Ryôichi Kikuchi
A wealthy matriarch is kidnapped by a gang of three. She is insulted by the amount of money they propose to demand as ransom, and a strange interchange of roles takes place.
"Around the time he made such remarkably ambivalent war films as Mud and Soldiers and Five Scouts, Tasaka directed this 'home front' comedy-drama which is too bizarre to be serious propaganda. [The plot revolves around a public contribution campaign to buy airplanes.] The mayor's aviator son promises to fly over the village in salute, and much of the narrative concerns the preparations for this great event. Tasaka throws in a few songs, some village humor and satire, and tremendous camera mobility, finally wringing every possible effect from his climax." John Gillett, British Film Institute
A group of Japanese soldiers land in Chinese territory. They advance on a village ; one soldier, Norimoto, is killed in the attack, but the village is captured. Norimoto’s body is recovered and buried. Over the next two days, the soldiers advance inland. Two more soldiers, Naito and Takahashi, are injured. They remain behind to recover, but vow to catch up. Their comrades march on...
Two brothers run a factory canning crabs. The elder brother Kotaro is righteous and insists on honesty. The younger brother is fixated on money. They are polar opposites. When a boat sails out looking for crab and does not return one day the brothers begin to argue over how to run their facility. They had just received a large order from a foreign country and had obtained a loan from a lender that needed to be repaid.
A 1937 Japanese language film directed by Tomu Uchida, starring Ryo Akaboshi, Mitsuru Date and Hisao Furutani.
A spy (Yukiko Todoroki) infiltrates an aircraft company as an employee and tries to obtain a report on a new engine developed by engineer Morimoto (Ichiro Izawa). Behind it is a spy organization which aims to destroy it. The crew, who fail to rob the report, set a time bomb on the stage at the announcement the secret of the engine as a last resort. Director Hiroyuki Yamamoto is known for national spy movies such as "The Man Who Came from Chongqing" (1943), and worked for Nikkatsu Tamagawa Film Studio before it was integrated into the new company Daiei. This film was long thought to be lost and only recovered in a 70-minute version in the Gosfilm archives in the USSR. Although it was criticized at that time, it is said that a letter of appreciation was also given by the commander of the military police for improving the counterintelligence of the people. (from National Film Archive of Japan)
