Takashi Shimura
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Takashi Shimura (志村 喬, Shimura Takashi, March 12, 1905 – February 11, 1982) was a Japanese actor who appeared in over 200 films between 1934 and 1981. He appeared in 21 of Akira Kurosawa's 30 films (more than any other actor),... Read full bio →
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Kagemusha
A criminal is taught to impersonate a dying warlord in order to protect his clan from appearing weak and vulnerable.
Otoko wa tsurai yo: Uwasa no Torajirô
After a chance encounter with Hiroshi's father on a bus, Tora decides to get serious and reflect on the mortality of man. His plans are derailed when a beautiful lady starts working at Toraya.
Shinkansen daibakuha
One of the Japanese Shinkansen, “Bullet Trains,” is threatened with a bomb that will explode automatically if the train slows below 80 km/h, unless a ransom is paid. Police race to find the bombers so the train crew can learn how to defuse the bomb.
Nosutoradamusu no daiyogen
A scientist fears that the prophecies of Nostradamus, including the end of all life on Earth, are coming true one after another.
Shin Zatôichi monogatari: Kasama no chimatsuri
Zatoichi, the famed blind swordsman, returns to his home village for the first time in many years. He is befriended by Omiyo, who had the same wet-nurse as Zatoichi. He also encounters a boyhood friend, Shinbei, who is now wealthy and appears not to remember Zatoichi.
Otoko wa tsurai yo: Torajiro koiuta
Taking a message from Hiroshi's father to heart, Torajiro attempts to give up his wandering ways.
Otoko wa tsurai yo
Tora-San, an itinerant peddler who is thrown out of his father's house twenty years before but reconnects with his aunt, uncle and sister Sakura. Tora wreaks some havoc in their lives, like getting drunk and silly at a marriage meeting.
Furin kazan
Kansuke Yamamoto is a samurai who dreams of a country united, peaceful from sea to sea. He enters the service of Takeda, the lord of Kai domain. He convinces Takeda to kill the lord of neighboring Suwa and take his wife as a concubine. He then convinces the widow, Princess Yu, to accept this arrangement and to bear Takeda a son.
Zatôichi hatashi-jô
Zatoichi runs afoul of some evil fugitives, working for a corrupt law official.
Botan-dôrô
On the night of the summer Obon festival, Hagiwara Shinzaburo meets a beautiful courtesan named Otsuyu. Not knowing she's a ghost, he becomes infatuated by her.
Nihon no ichiban nagai hi
Following the detonation of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese military and the government clash over the demand from the Allies for unconditional surrender. Minister of the Army Anami leads the military officers who propose to fight on, even to the death of every Japanese citizen.
Sugata Sanshiro
The story of Sanshiro Sugata, a young man who wants to learn the new art of judo. A wise teacher reveals to Sanshiro that judo is not merely a means of combat nor a demonstration of physical skill, but an art which reveals the artist to himself.
Samurai
Japan, 1860. The men of the Mito clan, victims of the Ansei purge, anxiously prowl around the Sakurada Gate of Edo Castle with the intention of assassinating Naosuke Ii of Hikone, tairō of the Tokugawa shogunate and responsible for their misfortune.
Furankenshutain tai chitei kaijû Baragon
This Film was banned in 1995 for Political Reasons
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.
San daikaijû: Chikyû saidai no kessen
A massive meteor falls to Earth, and from it emerges the three-headed King Ghidrah, who must defeat the combined forces of Godzilla, Rodan, and Mothra.
Kaidan
A classic collection of four Japanese Horror stories. Features "Black Hair", "The Woman in the Snow", "Hoichi the Earless" and "In a Cup of Tea"
Tengoku to jigoku
An executive on the outs with his company gets in deeper when he pays off kidnappers who have abducted the wrong boy.
Yôsei Gorasu
In 1976, a drifting star named Gorath is discovered to be on a collision course with Earth. Although it is smaller than Earth, its enormous mass is enough to destroy the planet totally. A mission sent to observe Gorath is destroyed after the ship is drawn into the star, with a later mission barely escaping the same fate.
Tsubaki Sanjûrô
A crafty samurai helps a young man and his fellow clansmen save his uncle, who has been framed and imprisoned by a corrupt superintendent.
Kujira gami
A fishing village is terrorized by a giant whale, and the fishermen are determined to kill it.
Chûshingura
After their lord is tricked into committing ritual suicide, forty-seven samurai warriors await the chance to avenge their master and reclaim their honor.
Yôjinbô
A crafty ronin comes to a town divided by two criminal gangs and decides to play them against each other to free the town.
Mosura
Classic 60's Japanese Monster Movie. Shipwreck survivors are found on Beiru, an island previously used for atomic tests. Amazingly free of radiation
Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru
A young executive hunts down his father’s killer. Continuing his legendary collaboration with actor Toshiro Mifune, Kurosawa combines elements of Hamlet and American film noir to chilling effect in exposing the corrupt boardrooms of postwar corporate Japan.
Gigantis: The Fire Monster
A prehistoric monster called Gigantis emerges alongside another creature named Angurus.
Kakushi-toride no san-akunin
Lured by gold, two greedy peasants escort a man and woman across enemy lines. However, they do not realize that their companions are actually a princess and her general.
Kumonosu-jô
Mikio and Washizu are the commanders of the 1st and 2nd Fortress under a local lord, who reigns in the Spiders' Web Castle. After defeating the lord's enemies in battle, they visit the fortress. Washizu, driven by his wife, conspires and murders the lord, becoming lord of the castle. But his evil deeds come back to haunt him.
Chikyû Bôeigun
Scientifically advanced wanderers from the destroyed planet Mysteroid request a patch of land on Earth and the right to marry earthling women. After a demonstration of their destructive abilities from the help of their giant robot Moguera, mankind must decide whether to capitulate or to resist.
Miyamoto Musashi kanketsuhen: kettô Ganryûjima
Musashi Miyamoto is challenged to a duel by a confident swordsman Sasaki Kojiro. He agrees to fight him in a year's time.
Godzilla, King of the Monsters!
A 400-foot (122-meter) dinosaur-like beast, awoken from undersea hibernation off the Japanese coast by atomic-bomb testing, attacks Tokyo. This is the edited American release of "Gojira".
Ikimono no kiroku
Kiichi Nakajima (Toshirō Mifune), an elderly foundry owner convinced that Japan will be affected by an imminent nuclear war, resolves to move his family to safety in Brazil. His family decides to have him ruled incompetent and Dr. Harada (Takashi Shimura), a Domestic Court counselor, attempts to arbitrate.
Gojira no gyakushû
Two pilots race back to Japan to inform the government of two giant monsters locked in battle. Soon the world comes to the realization, that a monster closely related to the original Godzilla is on the loose as well as a new monster named Angilas. Soon, the two monsters arrive in Osaka where they resume their battle.
Shichinin no samurai
Seven Samurai is the masterpiece from Akira Kurosawa from 1954 in which a town hires an old samurai to protect their village. A mix of action, comedy, and social drama. This epic film is an intimate look into the powerful emotions of the characters and named the greatest film in Japanese cinema history.
Ikiru
Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.
Hakuchi
Kameda, who has been in an asylum on Okinawa, travels to Hokkaido. There he becomes involved with two women, Taeko and Ayako. Taeko comes to love Kameda, but is loved in turn by Akama. When Akama realizes that he will never have Taeko, his thoughts turn to murder, and great tragedy ensues.
Shûbun
Akira Kurosawa directed this drama about a paparazzi photo that a tabloid magazine spins into a scandalous story and soon sparks a court case.
Rashômon
In ancient Japan a crime take place as told from three different travelers who have experienced the crime: a man being killed and his wife being raped. Which if any of the stories is true? A Akira Kurosawa film about morals, truth, and communication.
Shizukanaru kettô
A young army surgeon, Kyoji Fujisaki, accidentally contracts syphilis during a WWII field operation. Back at his father’s clinic, he treats himself in secret and breaks off his engagement rather than risk his fiancée’s future, even as he confronts the irresponsible patient who infected him—testing his ethics, pride, and capacity for sacrifice.
Nora inu
In Akira Kurosawa's gritty Stray Dog, a young police detective gets his pistol stolen on a crowded bus during the oppressive heat of a late 1940s Tokyo summer. The gun is later used in a robbery and murder making finding it even more important.
Yoidore Tenshi
An alcoholic doctor builds a shaky friendship with a dying gangster
Haru no mezame
Slice of life film centered on a couple of years in the life of a rural high school girl.
Waga seishun ni kuinashi
After her anti-fascist professor father is dismissed, Yukie navigates love, political repression, and wartime upheaval—ultimately forging her own path in pre- and post-WWII Japan.
Tora no o wo fumu otokotachi
Yoshitsune Minamoto, disguised with his retinue as monks, must make do with a comical porter as their guide through hostile territory en route to safety.
Ichiban utsukushiku
The stories of several young women who work in a 'precision optical instruments' factory during the second World War. Despite illness, injury, and tremendous personal hardship, the women persevere in their tasks, devoted to their work and their country's cause.
Sugata Sanshirô
The story of Sanshiro, a strong stubborn youth, who travels into the city in order to learn Jujutsu. However, upon his arrival he discovers a new form of self-defence: Judo. The main character is based on Shiro Saigo, a legendary judoka.
Oshidori utagassen
An umbrella maker with a shopping addiction finds himself in dire straits when his debts force him to consider selling his attractive, desirable daughter to a suitor she doesn't love.
Naniwa erejî
A young woman becomes a mistress of her boss in order to support her family.
Akanishi Kakita
A samurai is ordered by his lord to go to Edo and investigate the truth behind the rumor of a rebellion against him.