generation. Youth masterpiece created based on the hit Kazuo Funaki.

A film by Kiyoshi Saeki

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Once upon a time, Okuro (Ayako Wakao), a young female racoon, lived poorly with her drunken father. One day after they disguised themselves as parasols, they were wrongly brought to the Racoon Palace, where the young racoon princess (also Ayako Wakao) made a mess of her arranged marriage with the beautiful racoon prince (Raizô Ichikawa). Pretty princess ran away. In order not to spoil the promising marriage, people tried to make use of resemblances between Okuro and the princess. Before long, Okuro and the Prince fell in love with each other...

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A street war breaks loose between two rival gangs in the Kansai region of Japan. Goro is in the middle of action. Through a knife fight against Sueo, a high profile gangster from Busou-kai, Goro notices a familiar face approaching him from amidst the chaos - his girlfriend, Yuri. Goro had sent her to safety, but she had returned, aching to see him. Caught between Goro and his enemy knife, she reunites with her love - the price was her life.

Mourning the death of her boyfriend, Yukiko wanders aimlessly from one city to another. During her mourning, she becomes addicted to gambling. One day, a man that resembles her deceased lover asks for help. He's being pursued by a dangerous gang of yakuza.

Kikuji is the scion of an Osaka merchant family whose traditional power is matrilineal. Instructed by his overbearing mother and grandmother to give them an heiress for the family business, he stands by helplessly as his wife is thrown out of the house for producing a son. Driven to a life of dissipation - his mistresses also fail to produce daughters - in the end he is just too tired to care.

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A young yakuza just released from prison for a crime he didn't commit, a police inspector determined to clean up the corruption in his own hometown, and a deranged assassin who lives to kill collide in a port town overrun by rival gangs, with two women, both stuck in relationships they are trying to escape from, stuck in-between.

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.

The tale of Katakana Yonetaro aka "The Shark," a rough-and-tumble horse trader in Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido, despite being a father and a husband he is frequently drawn to taverns.

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.

Hideo Ishizaki, who was painting on the shore of the lake, saves a woman named Keiko.

A math teacher loses his job while falling in love with a local girl.

A comedy directed by Koji Shima about a men's game. Reckless and exciting, definitely worth watching! Miyoshi Oki was born in Hokkaido and grew up in a dirty carriage that his father owned. His dream was to have a horse with a good coat that costs 10 million yen and he set a goal for it. At the invitation of Otaki-gumi executive Iwasa, he joined Otaki-gumi while the leader Sozaburo was sick. Miyoshi's method is not to deal with the yakuza's morale and slashing, but to handle things mentally....

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.

The picture belongs to the jidai gekki (historic) genre. It is a powerful story of violence and eroticism, picturing a world at once sordid and poetic, with two central themes which intermingle to compound an admirable panel of a critical period in Japanese history: the great famine in the mid 19th Century.

A dangerous mobster threatens the life of a businessman's mother in this thriller. As Ryuji oversees the building of a bridge in Japan, a powerful gangster plans to stop the project. By any means necessary.

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.

On January 26, 1948, a robbery of the Teigin bank took place in Tokyo - the criminal poisoned the bank employees and fled the scene with a large amount of money. In parallel with the investigation conducted by the Japanese police, journalists are also trying to find the culprit. Based on a true incident.

One day a company executive learns that his younger brother, whom he recommended, embezzled company funds. To save the situation he withdraws his life savings and gives money to his younger brother. He then suddenly disappears…

1962 Japanese movie

A sixteen-year-old who had been living on her own since her mother died, frequently gets in trouble with the police. She gets sent to an "institute" for young girls in the countryside. There the residents grow their own food, cook and clean for themselves, and are taught language, music, and sewing. While there the young girl slowly begins to form friendships and come out of her shell.

Melodrama by Kiyoshi Saeki

In 1880s Japan, women's struggle for equality rages on. Eiko Hirayama leaves Okayama for Tokyo, where she helps the fledgling Liberal Party and falls in love with its leader Kentaro Omoi, just as the party is being disbanded by the government.

The university professor Ozeki Hitoshi (Ryu Chishu) is regarded as an eccentric by people in his surroundings. When his daughter Tokiko is asked to marry a colleague, she and her mother are overjoyed, but Hitoshi is not satisfied with the situation.

Kitagawa, a drug control officer in the Kanto Shinetsu area, was ordered to investigate the situation of drug trafficking around Yokohama.

The shogun's vassal Harima Aoyama and a chamber maid are in love with each other, but they cannot be together due to a difference of their status. Soon, an offer of marriage is brought to Harima. Trying to test his love, Okiku breaks one of the plates of the family treasure of the Aoyama family, but Harima doesn't notice. However, someone surrounding her witnesses the moment Okiku breaks the plate on purpose.

Stalwart soldiers of the Japanese Empire – Japanese and Korean alike – stand in defense of a military outpost threatened by "bandits."

13th in the 17 film Daiei "Woman Gambler" series

University students Sudo and Mori 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. Sudo becomes gradually 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. In this world of bad boys and girls, Masako is the pillar of strength and moral virtue who finally enables Mori to straighten out.

Comedy about a 50-something movie director, his new bride, a classical dancer, and his adult son and daughter and their loves.

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When the boss of the Nakano Family decides to retire and makes a loyal follower the new boss instead of his own son, it causes strife in the family. Sides are taken and lines are drawn. Meanwhile, a rival family with a land dispute with the Nakano starts pulling strings behind the scenes...

In a strange outfit and full of youthful energy, the explosive Boss Kumatora raises hell like there's no tomorrow. The first movie of a new series starring Wakayama Tomisaburo as everybody's favorite character Boss Kumatora from the Red Peony Gambler series. Having made a fortune in the Russo-Japanese War, the Kumatora Family migrates to Kyushu to take on a military-related job. There they encounter the evil and malicious interference of the Chindai family of Kumamoto, and Boss Kumatora boldly fights back with the help of O'Ryu the Red Peony. A super entertaining film with non-stop comedy and action directed by Suzuki Norifumi.

1962 Japanese movie

Violent Gang Re-Arms is a rousing tale of friction in yakuza and labor interactions with Koji Tsuruta as a yakuza supervising a dockworker's union. He finds himself between a rock and a hard place, at odds with both the dockworkers' leader (Tomisaburo Wakayama) and sadistic, unprincipled bosses (Fumio Watanabe and Tetsuro Tamba).

Battles of an average salaryman.

1962 Japanese movie

A disgraced yakuza member, framed for the murder of his boss, emerges from prison eight years later with revenge on his mind.

Kazuo Miyagawa’s prizewinning black-and-white cinematography draws out the moral shadings of Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata’s 1952 novel Thousand Cranes, a quietly devastating story of a young man, orphaned during the war, who stumbles into a passionate yet tragic relationship with his late father’s mistress and her daughter.

A family of Kyoto textile workers struggles after tragedy.

The story of two sisters in post-war Japan. One is a geisha and the other works for the tourist board.

After being bailed out of trouble by a member of the Kaijima Clan, Ryuhei dedicates himself to saving the Kajima’s lucrative lumber business.

Sabu was once a boy soldier but people in his village disliked him. He finally broke loose when his land was taken.

Nonaka Tetsugoro, a substitute for the Aoi group, held a flower party to celebrate the complete recovery of his boss. However, three rival bosses, trying to steal the Aoi's territory, made take-over plans in the shadows. The second in the two part Daimon series movies.

The premature death of a young mother serves as inspiration for her husband and son.

Set in Uwajima, Shikoku, an action film starring Akira Kobayashi who uncovers evils related to pearl farming.

Reputedly based on Frank Capra’s 1939 film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, A Descendant of Tarô Urashima is about a repatriated soldier who becomes populist politician in the Japanese Happiness Party.

A pre-war sports movie by director Tomu Uchida. This story is set at the Waseda-Keio regatta. This was shot at the banks of the Sumida River, where the regatta is still held today. The main stroke role of Mochizuki was played by young star Tsunemi Hirose. Mochizuki, who enrolled in A University that lost the previous year gains the trust of the President's niece Mitsuko (Shizue Natsukawa) but a spy from the other side uses this relationship to create a scandal. The regatta approaches, with Mochizuki not able to participate... The supporters and atmosphere of student sports at the time are well presented.

Drama about a famous one-eyed, one-armed samurai swordsman of the middle of the Tokugawa period by the name of Tange Sazen. By chance, Tange gets an old pot in which the secret of the treasure of 1000000 ryos of gold is hidden. However, a bunch of different people hunt for the pot and Tange will have to apply his phenomenal fencing skills with the sword.

This is a magnificent drama about love and chivalry, telling about the stormy fate of Seiji, nicknamed "The Rising Dragon", who swore never to take up a sword again because of the emptiness of the Yakuza's life, and the passionate fate of his named sister Maki, nicknamed "The Scarlet Cherry Blossom", who falls in love with him without suspecting that he was the one who was responsible for her father's death and to whom she should take revenge.

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...

Film about a car dealer who gets into financial trouble.

An honorable yakuza syndicate deeply rooted in Kyoto fights for survival when a new breed of gangsters threaten their very existence.

A period mystery in which an unconventional priest exposes the truth behind the bizarre death of a maid in the shogun's harem. Kinuyo Tanaka stylishly plays a constantly intoxicated geisha in this all-star entertainment film.

A love affair between a beautiful fashion designer returning from France and a naïve young judo player against the backdrop of Japan in the early post-war period, where new customs and old traditions mix.

The "Ginza Whirlwind" (Akira Kobayahsi) smashes a counterfeiting ring. Second in the "Ginza Whirlwind" series.

Tadashi Imai 1946 movie

A small community in wartime Japan learn how to make do with less.

Wearing a symbol of justice and brotherhood on his waist – a crimson pistol belt, Ace Joe engages in a fight with villains trying to seize the mine.

A Tokyo newspaper reporter goes after the Japanese king of cocaine trafficking but he's tricked by a woman who works for the gangster and gets framed for a murder he didn't commit.

The second part of the melodrama based on the novel Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, the action of which is transferred to the era of the Meiji Revolution. The film has not survived.

A yakuza boss and his right-hand, Hawasaki, escape from prison. the film concentrates on their relationship, emphasizing loyalty and thier eventual betrayal, enroute they get involved in money trafficking, a cop killing and horse racing scams before the inevitable tragic ending. A patch-work production.

During his summer holiday, Kawasaki Ryuichi (Ryuzaki Ichiro), a handsome engineer in his late twenties, visits his teacher and mentor, Professor Inagaki (Sugai Ichiro), at his seaside home. There he meets the professor's lovely young wife, Sachiko (Hamada Yuriko), and is unsettled by the striking resemblance she bears to his wife, who died three years earlier. Attracted to Sachiko, he does his best to hide his feelings. The couple, however, senses a deep-seated melancholy in him. Attributing it to the loss of his wife, they urge him to marry their niece, Kaoru, but he is not interested. Shortly after, Fumiko , Sachiko's older sister, realizes that Sachiko and Kawasaki have feelings for each other, but she keeps her counsel. One day Kawasaki, Sachiko, and Kaoru go boating when a storm forces them to stay overnight at a hotel. Unable to sleep, Kawasaki takes a walk along the beach where he finds Sachiko, also unable to sleep. He declares his love for her.

Satake Shoji had been a trapeze artist in the Ezaki Circus, but when Shingo, his team mate, slipped and fell to his death, he had felt responsible and, sick at heart, left the circus for a life at sea. On land again Shoji goes to a cabaret where he is soon involved in a brawl. Kasamatsu, the owner of the cabaret, impressed by Shoji's strength, offers him a job as his bodyguard. The next morning Shoji visits Shingo's grave and meets Miyako, Shingo's former sweetheart, who is still a trapeze performer and now the star of the Kuroko Circus which Shoji realizes Kasamatsu intends to control.

It is the Taisho era in Japan. A man has quit the Yakuza after five years and returned to Shikoku in order to begin his life anew as a ferryman. His boss, however, became ill and the boat is taken due to unpaid debts to the local thugs. His new life has not begun well and he is determined to rebuild the shattered business. The Yakuza, however, have added the ferry business to the rest of their portfolio of local concerns.

A conflict between two yakuza families in Tokyo, the Izus and the Yoshidas, has recently broken out. When an Izu underling starts a fight with a Yoshida man, Fuyu, the Izu family sends Tsuruta, a senior member of the clan, to make a personal apology to Fuyu. Tsuruta discovers that the woman he is in love with is Fuyu's sister, Tatsuko. Tsuruta ends up gambling with a swindler, who is in fact Tatsuko's husband. (The general plot of the film was re-used for Seijun Suzuki's Kanto Wanderer).

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Kunio Shimizu, a sailor of Tohto University, helped a girl that was chased by someone on her way home from practice.The girl went away without saying anything, leaving her wallet with Kunio. A few days later, she visited Kunio. She was working at a toy factory called Tomoko Nishizawa. Kunio naturally became attracted to Tomoko, but for some reason Tomoko refused to talk about her past. One day, the two went to the bowling alley and were approached by Tempira...

Wada Kōji is a chivalrous young man who leads a group of youths that take on a yakuza boss.

Set around Ginza’s neon billboard boom, the movie is a drama of romance, corporate intrigue and tragic crime. A reporter (Ken Utsui) investigates a homicide in Tokyo’s bustling construction scene, meanwhile a super typhoon is brewing in the Pacific, and Ginza is square in its sights!

Thriller drama by Kon Ichikawa

The first part of a fascinating melodrama based on Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, the action of which is transferred to the era of the Meiji Revolution. The film has not survived.

A Japanese adaptation of Guy de Maupassant's short story Boule de Suif, directed by Kimura Keigo

A detective sets out on a manhunt to catch a murderer before the crime's statue of limitations runs out.

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.

After the death of his parents, railway worker Yuichiro Murofushi returns to his hometown and agrees to an arranged marriage at the insistence of his uncle and aunt. However, the arrangement soon falls through due to various circumstances.

1962 Japanese movie

1957 Japanese movie

No description available.

A woman remarries after receiving official notification that her husband has died, but he returns.

A young man whose father is on death row discovers a terrifying underworld trap that was set up thirteen years ago. At seventeen years old, he risks his life and storms into a hell of violence!

No description available.

Set in wartime at the Yawata Steel Works in Tobata, Yawata, and Kokura cities in Fukuoka Prefecture, the film depicts people taking on the evil blast furnaces that prevent increased production. The film was shot on location at the actual Yawata Steel Works for an extended period of time, and special effects were created using a miniature blast furnace that closely reproduces the actual one.

1962 Japanese movie

A sailor tries to help his younger brother, a horse-racing jockey, escape from the yakuza after double crossing them in a fixing scam. Seijun Suzuki's directorial debut.

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A detective drama that realistically shows the work of an experienced detective who, under cover, pursues the organizer of the arms trade route from Kobe.

An employee in an assurance company threatens to commit suicide when management announces a massive layoff, the company uses this threat to its own advantage by turning the incident into an advertising campaign. With the success of the campaign, however, he is no longer a desperate man pointing a gun to his head, but a potential leader who wishes to take advantage of his failed suicide.

The story of three brothers who, after loosing their parents in the Great Kanto Earthquake, continued their respective yakuza family business and the revenge of the youngest one when his siblings were killed by a rival vicious yakuza boss. The first in the two part Daimon series.

A painfully sad woman's heart cries from forbidden love. A love triangle drawn by three stars of Japanese cinema: Keiji Sada, Miyuki Kuwano and Keiko Awaji.

The bustling Ikebukuro area was under the control of the Hanamura Kogyo yakuza gang, and there was no end to the violence. The tramp Bin Tsuzuki returns to his hometown after being released from Abashiri prison, and he is noticed when he saves a student from gangsters from the Hanamura gang. But this was only the beginning of a bloody struggle...

No description available.

Set in post-WWII Osaka, a young woman trapped working in a sordid lodging house run by her abusive stepfather falls for a visiting criminal in hopes of escaping the slums.

Kenichi and Satoru join up with three other electric music lovers to form their own band, "The Young and Fresh."

Nobuko Otowa plays a former Seto Inland Sea island farmer who has moved to the mainland in order to find work, but instead ends up dead. The film begins with the discovery of her corpse, which leads to an investigation that uncovers the narcotics, prostitution, and murder in which many poor farmers had found themselves trapped after World War II.

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. Released in 2 parts. His only release of 1931. Considered a lost film.

A young girl searches for her long-lost brother in postwar Tokyo, clinging to hope and music amid the rubble of a broken Japan. Along the way, she touches the hearts of those around her with her resilience and song.

A man who works late hours at a deadening job lives together with his wife and his younger sister. The younger sister's a modern girl who's starting to receive romantic attention from one of her co-workers.

No description available.

1962 Japanese movie

No description available.

No description available.

A young lawyer looking for a true culprit to save his innocent friend. But behind the case is the father of a woman he loves.

A villager's family is ostracized after he makes an accusation of rigged elections

Dr. Kinoshita, whose rocket experiments had been a series of failures, discovers a strange flying saucer zooming through the night sky at super speed. He contacts the newspaper about it, but the editor dismisses him, saying he's gone mad and doesn't take him seriously at all. This is the imaginative sci-fi comedy "Frankie 14," featuring a groundbreaking and innovative story with flying saucers of unparalleled rarity and the appearance of artificial satellite people produced from single cells.

Film directed by Seiji Hisamatsu and starring Wakao Ayako

The adventures of a demobilised soldier and a group of war orphans under his care on Ringing Bell Hill. Second installment of a wartime film trilogy.

Hatamoto Akabane Tanaka once ruined his life with alcohol in his youth, leaving behind his wife and son, Hanji, to embark on a journey. He killed a man on the Shikoku route, but later returned to Edo, reforming his ways. Concerned about Hanji, he tracked down the wet nurse, O-Kane, to whom he had entrusted the boy. To his surprise, Hanji had become a respectable young man, now a subordinate of the gang leader, Tatsugorou. During a New Year visit to the Shiba Shinmei shrine, a minor altercation led Hanji to meet the geisha Koina, the wicked servant Miya-toku, and the sumo wrestler Naruto. Hanji and Naruto hit it off and formed a bond like brothers. However, Naruto's father was the very man Tanaka had killed. Naruto had been seeking vengeance against his father's killer. During a chance encounter at a restaurant, Naruto witnessed the reunion of Hanji and Tanaka, realizing Tanaka was his father's killer.

Nitani is an undercover drug enforcement agent in Kobe who not only busts two rival drug gangs but also helps one of the more decent hoodlums find the killer of the hood's brother.

A female doctor's story of her life in an isolated leper colony.

1962 Japanese movie

An exciting and fast-paced entertaining action in which G-Man Joe of Aces (Japanese version 007) challenges a terrible international mafia organization based in Japan. To defeat the villains, Joe uses his unprecedented skills of fast shooting and karate secrets!

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

The story is set in a rural village, where the village mayor gives a speech at the local community center as a theater troupe visits the village for the first time in several years.

No description available.

1945 Japanese movie

A sad love film where the action takes place in Kyoto, in a trading house. Considered a lost film.

Having left his hometown, Shinichi Sakashita was searching for an agency where his senior colleague worked, hoping to find him a job. However, the agency turned out to be a sister-boy placement service specializing in gay boys. Due to a misunderstanding by his senior colleague, Shinichi was registered as a member and decided to become a sister-boy himself…

No description available.

A hit-man returns to Japan after a long sojourne.

No description available.

A light comedy with Ayako Wakao charming her patients.

After finishing his sentence, Ryosuke Ogiwara, who left the prison gate, got into a car that was sent by his wife's cell and Kenmochi detective of the Metropolitan Police Department, but the real Kenmochi detective arrived a few minutes later. The corpse of the bunch went up in the moat near Akasaka, and the Metropolitan Police Department's Investigation Division 1 was colored.

1962 Japanese movie

1962 Japanese movie

Reiko Minagawa leaves her home in Okayama to avoid an arranged marriage she doesn't want. Upon arriving in Tokyo, she calls Akira Isomura, a college student for whom she has feelings. Isomura is pleasantly surprised by her call, and promises to meet her at the train station entrance in about ten minutes. However, unaware that there are two entrances, the two of them spend hours waiting at different gates and are ultimately unable to meet.

No description available.

Arikawa runs a transport company. But this is only a front for his gambling house. Yuriko is a regular on the scene, and she is fascinated by the dice and the one who throws them. A year before, Yuriko's father died in mysterious circumstances; she decides to go in search of the truth.

No description available.

Four criminals break into the home of a jewelry merchant, Sanpodo, rob the diamonds, and escape. However, one of them receives a bullet during a skirmish between bandits, and the second is wounded by the police. To help their wounded comrades, criminals lock themselves in a city clinic...

A timely masterpiece that boldly reveals women's secrets on the issue of when abortion is acceptable...

Japanese crime film

A young girl travels to Ginza and fulfills her dream of singing to help the children of a poor orphanage and is mistaken for the missing granddaughter of a wealthy and heartless businessman.

No description available.

Saga Shiori, who had been held up as a genius writer, runs away to a nightclub to deceive her manager's eyes. She is no longer the genius writer she once was, but is now having a good time with Goro, the man who saved her from running away without money. He is surprised to find that it is his childhood friend Masahiko Hirato who is singing on stage at a jazz cafe.

The adventures of a demobilised soldier and a group of war orphans under his care on Ringing Bell Hill. First installment of a wartime film trilogy.

A Japanese version of the musical comedy "Yes, Mr. Brown"

Even a peaceful married life has its dissatisfactions. Then a female reporter appears, and love takes a complicated turn!

Romantic comedy about a love triangle between two girls who fall in love with a reliable young doctor.

Chiyokichi, a young man, hates Cooper, a white man who looks down on the Japanese. Chiyokichi picks Cooper’s pocket and is caught. He is brought to Cooper’s house and becomes his slave, and a riveting tale of passion, hatred, and revenge unfolds.

A side show snake man who dreams of becoming a drummer tries to save a blind flower girl.