Keiko Kishi
Rinko and Aya, employed in the Philippines in 1944, escape one of the most gruesome battles of the Pacific War. Based on the accounts of actual women survivors, this special depicts the friendship - the joy and sadness - shared by these two women, whose lives remain intertwined in wartime and long beyond.
Akiko (Satomi Kobayashi) lives with her mother, but suddenly her mother passes away. Since then she quits her editing job and takes over her mother's small restaurant. At the restaurant there's only two items on the menu: sandwich and soup.
10-year-old Sota lives with his grandfather and a dog named Chibi in a small snowy village. They live in such a poverty that Sota cannot even afford to go to school, but however hard the situation is, Sota never holds a bad feeling against anyone around and keeps his dream alive to become a painter. He has been friends with Sayo, a girl brought up in a wealthy family, ever since they were little despite the difference of their family position, which Sayo’s father has uneasy feelings against. In spite of the difficulties he faces, Sota manages to complete a piece of painting which he wishes to give Sayo. He and Chibi goes down a snowy night path to Sayo’s house to find that her father’s storage is on fire... What waits for Sota and Chibi gently reminds that genuine happiness always exists in your heart.
When Sakuragi Haruko's father's factory is bombed, Oba Hiroto stops Haruko when she tries to rescue her father from the fire. They meet again a few years later when Haruko is working as a nurse and Hiroto is brought in as a patient with a heart condition. The second couple is a Korean man, Boku Hitoshi, and another nurse, Yamada Kazue
In 1943, as Japan's WWII effort falters, a vice-admiral proposes training squadrons of "volunteer" flyers to crash their armed planes into Allied warships. Yarn follows the lives of kamikaze pilots, as remembered by an aging Kyushu restaurateur who cherishes their memory. Honoring the dead and multiple military anthems may stir the soul of some Japanese, but elsewhere auds will make a one-way trip for exits. Battle scenes are well-executed and script delivers some memorable scenes, but overall competent helming and thesping are powerless over writer-cum-Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishiara's repetitive storytelling. A post-war postscript adds considerable length to an already over-extended narrative. Tech credits are good quality.
Okatsu is a widow raising five children - adults but still mama-dependent - in mid-eighteenth century Edo, Japan. Her frugality attracts unflattering comment even amid national tough times (the region is in famine) What Okatsu tells no one is that she saves so that a friend can start his own business once he's released from prison.
The patriarch of a bickering family announces his retirement, stirring competition about who will succeed him as a leading practitioner of Noh theater, his granddaughter or grandson.
Toyoichi Otomo suffers from psychological and spiritual troubles after a horrific industrial accident. He lives with his elderly mother and wife near Mt. Aso in rural Kyushu. He seeks solace in a small religious group run by Buddhist nun Chishu-bo who claims to be the 68th descendant of famed 11th century poet Izumi Shikibu. The members of her sect regard her as a living saint. Yet instead of balming his soul, she riles his libido by playing a sexual cat-and-mouse game with the fragile Toyoichi. When she does bed him, it leads to a miracle healing -- followed by a terrible calamity.
This sensuously beautiful film chronicles the activities of four sisters who gather in Kyoto every year to view the cherry blossoms. It paints a vivid portrait of the pre-war lifestyle of the wealthy Makioka family from Osaka, and draws a parallel between their activities and the seasonal variations in Japan.
An extremely lovely tribute to Ozu, on the 20th anniversary of his death. It uses a combination of footage from vintage films and new material (both interviews and Ozu-related locations) shot by Ozu's long-time camera-man (who came out of retirement to work on this). Surprisingly (or perhaps not), it focuses less on Ozu's accomplishments as a film-maker than on his impact on the lives of the people he worked with..
Chieko (Momoe Yamaguchi) has been raised as the only child of parents who run a dry goods store. When Chieko was a middle-school student, she learned that her parents are not her biological parents. Cheiko's mother told her that she was stolen while sleeping under a cherry tree in Gion, Kyoto, Japan, but Chieko doesn't believe that. Her relationship with her parents is very close. Chieko only tells her childhood friend Shinichi, but...
Yataro Tanigawa, a one-eyed hired assassin, impresses yakuza boss Gomyo Kiyoemon with his skill. Gomyo hires Tanigawa as his bodyguard, or yojimbo, to protect him during an inter-clan conflict. Tanigawa quickly rises in stature in the clan, but finds his boss's enemies almost overwhelming.
Kôsuke Kindaichi, a somewhat peculiar private detective, visits a remote town. He meets a police detective and they start to investigate an old unsolved murder. Then some murders happen. Kindaichi must find out about the past in order to reveal who the murderer is.
Akira, a Japanese expat working in Amsterdam, falls in love with a Japanese woman at Schiphol Airport who he thinks is his high school love.
This drama is adapted from a Japanese television mini-series. In the story, an industrialist learns of a medical condition which will greatly shorten his life. He is on a trip to Europe at the time, and a glimpse of a Japanese woman in that setting causes him to fantasize about her as the personification of his impending death. As his dialogue with his imagined mortality continues, he actually meets the living woman who is the template for his fantasy, and together they tour rural churches. Gradually he comes to some kind of peace about the diagnosis. When he returns to Japan, he is met with a series of challenges which profoundly test the lessons he has learned
Harry Kilmer returns to Japan after several years in order to rescue his friend George's kidnapped daughter - and ends up on the wrong side of the Yakuza, the notorious Japanese mafia...
Tora-San returns to Shibamata just before his family leaves on a trip for Kyushu. Later, he encounters an old school chum and begins to have feeling for his artist sister.
During a long train ride heading north of Japan, a young man addresses an older woman in front of him. At first she doesn't respond, but he finally gets her into a conversation when he offers her lunch. Thus begins Saito Koichi's famous romantic thriller, "The Rendezvous". The woman turns out to be a murderer on parole, whist the man a runaway accused of assault and robbery. As it happens, the two soon fall in love. The woman asks the man to wait two years until she is released from jail. And he agrees...
Zero Mostel plays an inspector on the trail of criminals who have captured a robot called Chatze(sp?) played by Felix Silas. The inspector has delusions that he is a great Samurai warrior and the movie flashes back and forth between present day and ancient times.
French novelist Henri-Francois Rey adapted his novel Les Pianos Mecaniques with director Juan Antonio Bardem for this French/Italian/Spanish co-production, set in Spain. Vincent (Hardy Kruger) is recovering from a nervous breakdown in a seaside village on the Costa Brava. He enters into an affair with nightclub owner Jenny (Melina Mercouri), but their relationship changes when she falls for alcoholic author Pascal Regnier (James Mason), who is struggling to resume his writing career. Vincent eventually returns home, leaving Jenny to stay on with Pascal and his young son Daniel (Didier Haudepin). Their love enables him to start writing again.
Taking its title from an archaic Japanese word meaning "ghost story," this anthology adapts four folk tales. A penniless samurai marries for money with tragic results. A man stranded in a blizzard is saved by Yuki the Snow Maiden, but his rescue comes at a cost. Blind musician Hoichi is forced to perform for an audience of ghosts. An author relates the story of a samurai who sees another warrior's reflection in his teacup.
Van Hekken, an old gangster, arrives in Tokyo to direct a bank hold-up in order to get a very valuable diamond.
The basic story in Love under the Crucifix is about Ogin, daughter of a tea master, who are both Christians in feudal Japan. Ogin falls in love with a feudal prince, also a Christian who is already married, and that creates problems. Further, when the Shogun bans Christianity, the situation worsens.
On his deathbed, a wealthy businessman announces that his fortune is to be split equally among his three illegitimate children, whose whereabouts are unknown to his family and colleagues. A bevy of lawyers and associates scheme to procure the money for themselves, enlisting the aid of impostors and blackmail.
Kaze is a philandering TV producer. His wife and nine of his mistresses conspire to kill him. However each woman would rather keep him alive, as long as she was the only woman in his life.
Set in 1926 when Japanese tradition was much stronger, this drama looks at the inner workings of a small family, especially the relationship between a sister and brother.
The plot is based on the novel "Akechi Samanosuke no Koi," the final work in a trilogy by Hiroshi Kato about the forced suicide of Oda Nobunaga at the temple Honnoji. Historically, the general Akechi Mitsuhide is credited with causing Nobunaga's downfall. Kato's novel focuses on Mitsuhide's nephew Samanosuke, who fought alongside his uncle during the assault on Honnoji.
After surviving the double suicide pact she made with her lover, a woman gives birth to their child.
It's a man's world. Shimamura, an artist, comes to this snowbound town to rejuvenate himself. He connects with Komako, a geisha he met on a previous trip, and it seems like love. She's the foster daughter of a local family, almost engaged to the family's son Yukio, now dying of consumption. He's tended by his sister Yuko who's angry at Komako for abandoning her brother. Shimamura returns to Tokyo but promises he will be back soon. In anticipation of his return, Komako breaks with her patron and her family loses their home. Complications arise when Shimamura doesn't come back as promised. Then Komako discovers that he and Yuko knew each other in Tokyo. Can Komako escape destiny?
Pierre Marsac, a French engineer working for the Nagasaki shipbuilding yards, has fallen in love both with Japan and a charming Japanese girl named Noriko. But Françoise Fabre, a French journalist and Pierre's former lover, contacts him while visiting the Land of the Rising Sun. They meet again, find out their love might not be dead. Meanwhile, Pierre gradually becomes estranged from sweet, humble Noriko. One day, a typhoon strikes Nagasaki...
A group of rank-and-file Japanese soldiers are jailed for crimes against humanity, themselves victims of a nation refusing to bear its burdens as a whole.
A young salary man and his wife struggle within the confines of their passionless relationship while he has an extramarital affair.
A talent scout moves sharply, dead-set on signing a promising athlete to the team the Toyko Flowers.
A boy falls in love with a girl. Neither of them know that she's to be sold to a brothel.
The story of a group of young people who organise their own travelling symphony orchestra to provide music for people living in remote villages shortly after the war.
A Chinese medical student named Gan Shosho finds himself cut off from his homeland as he is studying in Japan during the outbreak of the war. Despite his difficult circumstances, he finds love in the form of Sachiko and the two marry. They later travel to Nanjing to live a new life together where Sachiko and Shaochang cooperate with the Japanese-backed government. Their ultimate hope is to secure peace but their idealism is not enough to keep them together through brutal times and with the end of the war the two find themselves facing a divorce... --Osaka Asian Film Festival
A student at a woman's university takes a controversial action against the school's old-fashioned doctrines.
In a mountain village, Heita, a translator's son, is a gifted boy but is shunned by the villagers. He can imitate birds' cry and befriends another boy who works in a brewery. Heita also finds solace in the village pastor Yasugi and his teacher Michiko, but they too have problems of their own.
Machiko and Haruki’s drama continues. Machiko is not allowed to see Haruki. They finally meet again, but Haruki departs to Europe.
Machiko Ujiie and Haruki Atomiya first meet and fall in love on Ginza’s Sukiyabashi Bridge during the Great Tokyo Air Raid in March 1945. Machiko and Haruki pledge to meet again at the bridge in six months but part without asking each other’s names.
This film stars Tanaka Kinuyo as the mother of the heir to the Hosho name, a famous lineage of Noh actors. The heir, Hosho Yagoro, is played by Hasegawa Kuzuo who went on to become familiar among Ichikawa Kon fans as Yukinojo in An Actor's Revenge, which was also co-written by Ito, adding to the relatedness of An Heir's Place.
Machiko and Haruki’s drama continues. Two meet again in Hokkaido only to be separated again.
The Ueki family may not be wealthy, but smiles are never in short supply. The father is awarded prize money for 25 years of service to his workplace, but has it stolen on the way home from the ceremony...
Asako works in a hostel for troubled young women. When a beautiful young girl is brought in one day after committing theft, Asako finds out from the older widow she works with that the new girl is undoubtedly her half-sister. When the younger sister suddenly flees on account of a misunderstanding, Asako makes up her mind to find the mother who deserted them both.
