Matsumoto Hakuō II

Suzume, 17, lost her mother as a little girl. On her way to school, she meets a mysterious young man. But her curiosity unleashes a calamity that endangers the entire population of Japan, and so Suzume embarks on a journey to set things right.

A bravado period action film set at the end of Japan's feudal era in which a group of unemployed samurai are enlisted to bring down a sadistic lord and prevent him from ascending to the throne and plunging the country into a war-torn future.

After six years away, D.A. Kuryu Kohei (Kimura Takuya) returns to his former Josai branch of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office, just in time for a brewing storm. Kohei's first case starts out simple enough. The suspect, a blonde-haired security guard, had already confessed to manslaughter, but he suddenly retracts his confession and takes things to court with big-shot defense attorney Gamo (Matsumoto Koshiro). It turns out that the security guard is a key alibi witness in a high-profile political corruption case, and the results of his case will directly affect the next. With the media, politicians, and a special investigative team breathing down his back, Kohei must handle the case with care (and flair) to find out the truth.

In spring, a girl leaves the island of Hokkaido to attend university in Tokyo. Once there, she is asked to reveal why she wanted to go there in the first place.

Late in the 1500s, an aging tea master teaches the way of tea to a headstrong Shogun. Through force of will and courageous fighting, Hideyoshi becomes Japan’s most powerful warlord, unifying the country.

Kumokiri Nizaemon, a former samurai warrior, has abandoned his class to become the leader of a gang of thieves. He leads his outlaws in an attempt to rob the castle of his former clan.

Serious-minded company accountant Kosuke Yamashita is facing problems at both work and home when a young woman unexpectedly asks him to meet his childhood friend Shozo Obama. The two men have not seen each other for twenty-seven years, and Kosuke soon learns that Shozo is terminally ill. Still as persuasive and opportunistic as ever, Shozo proposes one final money-making scheme: travel to Nagano, acquire a supposedly valuable rare carp called a “Karasugoi,” and sell it for a fortune. Their quarrelsome journey gradually becomes a chance to revisit old memories, regrets and a friendship neither man truly left behind.

Director Ogata discovers a new female star in Koharu Tanaka, who works selling candy at a studio theater and she is given a part as a bit player. After the studio's top leading lady is embroiled in a scandal, Koharu is suddenly thrust into the limelight when she replaces her in a film and gains instant fame and fortune. But the going is not always easy, and she soon seeks help from unexpected quarters.

As Japan joins in a political pact with Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is appointed supreme commander of the Japanese fleet. With Japan headed inexorably toward war, Yamamoto, despite his misgivings, believes the only possible victory lies in destroying the American fleet by surprise at Pearl Harbor. The attack succeeds, but fails to sink the American carrier fleet. Thus Yamamoto must lead the Japanese navy into war with ever-diminishing likelihood of success.

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

This Japanese action-adventure is set in the 17th century when all forms of swordplay were banned. One fighter, an excellent swordsman believes the law is unfair. His brother keeps his opinions about the law to himself. The swordsman vents his frustration by cutting off the thumbs of an enemy. The fighter is then banished. To live, he becomes a thief. To restore the family's lost honor, the other brother is forced to challenge the fighter to a duel.

No description available.

In a Post-War Tokyo, when the bureaucratic chief of department of the City Hall Kanji Watanabe finds that he has a terminal cancer, he decides to intensively live his last months of life. While dying, he finds the meaning of life, and fights for the construction of a playground in a poor zone of the city and the legacy of his existence.

Furuta Oribe is ordered to become tea master under Toyotomi Hideyoshi after his teacher Sen no Rikyū, the former tea master, was ordered to commit suicide. Princess Goh, daughter of the lord but adopted by Hideyoshi, is outraged when Rikyū's severed head is thrown in the Nijo River. She sends Usu, Oribe's servant, to retrieve the head and deliver it to Rikyū's adopted daughter.

No description available.

1964 Japanese movie

Set at the end of the Siege of Osaka this film follows the exploits of several members of the defeated Toyotomi clan as they cope with the post battle chaos and the persecution of the Shogun's army. Five samurai decide on different fates when it becomes clear that their side is being destroyed. One wants to attack the enemy head on in a final honorable death. Another decides to commit hari-kiri but wants to find a glorious view to do it. His close friend, the "coward", just wants to run and give up the life of a samurai. The final two set their own castle on fire to garner favors from the enemy and therefore avert their own death during the massacre of all defeated soldiers as

Watanabe Kazuma and Kawai Matagorō from the Bizen Okayama Ikeda clan were close friends, but they inevitably became enemies after Matagorō killed Kazuma's younger brother, Gentayū, and fled. Seeking assistance, Kazuma asked his brother-in-law, Araki Mataemon, for help, but Mataemon refused, saying that it was against the code for a brother to avenge another brother's death. On the other hand, the lord of the clan, Ikeda Tadao, ordered a search for Matagorō, who was found to be sheltered by the Hatamoto, including Andō Jiemon, in Edo. Tadao was furious but unable to act. Matagorō, in Edo, came to regret his birth as a samurai. He met and fell in love with Okō, a bathhouse maid. As the discord between the Hatamoto and the Ikeda clan deepened, Tadao died of illness. Seizing the opportunity to ease the conflict, the shogunate ordered the Ikeda clan to be succeeded by the young lord Katsugorō and to relocate to the Ikeda clan of Inshū Tottori. Meanwhile, Matagorō was exiled from Edo.

Chushingura has been made into a movie several times before, but this time it will be presented in a widescreen version with all natural colors and a new look. Written by Masato Ide and directed by Tatsuo Osone. This is a magnificent scroll of images that depicts on a grand scale the triumph of the Genroku era that shook the citizens of Edo, the peaceful capital of Japan. The top stars of the film, shinpa, shingeki, and kabuki worlds at the time of production were lavishly cast, and a huge budget was invested to create a large set for this highly acclaimed and moving epic.

An employee at a Japanese embassy in a South American country is kidnapped but Furuhata, who is there on holiday, begins suspecting that the man was killed by none other than the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary himself.

1961 Japanese movie

Tells the story of Shintaro, a lawyer who quits his job to work at a camera factory, and his love adventures.

A boy falls in love with a girl. Neither of them know that she's to be sold to a brothel.

Includes footage of the oral presentation of the third generation of Ichikawa Somegoro VIII and others. In June 2007, when he was two years old at the Kabuki-za theatre, he played the chivalrous Harusamegasa in his first appearance under his real name 'Fujimasai'. Koshiro Matsumoto IX says he started jumping around in the middle of the day and was made to study without knowing he wanted to play Benkei Rokkata By the age of four, he had become Kintaro Matsumoto IV and is now Somegoro Ichikawa VIII. The film presents 10 years of close-up footage.

Documentary programme closely following the simultaneous one-year succession of three generations of the prestigious Koraiya theatre. Koshiro IX and Shiro Matsumoto II, Somegoro VII and Koshiro Matsumoto X, and Kintaro IV and Somegoro Ichikawa VIII performed the succession on 2 January 2008 at the Kabuki-za theatre in Tokyo. The film follows the unwavering transmission of the art of father and grandson. Testimony from Koshiro X's sister, Noriyasu Matsumoto, and younger sister, Takako Matsu. Also features family ties and rare glimpses of Koshiro away from the stage. An insight into the amazing feat of three generations of Kabuki actors who assumed the name simultaneously, a rarity in the 400-year history of the Kabuki theatre.