Keiko Awaji

Acting

Keiko Awaji

Born — Died

1933-07-17 — 2014-01-11

Place of birth

Tokyo, Japan

Known for

Acting

Credits

63 titles

Keiko Awaji (17 July 1933 – 11 January 2014) was a Japanese actress. Notable highlights of her career include Akira Kurosawa's Stray Dog and Mark Robson's The Bridges at Toko-Ri, where she appeared alongside William Holden and Mickey Rooney. Her first husband was Filipino musician and actor Rodrigo "Bimbo" Danao; they had two children together. Their eldest is actor Etsuo Shima. Her second husband was Japanese actor Kinnosuke Nakamura (also known as Kinnosuke Yorozuya); they divorced in 1987. Their eldest son Akihiro died in a car crash in 1990. In 2004, their youngest son Kichinosuke Yorozuya (Satoshi Ida) was arrested for breaking into her home and served six months in prison. On June 1…

Known for

Film credits

2010s · 3 titles

2000s · 4 titles

Inugami poster
5.2

Akira, a teacher from Tokyo, has just arrived in a small rural town to begin his new job. Soon after arriving, he meets, and begins to fall for, Miki, a papermaker and part of a large and unusual family. When he learns of an ancient legend that the family carries the curse of the Inugami, or Dog God, he brushes it off as silly superstition. After a series of mysterious deaths, however, the townspeople begin to grow restless, and Akira must confront the truth about Miki and her family.

Inugami

2001

Pretty Woman poster
8.0

Elderly ladies rise to the challenge of staging a play and struggle to launch a theater company. Based on the actual amateur theater company "Theatrical Company Hono" in Fujieda City, Shizuoka Prefecture, where the presiding officers and performers are composed of elderly women. They have been performing stage plays about issues related to the elderly for a long time.

Pretty Woman

2003

Married Executioner R: MISSION 1 - Bloody Mischief poster
NR

Reiko Akigawa has been married for three years, has a banker husband and a seemingly happy married life, but has a secret side: she is a state secret agent. One day, newlywed Kaori, who lives next door, commits suicide by jumping from her flat. Reiko sets out to investigate and discovers that boys have been attacking women every day as if it were a game. She also learns that Kahori was raped by these boys, and that they used the photos as material for repeated rapes. Reiko receives an order from the command centre to eliminate the boys and goes to their hideout by herself...

Married Executioner R: MISSION 1 - Bloody Mischief

2001

Veronika Decides to Die poster
6.2

Towa lives in a peculiar sanatorium after committing suicide. Convalescing in sanatorium, she is informed that she has only 7 days to live. Isolated within their worlds, strange people live in this sanatorium and try to avoid making any contact with her. However, Kuroda a man who lost his power of speech feels sympathetic towards her and their every lovable things give true colors to the life and inspire Towa’s honest desire for the life…

Veronika Decides to Die

2005

1990s · 2 titles

1960s · 23 titles

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs poster
8.0

Keiko, whom everyone calls Mama, narrates her story: she's a hostess on the Ginza, 30, a widow. She describes life's vicious cycle: acting cheerful around drunks, dressing and living well to convey confidence, needing money for these expenses and for her demanding mother and brother, and knowing she's growing older.

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs

1960

Chûshingura poster
7.1

After their lord is tricked into committing ritual suicide, forty-seven samurai warriors await the chance to avenge their master and reclaim their honor.

Chûshingura

1962

A Woman's Life poster
7.1

A woman remembers her own marriage when dealing with the love life of her son.

A Woman's Life

1963

The Age of Lawless Moneymaking poster
NR

Contemporary comedy.

The Age of Lawless Moneymaking

1961

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

Japan's No. 1 Playboy poster
9.0

The music teacher, who danced the twist at the graduation ceremony of the solemn female school, was fired but decided to try his luck in the cosmetics business, and became the best salesman anyone had ever seen. First film in popular "Number 1" Series.

Japan's No. 1 Playboy

1963

The Twilight Story poster
8.5

In this Japanese drama, a village girl goes to Tokyo and becomes a sex worker to support her ailing mother. While there she meets a teacher and falls in love.

The Twilight Story

1960

Go to Hell! Company Men poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Go to Hell! Company Men

1964

Raccoon Dog Leader poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Raccoon Dog Leader

1965

A Comedy in Front of the Station: Onsen poster
10.0

Fourth entry in the Ekimae series, focusing on the restoration of a Fukushima hot spring inn.

A Comedy in Front of the Station: Onsen

1962

Crazy Operation: Drop Dead! Irresponsibility poster
10.0

Seven employees rise up in rebellion against an irresponsible company.

Crazy Operation: Drop Dead! Irresponsibility

1963

The Curio Master poster
NR

A contemporary comedy.

The Curio Master

1960

The Wiser Age poster
7.2

Drama about the lives of the five daughters and daughter-in-law of a store owner.

The Wiser Age

1962

Daughters, Wives and a Mother poster
7.3

Sanae is left a widow after her prestigious husband dies, but holds the proceeds of a million yen insurance policy. Being childless, her former in-laws have no objection to her return to her own family.

Daughters, Wives and a Mother

1960

A Monk in the Big City of Edo poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

A Monk in the Big City of Edo

1965

Roppongi Nights: Love Me, Love Me poster
7.0

Director Iwauchi Katsuki adapted this melodrama from Sasazawa Saho's award winning novel about two young lovers from different sides of the tracks set against the backdrop of the Roppongi district in Tokyo. Masaaki (Minegishi Toru) is the son of a prominent judge and a Law student at university. Chikage (Nakagawa Yuki) is a teenager from an underprivileged home. Both are desperately looking for an escape from their lives when they meet in Roppongi one night and fall in love. But coming from such different backgrounds, their happiness isn't assured.

Roppongi Nights: Love Me, Love Me

1963

Flower and Dragon: Duel of the Sea Caves poster
10.0

The sequel of "Flower and Dragon". Kingoro Tamai founded a family in the port of Wakamatsu. He unites people with his courage, and revolts against the entrepreneur Oki Nakashi, who is teeming with vices. Kingoro and his family are also forced to fight against the Ezaki-Gumi group, which is opposed by Tomoda Kizo, who is trying to control the port of Wakamatsu.

Flower and Dragon: Duel of the Sea Caves

1966

The Flower and the Dragon poster
8.0

A story of manly life and the beauty of conjugal love. A story about a man and a woman establishing a family of longshoreman, centering on their love and struggle.

The Flower and the Dragon

1965

Illusion of Blood poster
6.4

The ghost of a samurai's wife takes revenge on her husband.

Illusion of Blood

1965

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

Youth Season Continued poster
7.0

The Second movie based on a popular TV show about Pintemps Cosmetics and their struggles to make new successful products, filled with singing, dancing, and laughter.

Youth Season Continued

1964

Finances in Front of the Train Station poster
NR

The 12th "Ekimae" feature.

Finances in Front of the Train Station

1965

New Marital Relations poster
NR

Sequel to the 1955 movie.

New Marital Relations

1963

1950s · 24 titles

The Bridges at Toko-Ri poster
6.0

A U.S. Navy pilot and his squad are assigned to bomb a group of heavily defended bridges deep behind enemy lines during the Korean War.

The Bridges at Toko-Ri

1954

Zenigata Heiji torimono hikae: Onibi tōrō poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Zenigata Heiji torimono hikae: Onibi tōrō

1958

A Japanese Tragedy poster
5.8

At the close of the war in Japan, a widowed mother makes every possible sacrifice to bring up her ungrateful son and daughter who are unimpressed with their poor standard of living at home. They gradually reject her in search of the material comforts that working as a maid cannot provide. The mother's despair becomes interminable.

A Japanese Tragedy

1953

Blackmail poster
NR

Story of a gangster (Mihashi), newly released from prison, who specializes in blackmail. His standing in the underworld declining, he makes the risky move of blackmailing a government official tied to the Japanese mob.

Blackmail

1958

Always in My Heart Part 2 poster
6.5

Machiko and Haruki’s drama continues. Two meet again in Hokkaido only to be separated again.

Always in My Heart Part 2

1953

Easy-Going Married Couple poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Easy-Going Married Couple

1956

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

Morishige, where are you going? poster
NR

A man who seemed to have found happiness with a wife and child loses his wife and his daughter gets married... A man's life, full of joy and sorrow, is vividly depicted to the tune of "Moonlit Desert" in this humanistic drama full of pathos, starring Hisaya Morishige.

Morishige, where are you going?

1956

Holiday in Tokyo poster
9.0

May Kawaguchi is a famous Japanese fashion designer. Returning to Tokyo from her home in New York, she travels incognito with a tour group, in hopes of having a quiet vacation without being noticed. But she is spotted and the press has a field-day with the returning celebrity. Her hopes of rest shattered, she agrees to put on a large-scale fashion show.

Holiday in Tokyo

1958

Temptation on Glamour Island poster
7.0

Comedy about three soldiers, two female reporters, six prostitutes, and the wife of an officer, all stranded on a South Seas island at the end of World War II.

Temptation on Glamour Island

1959

Downtown poster
7.7

A woman struggles to raise her young son on her own in postwar Japan, finding companionship with a kind laborer while still hoping for the return of her missing husband.

Downtown

1957

Gendai no yokubô poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Gendai no yokubô

1956

The Hotelman's Holiday poster
9.0

Based on the novel "Ekimae Ryokan" by Masuji Ibuse, a longtime hotel employee struggles to bring his old-fashioned ryokan in line with postwar Japanese business practices.

The Hotelman's Holiday

1958

Sisters poster
NR

Three beautiful daughters grew up in a dog and cat care clinic. The eldest was named Takako (Keiko Tsushima), the second was Tsugumi (Keiko Awaji), and the third was Mihato (Hibari Misora). Mihato was still a pretty seventeen-year-old girl, but she considered herself as mature as her older sisters. Mihato knows that Tsugumi is friends with Ippei Yaguchi (Masao Wakahara) and acts as a love messenger between them, but she didn't know that Takako is also in love with Ippei...

Sisters

1953

Kiss the Moon poster
NR

Based on the story "Actress and Poet" ("Joyu to shijin") by Minoru Nakano.

Kiss the Moon

1957

House of Many Pleasures poster
9.0

Yoshida Denkichi does loses sight of his wife Chiyoko and daughter Toyoko during the war, and is taken in by a familiar woman, Oshige, and becomes the owner of "Fujimura" in the town of Hato. Eiko is a timid woman who hates Terada, a watchmaker who is obsessed with her; Tamie is a hard worker who asks for money from customers to support her mother and daughter Teruko; Tane, who dreams of the day they can be together, gives money to her lover Takeda; Machiko, an apres girl, is selective about her customers in the name of romance. They are women working in the red light district at "Fujimura."

House of Many Pleasures

1955

Samurai Saga poster
6.9

Edmund Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac, transplanted to Japan. A poet-warrior with an oversized nose (matched only by his great heart) loves a lady. But she sees him only as a friend, so he helps another man to woo her by giving him the poetry of his own heart.

Samurai Saga

1959

Executive Chair poster
NR

In post-war Japan, The Second Drawer follows Funada, a devoted company man whose planned family trip is disrupted by the sudden death of his boss. Thrust into a delicate business negotiation and a chance encounter with a mysterious woman, he becomes entangled in a quiet storm of corporate intrigue, personal sacrifice, and emotional complexity. As relationships shift and secrets surface, Funada must navigate the fine line between duty and desire in a world where ambition and morality rarely

Executive Chair

1958

Black River poster
7.0

A love triangle develops between a benevolent student, his innocent girlfriend, and a cruel petty criminal, all as a point of diagnosis of a social disease that had Japan slowly succumbing to lawlessness during the post-War era.

Black River

1957

Forgotten Flower Petal: Conclusion poster
NR

1957 Japanese movie.

Forgotten Flower Petal: Conclusion

1957

The Mandarin Room poster
8.0

After running away from her mother, Ashiko works as a maid at an inn and changes her name, but she finds herself torn between her past and a new relationship with a lonely trader on the beach of Atami.

The Mandarin Room

1956

Three Generations of Company Presidents Part II poster
9.0

7th film in the President series and the first entry in color.

Three Generations of Company Presidents Part II

1959

Yajikita dōchū sugoroku poster
8.0

1958 Japanese movie

Yajikita dōchū sugoroku

1958

The Luckiest Dai poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

The Luckiest Dai

1957

Series credits