Kinuyo Tanaka
Kinuyo Tanaka (田中 絹代 Tanaka Kinuyo, 29 November 1909 – 21 March 1977) was a Japanese actress and director. Tanaka was born in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan. She became a leading actress at seventeen years old, appearing in Heinosuke Gosho's An Embarrassing Dream in... Read full bio →
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Sandakan hachibanshokan bohkyo
A young journalist interviews an elderly woman about being forced into prostitution in Borneo at a brothel called Sandakan No. 8.
Otoko wa tsurai yo: Torajiro yumemakura
When Tora-san returns to visit his family, he is surprised to find an arrogant professor occupying his room. The professor and Tora-san become rivals for the affection of Chiyo.
Akahige
Set in feudal times, novice physician, Yuzo Kayama, is sent to a poor infirmary expecting just to visit, but is infuriated to learn he must stay. He tries to provoke his termination, but is foiled by head doctor "Red Beard" (Toshiro Mifune), a man whose methods are as caring as they are unpredictable.
Taiheiyô hitoribocchi
Kenichi Horie is determined to challenge his family, the law and the nature crossing the Pacific to America in a small sailboat. Despite his careful planning many unforeseen events will test his determination.
Shitô no densetsu
A Tokyo family escaping the war relocates to a Hokkaido village; their daughter is set to marry the local leader's son, but her siblings disapprove.
Hôrô-ki
Based on the life and career of novelist Fumiko Hayashi, she bitterly struggles for literary recognition in the first half of the 20th-century – her affairs with feckless men, the jobs she took to survive (peddler, waitress, bar maid), and her arduous, often humiliating attempts to get published in a male-dominated culture.
Otouto
Set in 1926 when Japanese tradition was much stronger, this standard drama looks at the inner workings of a small family, especially the relationship between a sister and brother.
Narayama bushikô
A kabuki theatre-inflected story about a poor village whose people have to be carried to a nearby mountain to die once they get old.
Higanbana
Later in his career, Ozu started becoming increasingly sympathetic with the younger generation, a shift that was cemented in Equinox Flower, his gorgeously detailed first color film, about an old-fashioned father and his newfangled daughter.
Nagareru
Otsuta is running the geisha house Tsuta in Tokyo. Her business is heavily in debt. Her daughter Katsuyo doesn't see any future in her mothers trade in the late days of Geisha. But Otsuta will not give up. This film portraits the day time life of geisha when not entertaining customers.
Tsuki wa noborinu
Mokichi Asai is a widowed father living in Nara with three daughters—Chizuru, Ayako, and Setsuko. The youngest, Setsuko, plays matchmaker for her older sisters, leading to humorous and awkward romantic entanglements.
Chibusa yo eien nare
Fumiko, mother of two and wife to an unfaithful man, shares her family life with her budding vocation as a poet. The beginning of her successful literary career coincides with her divorce and her breast cancer diagnosis. In her final stages, Fumiko meets a young journalist from Tokyo who wants to write a story on her experiences.
Uwasa no onna
Yukiko's mother runs a lodging house for courtesans in Kyoto. When her fiance learns this, he ends their engagement. Yukiko despises what her mother does until one of her mother's clients shows interest in her and starts to woo her.
Sanshô dayû
In 11th-century feudal Japan, following the exile of an idealistic governor, his wife and children are separated by slave traders; the children, Zushio and Anju, are sold into brutal servitude under the cruel bailiff Sansho.
Ugetsu monogatari
In the civil wars of 16th century Japan, two ambitious peasants want to make their fortunes. The potter Genjuro intends to sell his wares for vast profits in the local city, while his brother-in-law Tobei wishes to become a samurai.
Koibumi
A sad and troubled man finds a new job five years after the end of WWII, where he writes love letters for other people.
Entotsu no mieru basho
Where Chimneys Are Seen focuses primarily on the interconnected lives of two couples in a lower-middle-class neighborhood in Senju, a poor industrial section of Tokyo.
Okaasan
A teenaged girl witnesses her widowed mother's attempt to sustain her family.
Oyû-sama
Shinnosuke is introduced to Shizu as a prospective marriage partner, but he falls in love with her widowed sister Oyu. Convention forbids Oyu to marry because she has to raise her son as the head of her husband's family. Oyu convinces Shinnosuke and Shizu to marry so that she can remain close to Shinnosuke.
Waga koi wa moenu
In 1880s Japan, women's struggle for equality rages on. Eiko Hirayama leaves Okayama for Tokyo, where she helps the fledgling Liberal Party and falls in love with its leader Kentaro Omoi, just as the party is being disbanded by the government.
Yoru no onnatachi
Fusako Owada, a young woman in postwar Japan, is the mistress of a notorious drug dealer. Fusako's tenuous grasp on meaningful life is shaken when she learns that her lover is having an affair with her sister.
Kaze no naka no mendori
Tokiko patiently awaits her husband's return from WWII when her four-year old son falls ill. She takes him to the doctor but has no means of paying, so she resorts to prostitution. A month later, her husband returns to find his desperate wife, who tells him the truth. Together, they must deal with the consequences.
Joyû Sumako no koi
The stage director Shimamura, who is bringing western theatre to Japan, falls in love with the outspoken actress Sumako Matsui, and leaves his family to be with her, while trying to keep his Art Theatre solvent.
Utamaro o meguru gonin no onna
Utamaro, a great artist, lives to create portraits of beautiful women, and the brothels of Tokyo provide his models. A world of passion swirls around him, as the women in his life vie for lovers. And, occasionally, his art gets him into trouble. (imdb)
Rikugun
Though plagued by ill health all his life, a young Japanese man is obligated to fulfill his family's longstanding military tradition.
Kanzashi
A Japanese mountain inn patron's foot is cut by an ornamental hairpin accidentally left behind by a former patron, leading to much curiosity among the other patrons regarding her identity.
Tôkyô no onna
Ryoichi and Chikako, brother and sister, live together. Chikako toils during the day and, at night, prostitutes herself to fund his college tuition.
Hijosen no onna
A gangster tries to find redemption with the inadvertent help of an innocent shop girl and his jealous girlfriend will do anything to keep him.
Seishun no yume ima izuko
Ozu’s long-term collaborator Kogo Noda scripts a subtle shift from light to dark as Hirano’s carefree college life is marred by tragedy.
Madamu to nyôbô
A playwright moves to a rural neighborhood to avoid the distractions of the city, but he discovers there are plenty of ways to get sidetracked in his new home, too.
Rakudai wa shitakeredo
After the plans of a group of college students to cheat on their final exams goes awry, they're left to reassess their lives and educations and get back on track.