Ayako Wakao
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Ayako Wakao (若尾 文子, Wakao Ayako, November 8, 1933 in Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese actress who was one of the country's biggest stars of the 20th century. Wakao began her career contracted to Daiei Studios in 1951 as part of the fifth... Read full bio →
Featured Characters
Roles you can spot in Whatthemovie snapshots
Irezumi
1966
Otoko wa tsurai yo: Junjô hen
Torajiro becomes homesick during his travels after watching a television report about his hometown and meeting a young woman that reminds him of his sister Sakura. Meanwhile, a new tenant moves into Toraya restaurant.
Zatôichi to Yôjinbô
Zatoichi treks to a village that has always been a favorite spot of his, only to discover that it’s become a living hell, plagued by feuding father and son yakuza as well as the younger crime boss’s bodyguard, scruffy, smart-mouthed, cash-hungry Yojimbo of legend.
Tengu-tô
Sentaro is been severely beaten for his defiance of the government and the high taxes during a time of famine. He is befriended by Kada Gentaro, a leader in the Mito Tengu group, which plans to overthrow the shogunate.
Hanaoka Seishû no tsuma
The disturbing story of a physician who conducted the first operation with general anaesthetic, and the women in his life who are both so determined to win his love that they volunteer as subjects for his experiments
Irezumi
Otsuya, the daughter of a rich merchant, elopes with her lover Shinsuke, an employee of her father's. During their flight, Otsuya's beauty attracts the gaze of Seikichi, a mysterious master tattooist who sees her pristine white skin as the perfect canvas for his art.
Akai tenshi
During the Sino-Japanese War, a young army nurse gives sympathy to her patients and falls in love with an impotent doctor who's addicted to morphine.
Seisaku no tsuma
On the eve of the Russo-Japanese war at the beginning of the 20th century, small-town girl Okane has married an old wealthy man to escape a life of poverty.
Shinobi no mono: Kirigakure Saizo
Tokugawa Ieyasu is the ruler of all Japan. But one last loose thread must be tied up before his domination is complete -- the destruction of the Toyotomi clan, now beseiged in Osaka castle.
Yukinojô henge
While performing in a touring kabuki troupe, leading female impersonator Yukinojo comes across the three men who drove his parents to suicide twenty years earlier, and plans his revenge, firstly by seducing the daughter of one of them, secondly by ruining them...
Watashi o fukaku umete
A suspense directed by Umetsugu Inoue, starring Ayako Wakao, depicting the intense lust created by the passion of a writhing woman.
Shin shinobi no mono
[Period covered: 1595-1600] We last saw ninja Ishikawa Goemon, as he was about to be boiled alive. But a good ninja is both hard to find, and even harder to kill. With the help of the enigmatic Hattori Hanzo, Goemon lives to skulk another day, and sets his sights on bringing down the warlord who tried to turn him into soup – Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
Shitoyakana kedamono
A greedy, materialistic family attempts to cover-up the embezzlement committed by the son while keeping their other schemes active. They discover there are other, equally conniving players involved.
Gan no tera
Satoko is a mistress by trade or fate: when her master, the silkscreen artist of the Kohoan Temple in Kyoto, dies, she is given to the temple's lascivious head priest Kikuchi. She is drawn to a melancholy young acolyte, Jinen, who has observed the profligacy of his cruel master and Satoko's utter dependence on the man.
Tsuma wa kokuhaku suru
Tied to a mountain between her brutalizing spouse and her secret lover, disaster strikes; the authorities accuse her of murder and prompt a confession.
Onna wa nido umareru
A young girl is rigorously trained in the feminine arts so that she can become a geisha. As she struggles through life, she learns to live not just as a woman but as a complete person.
Nise daigakusei
A youth drama set in a Japanese university which is home to a group of active, leftist students.
Ukikusa
A theater troupe master's visit with his old flame unintentionally sets off a chain of unexpected events with devastating consequences.
Saikô shukun fujin
In the forties in Japan, a group of brilliantly qualified university students are selected to break all ties with their previous lives and form the Japanese spy service.
Aozora musume
Yuko is sent to the coastal regions to be raised away from the rest of her sophisticated family where she finds out from her ill grandmother that she is not who she thought she was.
Akasen chitai
Follows five sex workers employed at a Japanese brothel while the nation debates the passage of an anti-prostitution law.
Gion bayashi
Fleeing a distressing family situation, Eiko, a very young girl, becomes an apprentice to Miyoharu, a veteran geisha. Both, determined to preserve their professional integrity, must face the selfishness and ambition of several petty people.