Kenzō Tabu

Acting

Kenzō Tabu

Known for

Acting

Credits

60 titles

Known for

King Kong vs. Godzilla poster
6.9

The advertising director of Pacific Pharmaceuticals, frustrated with the low ratings of their sponsored TV program, seeks a more sensationalist approach. He orders his staff to Faro Island to capture King Kong for exploitation. As Godzilla re-emerges, a media frenzy generates with Pacific looking to capitalize off of the ultimate battle.

King Kong vs. Godzilla

1962

Invasion of Astro-Monster poster
6.8

Astronauts Glenn and Fuji investigate Planet X and encounter mysterious aliens known as the Xiliens, who ask Earth's people to help save their world from "Monster Zero". In exchange for borrowing Godzilla and Rodan, the Xiliens offer a cure for cancer. As Glenn investigates, he develops a romance with Miss Namikawa and uncovers the Xilien's true intentions.

Invasion of Astro-Monster

1965

Mothra vs. Godzilla poster
7.0

Journalists Ichiro Sakai and Junko cover the wreckage of a typhoon when an enormous egg is found and claimed by greedy entrepreneurs. Mothra's fairies arrive and are aided by the journalists in a plea for its return. As their requests are denied, Godzilla arises near Nagoya and the people of Infant Island must decide if they are willing to answer Japan's own pleas for help.

Mothra vs. Godzilla

1964

King Kong vs. Godzilla poster
6.6

When an underhanded pharmaceutical company goes to a remote tropical island to steal King Kong for advertising purposes, they get more than they bargained for when the gigantic ape attacks an unsuspecting village and an enormous octopus.

King Kong vs. Godzilla

1963

Frankenstein Conquers the World poster
6.7

During WWII, Germans obtain the immortal heart of Frankenstein's monster and transport it to Japan to prevent it being seized by the Allies. Kept in a Hiroshima laboratory, it is seeming lost when the United States destroys the city with the atomic bomb. Years later a wild boy is discovered wandering the streets of the city alone, born of the immortal heart.

Frankenstein Conquers the World

1965

A Taxing Woman's Return poster
6.4

Ryōko Itakura returns as the tough-as-nails government taxing agent. This time she must figure out a way to expose a fanatical religious cult lead by a corrupt sociopath.

A Taxing Woman's Return

1988

Film credits

1980s · 3 titles

1970s · 10 titles

Zatoichi Goes to the Fire Festival poster
6.8

The blind masseuse is targeted by the leader of a powerful yakuza group while also fending off a jealous husband bent on revenge. Zatoichi tours Edo's underground via a rousing onsen fight scene, gambling houses and the gender-bending character of Umeji, before a final, flame-filled conflagration.

Zatoichi Goes to the Fire Festival

1970

Games poster
6.5

A 16-year-old girl works in a factory to pay her late father’s debt. When she makes up her mind to become a hostess, a boy approaches her with kind and gentle manners...(Also occasionally known in English as “Play”)

Games

1971

Aoi sanmyaku poster
NR

Remake of 1949 film

Aoi sanmyaku

1975

The Secret Ceremony poster
8.0

Erotic drama.

The Secret Ceremony

1971

Rikugun rakugo-hei poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Rikugun rakugo-hei

1971

Live and Learn poster
8.0

Tetsuko (Eiko Yanami), a high school student, one day, forces Tsuneo, (Kei Wakakura), the brightest boy in her school, to make love to her after school is out and they are caught by the old school janitor. Tsuneo's mother, orders Tetsuko to pay for what she did to her son but Tetsuko blackmails her instead, saying that she is ready to inform a news company of what has happened to Tsuneo and receives one million yen hush money. Expelled from school, she comes to Tokyo, intending to take a round-the-world trip. But Sankichi (Yoshihiko Aoyama), a jack-of-all-trades, cheats her. So, she makes up her mind to catch him and get back her money.

Live and Learn

1971

Akumyo: Notorious Dragon poster
7.0

About small-time gangster Asakichi's chaotic life in the 1930s. His gambling addiction means that he must not continue working in the family business. Instead he supports himself by arranging cockfights. He becomes ex-geisha Okinu's patron and lover, and falls directly into disfavor with the yakuza.

Akumyo: Notorious Dragon

1974

The Gift of the Fox poster
7.0

No synopsis available yet.

The Gift of the Fox

1971

Japan's No. 1 Shocked Man poster
10.0

The last (10th) Toho "Crazy film" in the Nippon Ichi series.

Japan's No. 1 Shocked Man

1971

My Voiceless Friends poster
9.0

A man who survived the war carries the will of his comrades in arms, walking across the country visiting the bereaved families.

My Voiceless Friends

1972

1960s · 38 titles

King Kong vs. Godzilla poster
6.9

The advertising director of Pacific Pharmaceuticals, frustrated with the low ratings of their sponsored TV program, seeks a more sensationalist approach. He orders his staff to Faro Island to capture King Kong for exploitation. As Godzilla re-emerges, a media frenzy generates with Pacific looking to capitalize off of the ultimate battle.

King Kong vs. Godzilla

1962

Invasion of Astro-Monster poster
6.8

Astronauts Glenn and Fuji investigate Planet X and encounter mysterious aliens known as the Xiliens, who ask Earth's people to help save their world from "Monster Zero". In exchange for borrowing Godzilla and Rodan, the Xiliens offer a cure for cancer. As Glenn investigates, he develops a romance with Miss Namikawa and uncovers the Xilien's true intentions.

Invasion of Astro-Monster

1965

Mothra vs. Godzilla poster
7.0

Journalists Ichiro Sakai and Junko cover the wreckage of a typhoon when an enormous egg is found and claimed by greedy entrepreneurs. Mothra's fairies arrive and are aided by the journalists in a plea for its return. As their requests are denied, Godzilla arises near Nagoya and the people of Infant Island must decide if they are willing to answer Japan's own pleas for help.

Mothra vs. Godzilla

1964

King Kong vs. Godzilla poster
6.6

When an underhanded pharmaceutical company goes to a remote tropical island to steal King Kong for advertising purposes, they get more than they bargained for when the gigantic ape attacks an unsuspecting village and an enormous octopus.

King Kong vs. Godzilla

1963

Frankenstein Conquers the World poster
6.7

During WWII, Germans obtain the immortal heart of Frankenstein's monster and transport it to Japan to prevent it being seized by the Allies. Kept in a Hiroshima laboratory, it is seeming lost when the United States destroys the city with the atomic bomb. Years later a wild boy is discovered wandering the streets of the city alone, born of the immortal heart.

Frankenstein Conquers the World

1965

Zatoichi Challenged poster
7.0

Ichi is staying at an inn when a woman dies. Her dying wish is that Ichi take her son to his father, an artist living in a nearby town. After arriving in the town, Ichi finds out that the father has been forced by a local boss to create illegal pornography to pay off his gambling debts. Ichi makes it his mission to save the man and reunite the family, even though it brings him into conflict with a samurai he sort of befriended on his way to the town.

Zatoichi Challenged

1967

The Wife of Seishu Hanaoka poster
6.6

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

The Wife of Seishu Hanaoka

1967

Beast Alley poster
7.0

Desperate to escape her grueling life caring for her paralyzed husband, Tamiko murders him and burns down their home to start anew. She is soon entangled in the dark web of an influential, elderly power broker, becoming his mistress and a pawn in his political schemes. As she descends further into a downward spiral of moral decay, Tamiko realizes that the freedom she sought is merely a new form of entrapment.

Beast Alley

1965

A Trap poster
7.1

When her only relative, her elder brother is accused of robbing and murdering an old woman loan-shark, pretty, young Kiriko travels from her home in Kyushu to Tokyo to get Japan's top lawyer to defend her brother. Unfortunately her naive idealism is shattered when the lawyer refuses to take the case based on her insufficient funds. What follows is a long determined revenge plot that sees the heroine become a Tokyo bar hostess and worse to punish the lawyer. The plot thickens with another murder mystery and a sleuthing reporter.

A Trap

1965

Oshichi's Vegetable Store: The No.1 Girl at the Edo Festival poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Oshichi's Vegetable Store: The No.1 Girl at the Edo Festival

1960

Fifty-Fifty poster
10.0

The final film by Yuzo Kawashima.

Fifty-Fifty

1963

Crazy Operation: First Move poster
10.0

After being fired from his company, Hitoshi Ueda opens a arbitration company. Experts from various fields gather around him and with their natural vitality, they solve one dispute after another. But as it turns out, their next dispute will be at a global scale.

Crazy Operation: First Move

1963

Local Reporter poster
10.0

No synopsis available yet.

Local Reporter

1962

Apple Blossom Town poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Apple Blossom Town

1963

Get 'em All poster
7.0

Gang of robbers quarrel about the loot, but when one of them gets killed, his younger brother seeks them out to ice them one by one.

Get 'em All

1960

I'm a Bodyguard poster
8.0

Kita Ippei (Atsumi Kiyoshi) became a security officer in the Metropolitan Police Department's Security Division after catching a thug who attacked a writer living in the area while working at a police box. His dream is to become a bodyguard (BG) for the Prime Minister, just like his senior, Detective Inspector Takagi (Ryu Chishu). Kita Ippei is very successful in both work and love, getting attacked while guarding a female minister, getting some perks as a BG for a foreign princess, and becoming friends with a woman at his favorite bar.

I'm a Bodyguard

1964

Black Comedy - Ah, Fool poster
8.0

A timid salaryman is the subject of this black comedy.

Black Comedy - Ah, Fool

1969

Romance Express poster
7.0

Comedy of manners set on the "Kodama" train between Tokyo and Osaka, before the opening of the Shinkansen. In the leading role, Frankie Sakai plays a straightforward but indecisive hero. The passengers also include the bubbly Dan Reiko, and Ozawa Eitaro as a dour company president. Based on the novel "Seven and a half hours", by Shishi Bunroku.

Romance Express

1961

This Greedy Old Skin poster
10.0

A kind of modern dress "Donzoko" "The Lower Depths", about slum life in Osaka, where a greedy widow (Mimasu) takes advantage of her poor roomers, including her own son, who makes a meagre living stripping taxicabs.

This Greedy Old Skin

1960

Awamori-kun kanpai! poster
NR

Second of the three Awamori-kun movies.

Awamori-kun kanpai!

1961

The Blue Beast poster
8.0

The ruthless and ambitious Yasuhiko uses his charm to manipulate and exploit those around him to climb the corporate social ladder. His cold-blooded ascent eventually leads to moral decay as his past actions begin to catch up with him.

The Blue Beast

1960

Eternity of Love poster
8.0

A Hiromichi Horikawa movie

Eternity of Love

1961

No artwork available
9.0

Story of a resourceful hobo (Kobayashi), a con woman (Takamine) who pretends to be a victim of the Nagasaki A-bomb, and two orphaned children who become a most atypical Japanese family.

My Hobo

1962

New Third Class Executive: Travel, Women and Drinking poster
8.0

A struggling salesman at World Electric finds his major deal blocked by internal politics and pressure from all sides. During a company trip to Beppu, personal entanglements and old company secrets surface, forcing difficult choices and quiet compromises.

New Third Class Executive: Travel, Women and Drinking

1960

The Million Dollar Pursuit poster
7.3

Burned out butcher Hazama meets a woman at a restaurant and is asked to help her deliver a bag of diamonds.

The Million Dollar Pursuit

1968

An Innocent Witch poster
7.2

Ayako, a young woman from a rural fishing village, is sold by her family into a brothel when her father takes ill. There, she is quickly stripped of her innocence and illusions.

An Innocent Witch

1965

Irresponsible Age of Japan poster
9.0

An irresponsible salaryman works his way to the top of the corporate ladder.

Irresponsible Age of Japan

1962

Nami kage poster
8.0

Ayako Wakao won the Blue Ribbon and the Kinema Jumpo for this film.

Nami kage

1965

Mexican Free-for-All poster
10.0

The eleventh film in the comedy series starring Japan's leading comedy group, the Crazy Cats. Susumu Sakamori and his friends travel to Mexico to find a stone statue that contains the location of the secret treasure "Olmeca".

Mexican Free-for-All

1968

Crazy Big Explosion poster
7.0

Chaos ensues when a secret agent gathers a group of criminals (The Crazy Cats) to steal gold from a bank.

Crazy Big Explosion

1969

School for Thieves poster
7.0

No synopsis available yet.

School for Thieves

1968

The Sandal Keeper poster
8.0

Toyotomi Hideyoshi (Hitoshi Ueki) starts out as Nobunaga's "Sandal Keeper" but climbs the ranks to eventually become a trusted general.

The Sandal Keeper

1964

Dynamite Doctor Returns poster
NR

Second movie in the yoidore hakase serie

Dynamite Doctor Returns

1966

Dynamite Doctor poster
NR

Film by director Kenji Misumi

Dynamite Doctor

1966

Salaryman Idea Book: Man of Worrisome Episodes poster
NR

A university graduate determined to become a fishmonger defies his mother's wishes, tangles with bar hostesses and a beer company heiress, and—after misunderstandings, brawls, and a second chance—discovers that maybe the salaryman life isn’t so bad after all.

Salaryman Idea Book: Man of Worrisome Episodes

1960

Gamblers' Luck poster
7.2

A group of ne'er-do-wells live happily in the slums of what is now Tokyo and have a number of adventures: they get drunk and go whoring, revenge themselves on cruel landlords, animate the corpse of a money-lender in order to frighten people. Then they assist at the marriage of a lovely girl and almost kill themselves gambling to provide her with a dowry.

Gamblers' Luck

1966

Ginza Tomboy poster
NR

A rebellious heiress clashes with gangsters, dodges an arranged marriage, and unexpectedly falls for a principled lawyer as her father confronts past corruption and starts anew.

Ginza Tomboy

1960

Monstrous! Who Am I?! poster
NR

Comedy starring the Crazy Cats' Kei Tani as a salaryman suffering from amnesia.

Monstrous! Who Am I?!

1969

1950s · 9 titles

Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple poster
7.2

After years on the road establishing his reputation as Japan's greatest fencer, Takezo returns to Kyoto. Otsu waits for him, yet he has come not for her but to challenge the leader of the region's finest school of fencing. To prove his valor and skill, he walks deliberately into ambushes set up by the school's followers.

Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple

1955

The Beast Shall Die poster
6.2

A promising post-graduate literature student is transformed into a psychotic killer following the suicide of his father and a sleazy affair by his mother with a younger man.

The Beast Shall Die

1959

The Surprising Legend of Jirocho: Jirocho's Family Feud poster
NR

The third of four "The Surprising Legend of Jirocho" films.

The Surprising Legend of Jirocho: Jirocho's Family Feud

1957

Fancy Talker poster
NR

Comedy about a car salesman delivering a late model station wagon from Tokyo to Izumo to a representative of the Japanese Diet, who plans to use the car in a bribe.

Fancy Talker

1958

Love is Different and Delicious poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Love is Different and Delicious

1958

Saga of the Vagabonds poster
6.8

Lord Taro must deliver a money chest but is robbed by brigands led by Jibu. One of Jibu's men, Rokuro, steals the money from Jibu, but after meeting and befriending Taro, Rokuro decides to return the money to Taro. But Taro's unscrupulous brother Jiro falsely accuse Taro of the theft, and Taro reactively joins the outlaw band and encourages them to steal from the nobles and give to the poor.

Saga of the Vagabonds

1959

I Am Three People poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

I Am Three People

1958

The Doom of Night poster
NR

Story of an ex-sailor, caught up in a murder mystery involving gold dust buried in Manchuria, while romancing a woman whose father may be the center of the intrigue.

The Doom of Night

1959

Dotanba poster
6.0

Based on a 1956 television feature on Japan’s national network, NHK, this is one of Uchida’s rarest films. A socially conscious drama with a contemporary backdrop, Dotanba focuses on the attempts to rescue a group of trapped miners. The title is a figure of speech — (essentially “last minute” or “eleventh hour”) — that refers to a situation of peril. The film boasts a script co-written by Uchida and Akira Kurosawa’s frequent screenwriter, Shinobu Hashimoto, and stars Kurosawa’s frequent star Takashi Shimura.

Dotanba

1956