Mieko Takamine

Based on the "2.26 Incident", an attempted coup d'état in Japan 1936, launched by radical ultra-nationalist parts of the military. Several leading politicians were killed and the center of Tokyo was briefly held by the insurgents before the coup was suppressed.

In 17th century Japan, Young Lord Masato returns after years abroad to find everything changed: his peace-loving father has died in what he soon finds to be mysterious circumstances, and his mother's married to his uncle, whose ruthless ambition is causing turmoil in the kingdom. Not knowing who to trust, Masato feigns madness, vowing to get to the truth, even though his act causes distress to the girl he loves, who's waited for him all these years. The ghost of his father turns up now and then to show him the way. Meanwhile a peasant revolt is brewing... It all ends tragically.

When a tycoon passes away, he unexpectedly leaves the family fortune to outsider Tamayo on the condition that she marries one of the grandsons, pitting blood against blood.

In the early 18th-century, Lord Takumi-no-kami Asano, feuding with Lord Kira, tries to kill his opponent in the corridors of the Shogun's palace. The Shogun sentences Asano to seppuku and deprives the palace and lands from his clan, but does not punish Kira. Asano's vassals leave the land and his samurais become ronin and want to seek revenge against the Lord's dishonour. But their leader Kuranosuke Oishi seeks to restore the Asano clan with his brother Daigaku Asano. One year later, the Shogun refuses, and Oishi and 46 rōnin are out for revenge.

Wataru Naohiko who has the prosecutor general as his father became a young composer and its symphony "saint" invoked the world echoed. But his disciple Uchiyama and his best friend prosecutor Daisuke Toki accused his music as a sesame of pause-only technique, not a truly heart-hungry art.

Shinya Ban (Masao Wakahara) returns from the south and is deeply disappointed when he learns that his mutual friend Yuriko (Mieko Takamine) is marrying Toshio (Toshio Hosokawa), the son of Zenpei Hamaguchi (Yoshito Yamaji), for her obligation. He encouraged the unhappy Yuriko and taught her how to make her marriage with Toshio a happy one. He makes a fresh start as an architect under the care of Ryosuke Shibata (Jiro Yanagi), who had taken care of his father, but Ryosuke's daughter Sumiko (Yoko Katsuragi) has feelings for him. Fujie Kakimoto's (Sadako Sawamura) son Koichi (Eiji Wakasugi) came to know about Sumiko and asked her to marry him after coming to Shinya to ask for her design. Knowing that Shinya's love for Yuriko would not be easily wiped away, Sumiko decided to marry Koichi, who had a bad leg. Shinya watches the beautiful bond between Koichi and Sumiko and decides to forget his past and move forward on the path to self-perfection.

No description available.

Yesterday a gentleman, today a student, tomorrow a stylish man in a casual kimono—Ginji, the pickpocket with seven faces, has his sights set on the gold watch of destiny. A tale of passion, love, human emotion, pistols, and thrills.

This is a film about a real person. Sanada Yukimura fought a war against Tokugawa Ieyasu.

A tea master and his daughter Ogin are both Christians in feudal Japan. Ogin falls in love with a married feudal prince who shares her faith. When the Shogun bans Christianity, the situation worsens.

Part one of Shin Saburi's Theater of Life adaptation.

After the death of her husband, an elderly woman and her youngest, unmarried daughter are forced to sell their house to cover his debts and decide to move in with one of the former's children, each of whom is scarcely happy to accommodate.

Kitagawa is an engineer charged with construction of a gigantic tunnel through the Japan Alps for the transportation of equipment in the building of the massive Kurobe Dam. The tunnel crosses an earthquake fault and Kitagawa is beleaguered not only by cave-ins and flooding, but by strife between management and the workers's union. Adding to Kitagawa's stress is the knowledge that as his attention is pulled inexorably toward the tunnel construction, his youngest daughter is dying from leukemia.

No description available.

This story is based on the novel "Jo no mai" by Tomiko Miyao which is based on the life of painter Shōen Uemura (1875–1949), the first woman to be awarded the Order of Culture. The title refers to the masterpiece bijinga ("picture of a beautiful woman") that Uemura painted at the age of 61. The main character, Tsuya Shimamura, is born in Kyoto as the second daughter of a tea trader who dies before her birth. Tsuya, who loves painting more than anything and is hopeless at housework, attends art school and at age 15 receives the name Shōsui (from the characters for "pine" and "green") from her teacher. The crown prince of England purchases one of her works, propelling her to fame overnight. The novel portrays the remainder of her stormy life, during which she is impregnated by her teacher and raises a fatherless child; through it all she devotes herself to her painting, undaunted.

Set in Japan's Tenpyou era (729-749 CE), four young monks are sent to China to study Buddhism and bring a high priest back to Japan with them. The film tells the tale of the four monks' youth and the life and times of the high priest Ganjin.

This extraordinarily complex film is not only a send-up of every samurai film ever made, it is also an extrapolation of the value of life. The Yamatai, represented by Prince Susano-O and elderly advisor Sumuke, hire Yumihiko of Matsuro to hunt the phoenix so that Queen Himiko, sister of Susano-O can have eteranal life.

​Reiko, a young woman with a physical disability, begins a clandestine affair with the married architect Katsuragi, but also becomes dangerously obsessed with his unfaithful wife, Akiko.

Based on Matsumoto Seicho's classic mystery novel of the same name, the story centers around a group of detectives who are determined to find the truth behind an apparent double suicide.

To solve the mystery of a murder of an old governess which takes place at a wealthy Daidoji family's country estate, family secrets and lies dating back several generations must be sorted out once and for all.

The troubled relationship between a writer and his ballet teacher wife, who has for years loved another man, finally leads to the breakup of the family.

A heartrending love story between an aspiring singer and a unnamed composer. Sobbing love songs sung by a heroine Mieko Takemine.

No description available.

A pair of blind masseurs, an enigmatic city woman, a lonely man and his ill-behaved nephew—The Masseurs and a Woman is made up of crisscrossing miniature studies of love and family at a remote resort in the mountains. With delicate and surprising humor, Hiroshi Shimizu paints a timeless portrait of loneliness and the human need to connect.

After killing the deceiver, the Masa gambler comes to Ina. There is a horse market in Ina, and the landowner Tamegoro, plans to steal the proceeds from the sale. Tamegoro steals money and blames the Masa for this crime. Masa has to go on the run, because now he is wanted for a crime that he did not commit...

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.

This period film is inspired by one of the most notorious scandals to have taken place in Edo-period Japan. The heroine, Ejima, was a lady of the Ooku, the harem of Edo Castle in which the Shogun’s mother, wife and concubines resided, forbidden from contact with any other man except in the presence of the Shogun. The institution played a key role in the Byzantine world of Japanese court politics during the Edo era. In 1714, Lady Ejima was sent to pay her respects at a Buddhist temple in the city, and chose to pay an unauthorised visit to the kabuki theatre – a violation of protocol that was to have tragic consequences.

Set in a rural town in Yamaguchi Prefecture, this comedy centers on a young couple determined to pursue their love against all opposition, while also chronicling the comical behaviors and interactions of a cast of lovable characters.

1957 Japanese movie

A story depicting the true nature of a vulnerable woman who abandons love, severs the bond between father and daughter, and challenges the very embodiment of greed and materialism.

A student at a woman's university takes a controversial action against the school's old-fashioned doctrines.

Comedy-drama about university tennis players.

No description available.

Based on the loosely autobiographical novel of the same name by Toko Kon. Ken Yamanouchi stars as Togo Konno, the titular bastard.

Ikeuchi was captain of the K - University ice hockey team. The daughter Shikotsuko of Ginza 's western restaurant "Piccolo" was also a female student at K University and was a figure player. They had a dream of being dispatched to Oslo in the Olympic Games and were struggling in each way. Mizuno who runs a sports equipment store in Ginza, showed the geisha by guiding the junior's Ikeuchi and others to the shop of Shimbashi one day.

An uplifting drama about the bond between a group of high school seniors and their kind-hearted teacher, Mr. Yabuki. Faced with the rigors of growing up in modern times, students often look to Mr. Yabuki for advice and guidance. But when Mr. Yabuki’s career is threatened as a result of a false accusation from the school’s PTA, the students band together to stand up for their beloved teacher and help him to save his good reputation and job.

When pickpocketing runs rampant, detectives step up their game. Yazaki, a detective at the Ohira Private Detective Agency who graduated from the University of Tokyo, bumps into a woman on a street corner. The woman turns out to be Asako, a female detective who works at his uncle Ryutaro’s private detective agency. Asako lives with her stepmother, Kiyoe, a young widow. The mother worries about her daughter’s marriage prospects, while the daughter worries about her mother’s job situation.

No description available.

A mother discovers that her 14-year-old daughter Yumi has leukemia and only six months to live. She decides to keep the information secret and pushes her past tutor Akira, now a university student, to reconnect with her.

1962 Japanese movie

During the 17th Century roving bands of hatamoto were causing trouble in the new capital city of Edo and constantly fought with the townspeople at every turn. The leader of these ruthless samruai was Mizuno Jirozaemon, who despite his high rank was in deep financial distress, thus leading to a tragedy that shook the very streets of the city.Opposing him was Banzui-in Chobei, the ‘Protector of the Weak’ who was willing to put his life on the line to save the 808 districts of Edo from the 80,000 hatamoto whose violent behavior threatened to destroy the fabric of society. Starring Bando Tsumasaburo, the first great star of the silver screen along with mega-star Ichikawa Utaemon, this is a story not to be missed. Torn from the pages of history, this true story has been told many times, but never as powerfully as this!

An Ishiro Honda film. The first part of A Rainbow Plays in My Heart released the same day as the second film.

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.

The three Matsunami sisters navigate adulthood and the complex social pressures of finding a husband while living under their traditional father’s roof. As they balance their personal desires against the family's obsession with status, their search for "marriageable age" stability is complicated by secret affairs and the cold reality of arranged matches. They must ultimately decide whether to conform to the rigid expectations of their upper-class upbringing or break away to pursue their own independence.

Kitamori Yuki was particular about her promise to her mother-in-law Hana. The promise is that, as the daughter-in-law of Koichi, the eldest son of the Kitamori family, Hana entrusts everything to Yuki, but wants her entire family to come see her on her birthday. At that time, her second son Keisuke's daughter Megumi, who is her private taxi driver, made a mistake, and she was overwhelmed and approached Yuki for advice. Eventually, her mother Kayo of Megumi learned about this, but a period was quietly struck by her women coming to a conclusion that should be the food for Megumi's growth.

No description available.

Moriya Tomoko, a young girl working for a publishing company, is told by a woman art dealer that her real father did not die, as everyone believes, during the revolution in Cuba, but is now living in Japan. Tomoko's mother has remarried a strict, narrow-minded university professor, whose only worry is protecting his family name from the slightest blemish.

A high school boy and girl in the midst of their youth try to get their parents to remarry.

After her mother's funeral, Yuriko, dressed in mourning clothes, sees off her lover Shintaro as he leaves in the powdery snow, and resolves to part ways with him forever. However, in Yuriko's heart... Pure love duo Yoshinaga and Hamada rigorously pursue a life of sincerity and love of the younger generation, and love but parting, in this lyrical and melancholy touching story of Ishizaka literature.

Japanese war movie.

No description available.

Melodrama by Kiyoshi Saeki

A resolute young man searching for his mother, whom he was separated from as a child, defies a family who mistreat the poor and homeless.

A prostitute? A poisonous woman? A virgin widow writhing in agony night after night, tormented by her first misstep.

No description available.

The story tells of Tsuchiya, a university professor and a widower who is in love with a widow who runs a small restaurant, and his son is in love with a runaway girl who turns out to be the leader of a religious sect. Kusano is the henpecked proprietor of a rice biscuit shop who dreams of owning a bird and dog shop and his daughter is in love with a boarder, employed by the private detective agency searching for the runaway girl. The agency head has his own dream of arranging thirty marriages and has already accomplished twenty-seven. Tatsumi is a newspaper reporter who dreams of a big scoop to enable him to marry a girl TV producer and his friend a mountain climbing enthusiast who dreams of joining a Himalayan expedition but is opposed by his wife. His love of the mountains is shared by a boarder in their home and by a fishmonger's son.

No description available.

Three men vying for the same job end up chasing the same girl in this comedy-drama from noted Japanese director Yasujiro Shimazu.

No description available.

An Ishiro Honda film. The second part of A Rainbow Plays in My Heart released the same day as the first film.

No description available.

Kyoko is a new writer for the women's magazine "Josei no tomo" female reporter. One day, the magazine receives a letter from a reader, Ume, who, in order to support their ill father at home, was compelled to trade her body to her employer at a factory. Harboring her own grudge against her father for abandoning her and her mother, Kyoko determines to not only write about the factory girl for the magazine but also save Ume in the process. However, Kyoko's investigation forces her to confront a harsh reality while also grappling with the sudden news of her estranged father's own illness and desire to reunite.

Approaching their graduation ceremony, Saegusa, Sanae, and their classmates go on an overnight trip to Hakone with their teacher Ms. Kawahara, who will soon leave school. They thank her doing so and go on their respective paths, ending soon their student life.

1951 Japanese movie

Part two of Shin Saburi's Theater of Life adaptation.

Minamimura, who had always wanted to be free, suddenly quits his job. His hardworking wife is surprised and angry, and throws him out of the house. Confused by his sudden freedom, Iosuke ends up living as a vagrant under a bridge. His wife, Komako, also finds herself freed and is unable to ignore her confusion.

1962 Japanese movie

Aboard a ship connecting Kyoto and Osaka, Osan was pickpocketed by a sham blind biwa player. A man who looked like a merchant retrieved the wallet for her. Osan was a woman being sold off for the sake of her yakuza-like brother, Nin'kichi. The man in the guise of a merchant turned out to be the Rat Thief, Jirokichi, the infamous thief of Edo. Due to this chance encounter, the two ended up staying at the same hot spring inn. However, one morning, as Jirokichi was about to leave alone, Osan, with the intuition of a smitten woman, confessed she knew he was the famed Rat Thief.

In the 30th year, Nirasaki Den'emon established the Nirasaki Hokkaido Development Company with investment from Sonoi to build railway facilities. However, the endeavor faced criticism for attempting to buy Ainu land at low prices. Tokyo Nippo reporter Toshimasa Matsuzaka, who was actually Nirasaki's son, wants to expose the flawed practices of the company.

1962 Japanese movie

On the day of college graduation, Mieko (Sayuri Yoshinaga) stood on stage as the valedictorian for the Department of English. During her university years she made sure that she would always come out on top, and she did. With a victorious graduation behind her, she plans out the next chapter of her life: become a successful novelist and go out with a classmate she's been secretly eyeing for the past couple of years.

A spirited young teacher challenges the conservative school employing her with liberal thinking and teaching methods.

Bored Hatamoto film #17

The film tells about drug trafficking from Vietnam to Tokyo and Okinawa. Tetsuya Watari plays a photographer who uses his camera as a blackmail weapon. He is on the trail of a narcotics smuggler (Mikio Narita) and his beautiful contact (Haruko Wanibuchi). Watari meets a former gangster (Yujiro Ishihara) who is seeking revenge against Narita, his former partner. Watari and Ishihara become allies and hijack the dope shipment. But Narita threatens the life of Haruko, who turns out to be Ishihara's sister, and demands the dope in return for the girl.

A melodrama about a talented singer who finally makes her debut. A remake of the 1939 film of the same name.

A penniless orphan loses the woman he loves, when her family arranges a marriage to a wealthy playboy. He believes she was blinded by greed, and becomes a miser.

A platonic love story, the protagonist continues to love the woman he fell in love with when he was a boy for the rest of his life.

1962 Japanese movie

Soichiro Ishizuka, the head of a prestigious Tokyo textile company, lives a comfortable life with his wife and three daughters. Their current family focus is securing a good marriage for their middle daughter, Yuko, since their eldest has already wed the man chosen to inherit the family business. However, their domestic routine is upended when an old school friend arrives with somber news: another former classmate, now a ceramic artist in Kyushu, is terminally ill with cancer.

No description available.

1956 Drama by Toshio Sugie

Adaptation of the novel by Bunroku Shishi.

A hospital melodrama where the conflict between love and friendship rules the faith of the protagonists.

1962 Japanese movie

1945 Japanese movie

Yumiko, the president's daughter, meets a suspicious woman after her wedding ceremony with Tamio.

No description available.

Melodrama about a talented singer who finally makes her debut

Japanese mystery film.

Based on the famous novel by Yamagami Itaro, this is the story of a group of ronin living in abject poverty in the latter days of the Edo period. Starring the great Konoe Jushiro, Ronin Gai is populated by an ensemble of colorful characters, social outcasts who patronize a restaurant and bar on the outskirts of Edo. Among them are masterless samurai reduced to drunkenness and debauchery. One disgraced and disillusioned former warrior gets a chance at redemption when he is hired to retrieve a famous knife from a corrupt lord. This is the third version directed by Makino Masahiro and is considered a true classic.

Pre-war Asakusa was a riotous district of cabarets, dance-halls and brothels - a striking backdrop for Shimazu's story of innocence and experience. Pretty, young Reiko is the new dancer in an infamous theatre troupe, and her fellow performers try to protect her virtue in a land of vice. Meanwhile, an ageing actor wants to be a hero off stage as well as on, and the troupe matriarch Marie has to keep them all together.

Adaptation of Kishida Kunio's novel. Set against the backdrop of a power struggle within a hospital, depicts the love lives of the director's daughter, the administrative director, a doctor, and a nurse.

The four kinds of love that Yuriko experiences, namely, a childhood longing love, a dream of marriage, a maternal love, and a destined love between parents and children over two generations, as well as the sisterly love between Yuriko and her sister Kaori.

No description available.

Three daughters have graduated from the music school and have gone their separate ways. On the day of the outbreak of war, the three girls meet again for the first time since their graduation ceremony. This film was made at the end of the war to promote the military song “Song of the Annihilation of the United States and Great Britain” and to raise the will to fight.

An older sister and brother (Mieko Takamine and Masayoshi Otsuka) come to visit their grandfather (Takeshi Sakamoto) who lives deep in the mountains. As for their parents, father was serving in the South Seas and mother died of illness on her way home. So, the brother, who is still young, will live alone with his grandfather whilst the sister goes away to study to become a teacher.

No description available.

In the movies of those times, you can see young boys in the company scene often. Those boys were called kyuji (給仕), which means “waiter” literally. They are doing odd jobs in the company including serving tea, ushering visitors, buying tobacco, etc. Ordering lunch for the individual requests was also an important job. Those boys were hired often as soon as they graduated from elementary school.

Hiromasa Nomura World War II era film

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.

Drama of a disillusioned youth, with writer-actor Ishihara starring as the young man at odds with his bickering parents and scheming brother, while finding little happiness when he begins a liaison with an older woman.

Drama directed by Yasushi Sasaki.

Drama directed by Yasushi Sasaki.

Kotobuki-za is a story of the Naniwa-bushi singer Baichuken Tsurumaru.

A Japanese drama featuring the one-eyed, one-armed swordsman

No description available.

A businessman’s daughter falls in love with one of her father’s employees.

An anthology of thirteen patriotic stories about Japanese citizens contributing to the war effort.

A film about the struggle of an officer from Edo, Toyama Saemon, with a lightning-fast gang of thieves.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Shunji Mitamura's wife died very early and left him a young son. Shunji's sister Hideko decided to fulfill her sisterly duty and moved to the main character to take care of the boy and the house. Time passes and Shunji marries Mieko Takamine. But since her father is often ill, she spends a lot of time in his dental clinic to do his work.

Amusing masterpiece from director Yoshimura Kazusabu divided in two parts taken from the newspaper serial novel of Shishiko Shishi. Like in "Warm Current", Shin Saburi, Mieko Takamine and Mitsuko Mito are appearing, but this is a fresh comedy very unusual for wartime.

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.

In this comic sequel to Yoshimura Kozaburo's original, Minami no Kaze, ex-baron (Saburi Shin) is in Singapore where he meets an old friend who proposes a scam to make some quick cash. It involved inventing the story that Saigo Takamori didn't actually die in the Satsuma Rebellion but escaped to Southeast Asia to start a new religion and in the process fathered a son who is now the founder. But when they bring the supposed heir and his aide to Japan, chaos ensues...

Melodrama based on a hit song of the same title.

Saeko Tachibana is a high school senior who lives with her mother. Playful yet somewhat lonely, Saeko was also an accomplished athlete who competed in the National Sports Festival as a tennis player.

Hana wa itsuwarazu (1941) is the second directorial work by Shochiku's Oba Hideo. Oba had previously worked as an assistant director to Shimizu Hiroshi and penned films for Shimazu Yasujiro. In this early effort, he is not stylistically very far from either, but then again all Shochiku directors resemble each other to a point. The film is an everyday romance for younger audiences, full of clean, ideal human beings.

Shigeo is an aspiring writer living with his girl friend Minako and hoping for success and a better tomorrow every day. Both live on what Minako earns from working in a café. Shigeo is not happy with the situation and neither is his family who do not approve of Minako. Especially his uncle tries to convince him to leave Minako, even using his influence behind the scenes. Things start to change when Shigeo's sister pays the young couple a visit, being the first member of Shigeo's family to actually get to know Minako in person.

Detective Denshichi is called to investigate the mysterious disappearance of the Kishu family's daughter Teruhime and the activities of a dangerous group dressed as skulls and their female leader.