Masao Katô

A youthful film depicting the sexual awakening of a boy who has just entered adolescence and his heartbreaking romance during the summer holidays with a young sprightly girl.

6.3/10

Two Jesuit priests encounter persecution when they travel to Japan in the 17th century to spread Christianity and search for their mentor.

7.2/10

Successful and married with children, paper-mill owner Jihei knows better than to contradict the strict social and moral codes of 18th-century Japan. But when he meets the lovely courtesan Koharu, he becomes a man obsessed. Koharu returns his love, even foregoing other customers while Jihei schemes to somehow buy her freedom. His efforts yield ruinous consequences for his business and his family life, and Koharu is meanwhile purchased by another client.

7.7/10
10%

The backstage romances of an egotistical singer and his under-valued manager, a lovelorn bandman and a nude dancer.

6.7/10

During a time of war, Lord Ogata is betrayed by two of his closest vassals and killed by his enemy, Sarashina Danjo. Ten years later, Lord Ogata's only living heir, now a skilled ninja, uses sorcery to avenge the murders of his parents.

Tragicomic road movie set during the Edo period. It follows a samurai, his two servants – including spear-carrier Genpachi – and the various people they meet on their journey, including a policeman in pursuit of a thief, a young child and a woman who is to be sold into prostitution.

7.4/10

The second film in the 1953 trilogy based on the long novel series The Great Bodhisattva Pass.

Life and love in corrupt postwar Tokyo, as a young couple struggles against both the law and the mob.

6.1/10

After Japan's loss in the war, the wealthy, cultured, liberal Anjo family have to give up their mansion and their way of life. They hold one last ball at the house before leaving. The seemingly cold, cynical son secretly grieves for his defeated father and the values that the war destroyed, while the daughter tries to prevent father from taking his life and to find her own place in the new Japan.

7.4/10

A lawyer fights doggedly for a more just legal system to rid Japan of its draconian penal system.

6.3/10