Acting

Masahiko Naruse

Born

1924-09-30 (102)

Known for

Acting

Credits

40 titles

Known for

The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer poster
8.4

After the Japanese defeat to the Russians, Kaji leads the last remaining men through Manchuria. Intent on returning to his old life, he faces great odds in a variety of different harrowing circumstances as he and his men sneak behind enemy lines.

The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer

1961

The Burmese Harp poster
7.8

In Burma during the closing days of WWII, a Japanese soldier separated from his unit disguises himself as a Buddhist monk to escape imprisonment as a POW.

The Burmese Harp

1956

The Story of Pure Love poster
6.8

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.

The Story of Pure Love

1957

The Great Killing poster
7.3

A cynical samurai is left as the sole survivor to fulfill a plot to assassinate the puppet of a villain intent on usurping the shogunate in the 17th century. A Shogunate Elder connives to rule Japan by making his puppet, the Shogun's brother Tsunashige, the next Shogun. The best strategist in Japan, Yamaga, leads a plot to stop the Elder, but his cabal is betrayed and most of the conspirators are captured and tortured.

The Great Killing

1964

Long Journey into Love poster
7.0

A beautifully told story of a woman hardened by marriage to a man she doesn't love, after giving herself to another. She dedicates herself to her work, designing and creating plaited cords for kimono.

Long Journey into Love

1973

Main Line to Terror poster
6.2

Akiyama is an intern, disgusted with the noise pollution caused by the bullet trains and the heart attacks that noise has been causing in older hospital patients, plots to disrupt and, in ten days, destroy a unit of the operation. He warns the Japan National Railway, that, if nothing is done to reduce the noise, he will derail a bullet train. Takigawa is the police detective sent to stop him.

Main Line to Terror

1975

Film credits

1980s · 5 titles

Demon's Room poster
4.2

A wife gets a call from a man claiming to be from her husband's company. He tells her that he will come to pick her up on his behalf. But when he takes her to the hotel he locks her in a room and rapes her. The kidnapper then calls her husband but he doesn’t want a ransom. For reasons not yet known all he wants to do is to sexually humiliate her and to make sure the husband knows it.

Demon's Room

1982

Widow's Bedroom poster
NR

Widow's Bedroom is an erotic drama that focuses on a depressed innkeeper, recently widowed by suicide, whose life becomes entangled with a wheelchair-bound novelist, his nurse, and her brother-in-law.

Widow's Bedroom

1981

Momoe's Lips: Love Beast poster
4.7

This year's Record Award was decided to go to popular singer Natsu Akemi. Yoshioka, the president of the production company, was using money, politicians, and women to secure his support. The remaining worry is Yoko Itsuki, who is about to marry her rival, popular actor Taura. So, in order to get rid of Yoko, he hires Mari Kusunoki, a trick girl who exposes star scandals. Set in the entertainment industry, where stars compete fiercely, the film depicts the secret actions of a "trick girl" who uncovers a scandal involving a popular singer.

Momoe's Lips: Love Beast

1980

Lady's Triangle poster
3.7

No synopsis available yet.

Lady's Triangle

1983

Motto hageshiku motto tsuyoku poster
4.7

Ten years ago, Kagari—the wife of the heir to the prestigious Toriizaka family—was caught in the act of having an affair with Hiroshi of the Makieda family (with whom they had close family ties) by Hiroshi’s son, Tatsuya, who was nine years old at the time. Now holding this compromising secret over her, Tatsuya has grown into a nineteen-year-old young man, and Kagari approaches him. An erotic suspense drama.

Motto hageshiku motto tsuyoku

1981

1970s · 5 titles

1960s · 16 titles

The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer poster
8.4

After the Japanese defeat to the Russians, Kaji leads the last remaining men through Manchuria. Intent on returning to his old life, he faces great odds in a variety of different harrowing circumstances as he and his men sneak behind enemy lines.

The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer

1961

The Great Killing poster
7.3

A cynical samurai is left as the sole survivor to fulfill a plot to assassinate the puppet of a villain intent on usurping the shogunate in the 17th century. A Shogunate Elder connives to rule Japan by making his puppet, the Shogun's brother Tsunashige, the next Shogun. The best strategist in Japan, Yamaga, leads a plot to stop the Elder, but his cabal is betrayed and most of the conspirators are captured and tortured.

The Great Killing

1964

Bushido: The Cruel Code of the Samurai poster
6.7

After a salary-man's fiancée attempts suicide, he recounts his gruesome family history which saw generations of his ancestors suffer and sacrifice themselves for the sake of their cruel lords.

Bushido: The Cruel Code of the Samurai

1963

Who Are You, Mr. Sorge? poster
7.1

French docu-drama which chronicles the chain of events that lead to the hanging of German-journalist Richard Sorge, who was executed in 1944 after he was found supplying classified information to the Russians.

Who Are You, Mr. Sorge?

1961

The Navy poster
NR

A tale of two best friends in the WWII era Japan. Takao is a young man enthusiastic about joining the navy to fight for his country. He convinces his best friend Shinji to join him. As it turns out, however, Takao's poor health prevents him from entering the navy while his friend is chosen instead. As time goes by, Takao becomes a painter and changes his mind about the meaningfulness of war and fighting, while his friend goes the opposite path. Meanwhile Takao's sister falls in love with Shinji.

The Navy

1963

Silence Has No Wings poster
6.9

After a young boy captures a rare butterfly in Nagasaki, a caterpillar begins a relay-trip toward the northern tip of Hokkaido, serving as a silent witness to a series of vignettes featuring people struggling with the psychological and social scars of post-war Japan.

Silence Has No Wings

1966

The Sands of Kurobe poster
7.0

Kitagawa is an engineer charged with construction of a gigantic tunnel through the Japan Alps for the transportation of equipment in the building of the massive Kurobe Dam. The tunnel crosses an earthquake fault and Kitagawa is beleaguered not only by cave-ins and flooding, but by strife between management and the workers's union. Adding to Kitagawa's stress is the knowledge that as his attention is pulled inexorably toward the tunnel construction, his youngest daughter is dying from leukemia.

The Sands of Kurobe

1968

Admiral Borneo: Betting at the Equator poster
9.0

Takeo (Kiniya Kitaoji), son of a wealthy car industry executive, is unhappy with his job and goes to Singapore to become a fisherman. At first ridiculed by the local fishermen, he eventually gets their respect but his rebel temper pushes him to find new adventures in Alaska.

Admiral Borneo: Betting at the Equator

1969

When the Cookie Crumbles poster
7.0

Japanese film directed by Tadashi Imai.

When the Cookie Crumbles

1967

Harukanaru haha no kao poster
NR

Chieko, a fifth-grader living with her father, struggles to cope with the absence of her mother. When her father's mistress decides to join the household, Chieko rebels.

Harukanaru haha no kao

1960

Deep River Melody poster
6.0

A poignant story about a young couple, Setsu and Chozo, who are torn apart to save Setsu's father's restaurant.

Deep River Melody

1960

The Fox with Nine Tails poster
10.0

Tobimaru is the young emperor of Japan. He meets a mysterious woman named Tomamo. After successfully seducing Tobimaru, she brings great misfortune onto the land. Tobimaru soon discovers that Tomamo is actually a kitsune, and now has the task to unmask and kill her to save his land.

The Fox with Nine Tails

1968

Police Precinct Part 14 poster
NR

An elderly woman, Ume Matsumoto, informed the First Investigation Department that her son Hirasaka, who runs a shoe store, had disappeared. The detectives had a bad feeling which hit the mark, an unidentified drowned body is identified as Hirasaka. Some prime real estate he owned was also mysteriously sold. Suspecting that this is a planned murder and fearing the escape of the criminal, the Department begins to investigate secretly, without creating an investigation headquarters.

Police Precinct Part 14

1960

Night Trap poster
NR

A woman's desperate attempt to prove her husband's innocence after he has been sentenced to death for the murder of his mistress. She tracks down four men in the victim's life, one of whom she suspects may be the real murderer, and systematically destroys them. In the end, her obsession becomes madness and she has ruined her own life along with her victims' lives to save her philandering husband.

Night Trap

1967

Challenge Beneath the Waves poster
NR

1960 Toei action film.

Challenge Beneath the Waves

1960

Fire Line poster
3.6

Two young crooks who scam betters in the race track are employed by a yakuza gang called the Shigemori Syndicate to steal a shipment of handguns from a rival gang. Somewhere in the process they find themselves on the run from their own gang and one of them becomes himself romantically entangled with the boss's girlfriend. An ambitious underboss of the gang offers them a way out if they murder the previous boss but things don't turn out as planned (for everyone).

Fire Line

1961

1950s · 13 titles

The Burmese Harp poster
7.8

In Burma during the closing days of WWII, a Japanese soldier separated from his unit disguises himself as a Buddhist monk to escape imprisonment as a POW.

The Burmese Harp

1956

The Story of Pure Love poster
6.8

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.

The Story of Pure Love

1957

Moonlight Mask: The Last Death of the Devil poster
10.0

The sixth and last Moonlight Mask film in the original series produced by Toei in the 1950s.

Moonlight Mask: The Last Death of the Devil

1959

Yukiko poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Yukiko

1955

No artwork available
NR

Japanese drama film.

Kanshō fujin

1956

Points and Lines poster
6.2

Based on Matsumoto Seicho's classic mystery novel of the same name, the story centers around a group of detectives who are determined to find the truth behind an apparent double suicide.

Points and Lines

1958

Elegy of the North poster
6.1

​Reiko, a young woman with a physical disability, begins a clandestine affair with the married architect Katsuragi, but also becomes dangerously obsessed with his unfaithful wife, Akiko.

Elegy of the North

1957

Police Precinct: Nothing Left at the Scene poster
7.0

A man who uses marriage as bait goes from woman to woman, and then a horrific murder is committed for money. Seven police man chase the vicious criminal who disappeared into the vortex of the big city.

Police Precinct: Nothing Left at the Scene

1959

Police Precinct: The Woman Without A Face poster
NR

A tragic drama - a dismembered torso of a woman rises up on the banks of the Arakawa River. The body is only the torso. Her legs were discovered on the opposite bank. The only clue, a man was trying to throw something in from a car with a license plate number three days ago at Shin-Arakawa Ohashi Bridge...

Police Precinct: The Woman Without A Face

1959

The Bastards of Lawless Town poster
NR

An action-packed, dramatic gangster film.

The Bastards of Lawless Town

1959

No artwork available
NR

1958 Toei movie.

The Nameless Man

1958

Moonlight Mask: The Challenging Ghost poster
8.0

Fifth Moonlight Mask theatrical film.

Moonlight Mask: The Challenging Ghost

1959

Shishun no izumi poster
7.0

The long-awaited haymaking season has arrived on the island of Honshu. Work is in full swing in the fields, with young and old alike toiling away. For the young woman Moyoko and the young man Tokizo, it is more fun than work. Both are young, cheerful, excited by the shared anticipation of the harvest festival, and not yet aware that they are beginning to fall in love with each other. That is why the first timid hint of confession causes such turmoil in their souls and almost leads to a serious quarrel. Their quarrelsome aunts did the lovers a disservice...

Shishun no izumi

1953

Series credits