Shūji Sano

A body is found poisoned in a room of a luxury apartment late at night and a beautiful mother turns herself in to protect her rebellious daughter.

Shuhei Horikawa, a poor schoolteacher, struggles to raise his son Ryohei by himself, despite neither money nor prospects.

A professor, Komiya, and his bossy wife, Tokiko, are to look after Setsuko, their high-spirited niece from Osaka. Despite being a minor, Setsuko is a liberated woman who does whatever she wants, including smoking. She even convinces Koyima to take her to a geisha house. When she gets rather tipsy, the professor calls Okada, one of his students, to take her home. The wife becomes suspicious of Setsuko when she sees Okada bringing her home.

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.

Tokiko patiently awaits her husband's return from WWII when her four-year old son falls ill. She takes him to the doctor but has no means of paying, so she resorts to prostitution. A month later, her husband returns to find his desperate wife, who tells him the truth. Together, they must deal with the consequences.

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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.

Mokichi Asai is a widowed father living in Nara with three daughters—Chizuru, Ayako, and Setsuko. The youngest, Setsuko, plays matchmaker for her older sisters, leading to humorous and awkward romantic entanglements.

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.

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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.

The story follows Oshino, a geisha who is trying to start a new life with a lover who is a painter. However, her past filled with debts and pimps catches up to her.

Natsuko’s daughter Saori is born blind in 1941, just before her father is drafted. Despite an attempted surgery and years of struggle, her condition proves permanent. Growing up, she faces stigma and danger but eventually finds hope and love with a fellow blind student.

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A young woman (Kuga), recuperating at a sanitarium in Karuizawa, falls in love with a young student (Ishihama) but returns to Tokyo to be with her father (Yamamura).

When a wealthy, selfish family decides to take care of an elderly hobo who collapsed near their home, they are beset by visits from his numerous friends.

A rookie golfer must cope with the stress of fame after a marketing executive transforms her into a sports celebrity.

A magician who targets the Yucun family, who obtain huge wealth through gemstones. Even the wise Kogoro was fooled by his meticulous criminal plan

A rural village elder plans an event on the return of a farmer's daughter from the city, unaware that she has become a Westernized burlesque artist.

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.

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Japanese drama.

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In the 15th year of the Meiji era (1882), Ōkuma Shigenobu, expelled from the Council of State by the Satsuma-Chōshō clique, poured his personal fortune into establishing the Tokyo Professional School in a tea field in Waseda Village. With seven professors, including Takada Sanae and Tsubouchi Yūzō, and eighty-seven students, government interference extended even to finances; Ono Azusa, who tirelessly worked to secure funding, died from overwork.

Though plagued by ill health all his life, a young Japanese man is obligated to fulfill his family's longstanding military tradition.

Alongside Tokyo's Sumida River is a ragpickers' settlement known as Ant Village. One night, a young Catholic girl, Satoko Kitahara, who has been baptized under the name of Maria, comes to offer her services. However, Ant Village is not just an ordinary vagrants' community but a fine autonomous organization, and as the municipal authorities have long been demanding that the people of Ant Village leave the site, Satoko is utilized to publicize the Village and win public sympathy. While being utilized in this manner, Satoko is nevertheless glad to be able to help the people of Ant Village, especially the children, and when the summer vacation comes she decides to take the children on an excursion to Hakone. To raise funds for this purpose she becomes a rag-picker herself.

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Young lord Saburo Nobuyasu struggles to find comfort in life. His arranged marriage to Tokuhime, daughter of one-time family enemy Oda Nobunaga, provides little happiness. His manipulative mother adds further complications through her constant interference and attempts at defeating the Nobunaga family.

33-year-old poor writer Ogata was able to endure his miserable life cheerfully thanks to Yoshie, a 19-year-old innocent young wife. After graduating from a girls' school in Hokuriku, she immediately moved to Tokyo to meet and marry Ogata. After neatly writing Ogata's manuscript, he would buy dorayaki as a gratuity and devour it.

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.

Also known as Crazy Uproar.

Three young women make a suicide pact, but they grow to have a better understanding of themselves.

A film about the construction of the Kasumigaseki Building, the first high-rise building in Japan.

1962 Japanese movie

Follows the story of an insurance company executive from Tokyo, Mr. Mito, who is demoted to the Osaka office. He takes a room at a small inn and tries to rebuild his life.

1954 Theater of Life adaptation.

Pretty Oshige is deceived by her first love. After this, she lives a hard lifestyle, working at a number of jobs. Her only pleasure is her nephew, who eventually becomes a merchant marine. When Oshige meets her old love ten years later, she is able to forgive him and even thank him for the path her life has taken.

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A young girl moves to Tokyo and endures the rivalries between other high school girls of varying cultural and economic backgrounds.

Based on a radio drama.

It chronicles the experiences of a neighbourhood doctor, whose taste for tonkatsu (a popular Japanese dish, similar to a pork schnitzel) earns him the nickname ‘the pork cutlet prince’ (‘Tonkatsu Taisho’, the film’s Japanese title) from the affectionate residents of the tenement in which he lives. When a local hospital, run by a female doctor, plans to expand, the future of the tenement is called into question.

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A group of shady politicians want to make money after a typhoon by claiming the schoolhouse has been destroyed and then cashing in on building a new one.

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.

Battles of an average salaryman.

1962 Japanese movie

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Drama about young people in the Japanese rock scene starring the lead singer of Japanese rock band The Tigers (1966-1971, 1981-1983).

A humble page fathers a child by the daughter of a clan official and is banished. Years later, the child, now a stable boy, is reunited with his father, but feudal codes threaten their happiness. Uchida’s poignant masterpiece condemns the inflexible class system and launches an indictment of values that favor symbolic objects over human life. The film’s focus is on character rather than swordplay, and charged performances - especially child actor Motoharu Ueki - add to the emotional power.

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

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Matsuki, a former war photojournalist, returns home and starts a modest life with his wife, Komiko. Driven by his passion for capturing the truth, he takes on daring assignments that impress many, though his risky work worries his wife. Through his lens, he experiences deeply moving moments that give him a new perspective on the meaning of his profession. As he struggles to balance his career and family life, new challenges force him to reconsider his priorities.

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

The eldest daughter of a noble family is in love with an aviator while being courted by a fellow aristocrat she thinks is a dullard. This part is told from the perspective of Akemi.

This film was mainly shot in the Japanese skiing resort Hokkaido in 1937-38 and was intended to create support for the coming winter olympics of 1940 in Japan which however were cancelled because of the Japanese-Chinese war. A Japanese production, it was nevertheless made with German involvement in the form of skiing champion Sepp Rist and celebrated cinematographer Richard Angst (who also contributed to the script). Both had regularly worked with the inventor of the mountain film genre, Dr. Arnold Fanck, who had helmed the German-Japanese co-production "Die Tochter des Samurai", also shot by Angst, the year before. Angst apparently stayed in Japan until mid-1939 when he returned to Germany, carrying this film with him. Angst submitted it to the German censors later that year, but for reasons unknown to me it took three more years before the film was finally shown in Germany under the name "Das heilige Ziel" (The Holy Aim). (Karargara)

Shinsaku was once a renowned playwright, has now been left behind by journalism and is living a lethargic life in Oiso. His family is concerned with Shinsaku regaining his old vigor as a writer and Sakie, his daughter, finding a suitable match, while the family is struggling with the losses of war.

Poor social conditions badly affect the relationship between a married couple, when the husband, who is desperately searching for work, fails to notice the terrible sacrifices made by his wife when she accepts a job at a local inn.

A film about the rivalry between Captain Gondo and the harpooner Yosuke Yamagami, working on the best whaling ship Hayabusa Maru. One day they will have to face a giant, monstrous whale.

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Japanese comedy film.

1962 Japanese movie

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Three men fall in love with the same young girl who works in a tonkatsu restaurant in the Shitamachi district of Tokyo.

In order to pay back Mrs. Kajiki for her good deed in the past, Hatsu moves from her village in Akita to Tokyo to start working as a maid for her family. She grows close to their youngest son Katsumi, experiencing things that will change her view on life.

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1962 Japanese movie

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.

A father curries favor with his bosses to further his career, but his wife has lost faith in him. She returns to her family home while they rent out their house during the summer to pay off their mortgage, and there she meets a lonely old man...

A nurse's tale of self-sacrifice during wartime. The title is borrowed from a patriotic song made popular by singer Hamako Watanabe during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

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1962 Japanese movie. Remake of the 1939 movie

Japanese war movie.

A melodrama set in Kuroshima.

The Nagasaki flagship store of a long-established castella bakery versus its Tokyo branch. Amid a sudden clash between the old and the new, a young chorus group finds itself caught up in the twists and turns of romance… Set against the exotic backdrop of Nagasaki, Yoshiaki Bansho skilfully weaves together the lively romantic adventures of these young people.

The Yoshikawa family is a typical small town family. With only the father's and daughter's salaries to support the family's six members, life is not easy.

1962 Japanese movie

Yuki is a young, single mother supporting herself and her son, Haru, with a job as a bar hostess.

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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.

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Otami and daughter Yuri run the Matsuoka, a 150-year-old Japanese-style inn in Tokyo which they plan to renovate into a modern hotel before the ‘64 Tokyo Olympics. Maki, the son of the owner of the Benten Hotel, likes Yuri and wants to get closer to her. So, he asks Milton, an American exchange student, to stay at her inn so he can get closer to her. But Yuri is in love with Shin, a cook at her inn. And although Shin likes her too, the two are constantly bickering. Complicating matters more, is that every other available girl also likes Shin including Chikako, who lives at his boarding house, and Chikoma, who is a geisha. One day when Yuri gets a phone call, she suspects that her mother might be having an affair. But it turns out that Otami reunited with her old flame Tomo, who also used to work as a chef at the inn but left because he feared that their class backgrounds were too different. When Shin learns that Yuri is going to marry...will history repeat itself?

A matchmaker looks to unite a young woman from a wealthy Tokyo family with the humble owner of an auto garage.

A countryside woman working as a maid gets scouted for a model job.

Yuzo Kayama visits New Zealand

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.

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.

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.

Drama about the trials and tribulations of a teenage girl.

Taiji (Kawazu Yusuke), who works at Noble Cosmetics, wants to marry his girlfriend Tomie (Kuwano Miyuki), but is having a hard time saving up the money. On a night train, he casually takes a photo of a middle-aged man and a young woman sleeping close together in seats diagonally opposite each other. In reality, the man is Aizawa (Sano Shuji), the section chief at the government agency where Tomie works. Tomie tells Taiji that she is pregnant and wants them to get married soon, so Taiji sends Aizawa the same photo. This is to ask him to buy it...

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During college military training exercises, the bond between two friends and athletic rivals is tested when one of them becomes involved with a woman who may be a prostitute.

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.

A man and his girlfriend work for a cosmetics company, but would like to open their own store. The company is planning to send someone to Paris for special training and the man tries to get the general manager to send his girlfriend since this training would help them to start their own business. The general manager selects another woman and the trouble begins.

Film about the life of a bitter female reporter with a pure heart.

A touching story of pure love and tears between a boy and a girl, drawn by the innocent duo of Chieko Baisho and Shinichiro Mikami, based on "Nagashi bina", which absorbed the customs of the Tottori region.

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Japanese youth film.

A hostile Chinese nurse (Yamaguchi) who works in an orphanage is won over by the care and commitment of the Japanese doctor (Sano) who treats her wards. Disease outbreaks and family obligations, however, threaten to torpedo their budding romance.

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Melodrama based on a novel by Yukio Mishima.

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Coming of age/high school sports drama.