Zenpei Saga

Intrepid tax investigator Ryoko Itakura sets her sights on the mysterious and philandering Hideki Gondo, a suspected millionaire and proprietor of a thriving chain of seedy hourly hotels, who has for years succeeded at hiding the true extent of his assets from the Japanese authorities. Itakura and Gondo soon find themselves engaged in a complicated, satirical battle of wits.

Renowned detective Kosuke Kindaichi is called to an island where a dying man's words lead him to investigate a series of murders connected to the 'Nue' legend and the powerful Osakabe family, who separate twins at birth.

When a young soldier is killed while trying to prevent his younger sister, Kaoru, from being sold into a life of prostitution, his commander, Col. Miyagi, tries to honor his dying wish to rescue his sister. Upon finding Kaoru at a party working as a geisha and later rescuing her from committing suicide, Col. Miyagi allows her to move in with him. Over time, the two grow close, but in spite of Kaoru's growing feelings for him, Col. Miyagi is unable to bring himself to return her love. On the night of his deployment to war, Col. Miyagi finally admits his feelings for Kaoru, but will they ever be able to enjoy a peaceful life together now that a very violent and bloody military revolt is under way...

A documentary about the lives of actors in the Sakura-tai theatrical troupe, which had arrived in the island of Hiroshima to begin preparations for the staging of a play just before the atomic bombing.

During the Tokugawa Shogunate, a band of smugglers use a tavern on an isolated island in Edo's Fukagawa district as their base of operations. After the unexpected arrival of an injured man with a troubled past, the men find themselves in a life-or-death situation.

When bribe money from a rigged election funnels into a dam construction project, collusion, lust, greed and even murder are on the ballot.

Fearless Edo-period police inspector Hanzo Itami, nicknamed The Razor, has developed his own unique way of extracting information for his inquiries. His first adventure sees him investigating his superior officer's mistress, whom he suspects of having ties with a reputed criminal on the loose.

Taking the Chilean coup as an example, a group of young officers plan to overthrow the Japanese government on V-J Day. They aim to abolish the post-war constitution, restore the national army and revive the traditional spirit of Japan. As the conspiracy is exposed, the coup squadrons are wiped out one by one. The remaining squadron takes over a night train bound for Tokyo.

Hiroshi, a small-time racketeer, makes a name for himself extorting vulnerable companies and their directors for financial gain.

Tadashi Iki returns to Japan from a Soviet gulag 11 years after being captured during the invasion of Manchuria. He is offered a position in the expansive Kinki Corporation, but rival corporations are competing for a government contract to produce fighter planes.

Death stalks a towering hotel under construction in Tokyo and love brings the guilty parties to a justice of their own choice. The motives are control of the hotel, blackmail and jealousy. The principals involved are two business partners, a political string puller and his son, lovers carrying on an illicit affair and a secretary turned blackmailer.

Comedy of a phony doctor.

1969 Nikkatsu yakuza movie

Kohei Misugi works in a vegetable market, but his ambition is to be a photographer. He is given his first opportunity to demonstrate his talent by the Sakura Film Company which offers him an assignment to "Cover Tokyo" with a camera. But he is disillusioned when he is told he must work together with Miharu, a good looking girl in the film company's publicity department. Then the fun begins.

After his own gang sets him up to kill a rival mobster, a hit man is forced to flee with his younger brother.

A college student takes over the family business in the field of organised crime.

A young doctor falls into a despair of developments. He plans to revenge the disgrace inflicted upon his sister, whose engagement was broken as a result.

Ryoji, a wanderer, arrives in a remote mountain town, carrying a shotgun and claiming to be a hunter. He quickly becomes embroiled in a web of trouble surrounding the town's mill.

Like a girl runaway, Tsuyu moves to Osaka to work as a bar hostess. She meets the owner of a model school, Yoko, and seriously thinks about becoming a fashion model. Yoko tells her that she can move in to Yoko’s house to take lessons, while making a living at the same time.

Katiri is a reporter so ambitiously amoral that he’ll sell out anyone—including his partner and the drug dealer he’s sleeping with—to get a scoop. But what happens when an even more ruthless female gang boss kidnaps his sister?

Jiro, a young yakuza, and Mami, a diplomat’s daughter, are two young lovers from different worlds. Having met by accident, they soon discover a new life together. But their love is ill-fated. Mami's family will not accept her choice, while leading an honest life seems like an unattainable goal for Jiro. Can there be anything else but a tragic ending?

As Japan's economic growth policies intensify, small-scale farmers embark on a first-ever communal dairy farming initiative in their village. They are joined by Riki, a young man who thinks communal farming will give him some leisure time.

It is 1922 and Fumiko is a high school student. Her family is poor but she loves to study literature. Her father, a peddler, does not return home and Fumiko finds herself in financial trouble, not being able to pay for her schooling and her school excursion trip. Still, she gets a temporary job at a factory and tries to make ends meet. A film about bright side of youth adapted from the television serial of the same name.

A comedy-action film depicting a kind-hearted protagonist who, feeling disillusioned with the world, asks a hitman for assistance with suicide, only to find himself embroiled in a thrilling and hilarious journey involving money and women.

One summer day, the chief monk of the Hojuin Temple dies. Harumichi rushes back to town hearing about his brother's death and requests for a grand funeral. He had been unwilling to take over the family business and had chosen a life as a middle school teacher far away from home, but considering the circumstances, he changes his mind. As the new chief of Hojuin, Harumichi scrambles around day after day for donations. He has kept strictly to the straight and narrow, until he passes a bicycle race track where the sounds of cheering fans induce him into a new way of life...

A young yakuza in love with the girl who's to marry his clan oyabun, kidnaps the girl before fleeing with her. In Tokyo, he hides under the identity of a worker while the young woman becomes a waitress in a restaurant.

A boxing melodrama. Two friends become boxers and begin training for the championship. These two boys eventually face each other in the ring.

A musical film based on the original work of Saigo Teruhiko. After leaving the juvenile detention center and returning to his hometown of Ibusuki, Hachiro begins to investigate the cause of his older sister Sumiko's suicide. While Hachiro was in juvenile detention, Sumiko committed suicide, but there are too many mysteries surrounding this suicide...

Murder case and trial.

No synopsis available yet.

A detective sets out on a manhunt to catch a murderer before the crime's statue of limitations runs out.

"She's out there somewhere, well and alive." Eiji (Teruhiko Saigo) and his sister hadn't seen their mother in almost 20 years. The war had separated them. When Eiji learns that his sister is engaged, he is determined to reunite with his mother and relay the wonderful news. With a pocket full of hopes and just one clue that may lead him to his mother, Eiji sets off for Taiwan.

1962 Japanese movie

Junai Monogatari AKA Story of Pure Love is about two poor youths, Mitsuko and Kando, rebelling against society in various ways, who are desperately trying to be together despite tortuous circumstances. The film depicts their lives as thieves, menial laborers who can get little pay, society outcasts, and of course, lovers. Junai Monogatari depicts, mostly, their struggles within the Japanese reformatory system and Mitsuko's worsening sickness.

Based on Kakuko Mori's autobiography, about her life and retirement from acting due to her increasing blindness.

Based on the Seichō Matsumoto's story The Woman Who Took the Local Paper.

Based on the novel by proletarian writer Sunao Tokunaga. The story is about a long strike by workers at a large printing house and the strikers' steadfastness, which neither hunger nor violence could break. The heroine of this story actively participates in her colleagues' struggle against layoffs, oppression, and police brutality.

Among Yoshimura’s complex and political works, this episodic film, set in the early 1930s, follows the life of a young left-wing student activist disenchanted by the increasingly hawkish state of Japanese society.

A period film about a peasant revolt in the region near Mount Fuji, occasioned by high officials' depriving the farmers of their water rights.

Woman melodrama by Shiro Toyoda

Ginko, a poor cobbler's daughter, becomes a geisha to support her family. She passes from one geisha house to the next, trying to find love and hope in the process. No matter how hard she tries, she just can't escape her sad fate.

An ageing fishing boat, Dai-go Fukuryu Maru ("Lucky Dragon No. 5") sets out from the port of Yaizu in Shizuoka Prefecture. It travels around the Pacific line fishing. While the ship is near Bikini Atoll, the ship's navigator sees a flash. All the crew come up to watch. They realize it is an atomic explosion, but take time to clear their fishing gear. A short time later, grey ash starts to fall on the ship. When the ship returns to port the sailors have been burned brown. They unload the fish, which are then transported away. They visit the local doctor and then go to Tokyo for an examination. It turns out they are all highly radioactive. Their symptoms become worse, and the contaminated fish causes a panic.

Shinsaku was once a renowned playwright, has now been left behind by journalism and is living a lethargic life in Oiso. His family is concerned with Shinsaku regaining his old vigor as a writer and Sakie, his daughter, finding a suitable match, while the family is struggling with the losses of war.

A movie adaptation of Funayama Kaoru's novel of the same name, which depicts the story of a modern youth who is attracted to the evil path. Saburi Shin, a well-known actor who also demonstrated his skill as a director in a bold social work, embodies a person with a complicated dilemma in a shadowy manner, and is a dramatic work that plays a part in the lead role.

An attempt is made to suppress a journalist's investigation of collusion between a rural police chief and the local gangster bosses.

No synopsis available yet.

No synopsis available yet.

The monologue and mysterious death of a man who survived and returned from Iwo Jima. A newspaper reporter writes an article about "The Man from Iwo Jima" asking the people who were close to him about his character and the painful memories off all those involved.

Wartime propaganda filmed by the Japanese in occupied China, Shirley Yamaguchi portrays an orphan rescued from the streets by a kindly Japanese merchant marine officer. Part spy thriller and part Shanghai travelogue, it was part of a popular series known as "Chinese Continental Friendship" made by the occupying Japanese in China.

What is marriage? Young couple in match-making wanted to know before they decide. They visited married couples of sisters and brothers. Love comedy in 1942.

It was supposed to be about a love story, but it was and was not. An aircraft mechanic working for the government is matched by his boss with the latter man's daughter (Setsuko Hara) who is both beautiful and aggressive. Yet, he picks a woman who is less assertive as his bride.

No synopsis available yet.

1941 Toho adaptation of Natsume's novel.

Set in Qingdao, China, a Japanese company locates an office there and begins work and cooperation with a local Chinese company for business. Many Japanese engineers also move to China, with their families, for the company in order to construct a canal. There are young Chinese resisting the Japanese in this area.

Toyomi is pregnant -- and while Shintaro and Yurie are on their extended honeymoon, she bears his child, a girl named Kiyoko. She is supported in adversity by close friend Michiko and her mother but also, surprisingly, Shintaro's mother and siblings. Even moreso, Toyomi and Yurie become friends. Part two of a two-part romance based on a story by noted author Kikuchi Kan.

No synopsis available yet.

"Karayuki-san offers a no-holds-barred depiction of the discrimination faced by a former prostitute who returns to Japan from Singapore with her mixed-race son." - Alexander Jacoby (Oxford Brookes University)

Wealthy young Toyomi and Shintaro are in love. However, Shintaro’s father is arranging for him to marry Yurie, the scion of an even wealthier family. The two lovers flee to Tokyo, but when Shintaro returns to proclaim his intent to marry Toyomi, his father browbeats him into attending the marriage meeting with Yurie. Part one of a two-part romance based on a story by noted author Kikuchi Kan.

No synopsis available yet.

Miyamoto Tokunosuke works at a Detective Agency in the heart of Tokyo. When his lover Ranko tells him that she's pregnant, he begins to worry. His company hasn't paid his backsalary and he doesn't know how he will pay for the new baby. His friend Suihei tells him about a job at a bar, but on his way there, Tokunosuke meets a mysterious man who sells him a newspaper...for tomorrow!