Tomoko Naraoka
In 16th century Japan, a young man has to choose between becoming a master steel maker like his father and grandfather before him, or becoming a samurai so that he can help protect his village from attacks by the various clans which want the high-quality steel made there.
Set within the fictional city of Mahoro, Keisuke Tada runs a "benriya" - a general problem solver for hire. His assistant is his former high school classmate Haruhiko Gyoten. A big crisis then occurs for them.
A small, out-of-the-way izakaya in Tokyo has become the favorite hangout of people searching for nourishment…for their bodies and their souls. The proprietor of Izakaya Moheji is Heiji, played by Yutaka Mizutani, star of the popular AIBOU series. Izakaya Moheji is a place where regulars and strangers alike can find comfort and comfort food.
Set in the 1950's, a Japanese Antarctic research exploration team and 19 dogs that accompanied the team are stationed at the Showa Base in Antarctica. After a year, the exploration team is ordered to withdraw from the Antarctic station due to severe weather conditions. The dogs have to be left behind. The following year, the next team arrives at the Showa Base station and a miraculous reunion occurs between a dog handler accompanying the new tean and two dogs, Taro and Shiro, that are brothers.
A heartwarming tale about the turning point in the life of an elite business man in his fifties and a local train that has been running since 1911. Hajime is in line to be the next head of a prominent electronics company. He toils day and night over his work and has no time for his family. But one day, his mother in Shimane falls ill, and his best friend dies in an accident. Grief-stricken, Hajime returns home, where memories of his childhood dream come back to him. He had always wanted to be a train conductor and drive the local "bataden" Ichibata Electric Railway.
The son of a sailor, 5-year old Sosuke lives a quiet life on an oceanside cliff with his mother Lisa. One fateful day, he finds a beautiful goldfish trapped in a bottle on the beach and upon rescuing her, names her Ponyo. But she is no ordinary goldfish. The daughter of a masterful wizard and a sea goddess, Ponyo uses her father's magic to transform herself into a young girl and quickly falls in love with Sosuke, but the use of such powerful sorcery causes a dangerous imbalance in the world. As the moon steadily draws nearer to the earth and Ponyo's father sends the ocean's mighty waves to find his daughter, the two children embark on an adventure of a lifetime to save the world and fulfill Ponyo's dreams of becoming human.
Hama-chan goes to Okayama to look for Su-san when he goes missing a few days after freezing up during his inaugural speech as the company chairman.
Hama-chan meets a friendly US soldier on a trip to Nagasaki with Su-san. Su-san returns to Tokyo and is informed that Hama-chan has gone missing.
Hama-chan takes a vacation to go fishing in Akita despite warnings from Su-san as his company faces a restructuring process.
Half a Confession introduces itself as a thriller and abruptly changes gears, transforming into a tale of morality with deeper insights into its characters than we had anticipated. It begins when Soichiro Kaji (Terao), a retired detective, walks into police headquarters and confesses to the murder of his wife. We learn that the victim had prematurely developed Alzheimer's after the tragic death of their son, and in her suffering, had asked to die. The police chiefs would be far more content to take him at his word if it were not for a conspicuous hole in his story: 48-hour gap between the alleged murder and his confession. Fearing a public relations nightmare, they are eager to bury the incident and keep the press in the dark.
Mr. Takano, a company employee, announces plans to take an early retirement so he can return to his home town and spend his days fishing. Su-san and Hama-chan envy his decision, and Hama-chan conspires to visit Takano, even though he has no vacation time left.
Japanese film icon Ken Takakura, who has starred in over 100 films, stars in this elegiac look at war and remembrance. Hideji Yamaoka (Takakura) was a suicide pilot during the war who somehow survived Japan's surrender. After decades of working as a fisherman in Kumamoto, a provincial seaside city in southern Kyushu, Yamaoka remains reluctant to discuss his wartime experiences with anyone, much less an intrusive reporter looking for a feature story. Then a series of events shake Yamaoka to the core, forcing him to re-evaluate his past.
A railway stationmaster at a dying end-of-the-line village in Hokkaido is haunted by memories of his dead wife and daughter. When the railroad line is scheduled to be closed, he is offered a job at a hotel, but he is emotionally unable to part with his career as a railroader. His life takes a turn when he meets a young woman with an interest in trains who resembles his daughter
Su-san resigns after getting fed up with corporate life, but he finds himself back in familiar surroundings on his first assignment at a new job.
Hama-chan’s sales department gets a new supervisor, a hard-working taskmaster that’s the very opposite of carefree, irresponsible Hama-chan. The veteran employee decides to find his boss, a divorced father, a new wife. The supervisor loves a bar hostess “mama-san,” but is unable to confess his true feelings until Hama-chan comes to his rescue.
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.
An auto repairman's daughter questions him about what happened to her aunt during the war, but the father remains reticent. Finally the man opens up, and the girl is able to piece together her aunt's tragic story.
In his travels through Japan, Tora-san meets and falls in love with a female doctor, however he is afraid of committing to a relationship.
A suspense drama based on Baku Akae's original work and starring Shima Iwashita. It's the night of reunion for the first time in 15 years. Her sister's dream of reconciliation crumbles, and her sister tries to replay that particular "cruel night". Draws the love-hate conflict of sisters on the stage of a mountain cottage. One night at a mountain cottage, her sister saw the moment her sister seduced her husband, and the shock caused her to stillbirth...
During the winter in Toyama in 1962, Tatsuo Mizushima is fretting about his feelings for his classmate Eiko Tsujisawa while agonizing about his upcoming high school examinations. When he was little, he and Eiko had heard that in April of a year when the winter has been very harsh, any couple finding fireflies together needs to get married. However, his family's situation does not allow Tatsuo to continue his worrying about such things for very much longer.
Retired yakuza gangster Shuji (Ken Takakura) moves back from Osaka to a remote coastal village to start a new life as a fisherman with his family, his arrival from the city coinciding with that of the beautiful bar hostess Keiko (Yuko Tanaka, who provided the voice of Lady Eboshi in Princess Mononoke). Keiko's new bar, as its name Hotaru ('firefly') suggests is soon acting as a magnet for all the local fishermen, much to the chagrin of their wives. Not soon after the arrival of Keiko's roguish lover Yajima (Kitano), also an ex-mobster, the locals are drawn into a host of collective vices including gambling and all-night drinking sessions.
Oshin is a Japanese serialized morning television drama, which aired on broadcaster NHK from April 4, 1983 to March 31, 1984. The series follows the life of Shin Tanokura during the Meiji period up to the early 1980s. Shin was called "Oshin", which is an archaic Japanese cognomen. In total, 297 15-minute episodes aired. In Japan, the annual average audience share was 52.6%, with a peak rating of 62.9% for a single episode. As of today, Oshin aired in 59 countries, with subtitles ranging from English to Arabic. In 1984, the earlier episodes of the drama were made into an animated movie by Sanrio. The movie reused Sugako Hashida's scripts and Ayako Kobayashi, who played young Oshin, did the voice of Oshin.
A lavish retelling of the true story of the final voyage and ultimate destruction and sinking of the battleship Yamato, Japan's greatest flagship during the Second World War.
A young man who travels around the world with a camera in his hand finds the circus a fascinating subject. The huge tents and life-threatening acrobatics were filled with dreams, laughter, and excitement. From that moment on, his destiny changes. While living in the circus, the young man becomes fascinated by the art of performing, trains hard, and makes his debut on the big stage. He puts all of his youth into his quest to become a clown, the flower of the circus and the origin of laughter.
Kyoko met Tetsu during her trip to San Francisco. Soon they fell in love but getting married was not in his mind. They were to meet again back in Tokyo but Tetsu didn't turn up. She went to look for him in San Francisco but all she found was him with his new girlfriend. Kyoko went back to Tokyo and eventually married a big corporate CEO...
A blind traveling musician is abused and oppressed wherever she goes, even as the modern world imposes change around her.
Japanese youngsters enduring hard training in Recruit Camp and then going to Iwo Jima in the last days of World War II.
By turns tragic and transcendent, Akira Kurosawa’s film follows the daily lives of a group of people barely scraping by in a slum on the outskirts of Tokyo. Yet as desperate as their circumstances are, each of them—the homeless father and son envisioning their dream house; the young woman abused by her uncle; the boy who imagines himself a trolley conductor—finds reasons to carry on. The unforgettable Dodes’ka-den was made at a tumultuous moment in Kurosawa’s life. And all of his hopes, fears, and artistic passion are on fervent display in this, his gloriously shot first color film.
In a small town on the Kasumigaura coast in the early Showa period, the Masukawa clan from Tokyo is trying to take away the interests of the local Isetoku family. Setsuko, the adopted daughter of the Isetoku family, falls in love with Seijiro, a travelling raven she meets on a whim. However, Koide, a businessman connected to the Masukawa clan, wants Setsuko to become his mistress... Setsuko puts aside her love and her regrets and bets on the greatest female challenge of her life!
The love story between a traveling guest and a geisha who inadvertently becomes the leader of her father's yakuza clan, after his death.
Zensaku, middle-aged and deaf in one ear, learns that his son's fallen for the daughter of a war officer responsible for the maiming.
The rehabilitation of a delinquent on leaving reformatory. Her redemption comes through a boy in a wheelchair; by his rehabilitation, growing comes in courage along with her patient, she grows by finding meaning in her own existence. She finally sees a new world before her and has the determination to lead a normal life.
Japanese "kayo" film centered around the song "Namida ni naritai" by Teruhiko Saigo.
The brother of an up-and-coming kendoka is mysteriously murdered while working on a new model of motorboat.
Heartwarming story of an ambitious girl who becomes a concert pianist with the help of her musician father.
After her mother runs away from home, Tomoko is raised to be a geisha. One day Tomoko meets her mother in a red-light district in Tokyo and her life deeply gets in trouble.
It is 1922 and Fumiko is a high school student. Her family is poor but she loves to study literature. Her father, a peddler, does not return home and Fumiko finds herself in financial trouble, not being able to pay for her schooling and her school excursion trip. Still, she gets a temporary job at a factory and tries to make ends meet. A film about bright side of youth adapted from the television serial of the same name.
A suspense drama directed by Mitsuo Wakasugi. Students, gangsters and other young people who couldn't make money were gathering and negotiating at a coffee shop about this. They were told that if you kidnap a child from a rich family, search for him/her, their family would give you about 50,000 yen if you could send the child back.A woman named Motoko disappeared in the midst of evil, but no one noticed it. Shortly after, Kaneda and Chii appeared in a quiet residential area and took a girl about five years old from the Ohara family....
Jirô wanders the streets with friends committing petty crimes that gradually escalate.
Two young Japanese schoolboys, one skinny and poor, one fat and well-to-do, become unlikely friends.
When a married woman has an affair with a young musician, feudal Japanese law requires that both offenders pay with their lives. However, the woman's husband blames himself for his wife's straying and attempts to thwart the law demanding capital punishment.
The story of a novelist whose wife is confined in a mental hospital. His love for her drives him to write about her, though he runs into trouble when her parents accuse him of cashing in on her misfortune.
Across the Inagawa River that runs through the center of the village, the children of the two villages scrambled for a swimming pool, and each time a stone battle took place. Takemaru, the only son of the priesthood of Tada Shrine, was weak and was always forced to carry stones. However, neither swimming nor stone-throwing was a secret to his sick mother, Kouko... Seishi Matsumaru, Ryuichi Yoshida, and Ado Matsuyama were adapted from "Tenmangu" and "Ishigassen", directed by Mitsuo Wakasugi of "Waran Hayashi", and photographed by Hanjiro Nakazawa of "The Last Women".
Shows the devastation caused by the atomic bomb, and by use of a fictional storyline, portrays the struggle of the ordinary Japanese people in dealing with the aftermath.
