Ken Uehara

Acting

Ken Uehara

Born — Died

1909-10-07 — 1991-11-23

Place of birth

Tokyo, Japan

Known for

Acting

Credits

61 titles

Ken Uehara (上原謙, Uehara Ken, 7 November 1909 – 23 November 1991) was a Japanese actor who appeared in approximately 200 films between 1935 and 1990.

Known for

Film credits

1960s · 11 titles

Atragon poster
6.6

The legendary empire of the lost continent of Mu reappears to threaten the world with domination. While countries unite to resist, an isolated World War II Captain has created the greatest warship ever seen, and possibly the surface world's only defense.

Atragon

1963

Mothra poster
7.2

Shipwreck survivors found on the presumably uninhabited Infant Island leads to a scientific expedition that discovers a surviving native population along with the Shobijin, tiny twin fairy priestesses of the island's mythical deity called Mothra. After the fairies are kidnapped by an exploitative businessman named Clark Nelson, Mothra sets out to rescue them.

Mothra

1961

The Storm of the Pacific poster
6.0

Lt. Koji Kitami is a navigator-bombardier in Japan's Naval Air Force. He participates in the Japanese raid on the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor in 1941 and is welcomed with pride in his hometown on his return. As Japan racks up victory after victory in the Pacific War, Kitami is caught up in the emotion of the time and fights courageously for the standard of Japanese honor. But his assuredness of his government's righteousness is shaken after the Japanese navy is defeated in the debacle of Midway.

The Storm of the Pacific

1960

Gorath poster
6.3

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. However, Astronaut Tatsuma Kanai is left in a catatonic state due to his near death experience. Unable to destroy the invading star, Earth's scientists undertake a desperate plan to build giant rockets at the South Pole to move the planet out of Gorath's path before it is too late.

Gorath

1962

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

The Last War poster
6.8

A Japanese family is torn apart by the tensions of an avoidable nuclear world war between the superpowers.

The Last War

1961

Crazy Operation: Drop Dead! Irresponsibility poster
10.0

Seven employees rise up in rebellion against an irresponsible company.

Crazy Operation: Drop Dead! Irresponsibility

1963

Young Guy in Hawaii poster
6.5

Fourth entry in Toho's Wakadaishō series directed by Jun Fukuda and released on a simultaneous screening with Matango. Filmed on location in Hawaii.

Young Guy in Hawaii

1963

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

University Bandits poster
9.0

A youth drama set in the Japanese alps. Two robbers, chased by the police, escape from the youths of a university mountain club who are trapped in a lodge during a blizzard. This ski action romp has the tempo of a musical, and Okamoto Kihachi's style is on full display. Tsuruta Koji makes a special appearance as a senior member of the mountain club.

University Bandits

1960

A Night in Hong Kong poster
10.0

Romantic melodrama set in contemporary Hong Kong, Japan and Laos. Hiroshi Tanaka (Takarada) is a Japanese journalist on assignment in Hong Kong who meets and falls in love with Wu Li Hung (Ming). He proposes to Wu Li but she rejects him because of her distaste for mixed marriages (her mother was Japanese but deserted her family and returned to Japan during WWII). Tanaka locates Wu Li’s mother and unsuccessfully tries to reunite them, but eventually Wu Li accepts his proposal. A joyous Tanaka flies off to Laos to finish an assignment but on the eve of his wedding he is killed there.

A Night in Hong Kong

1961

1950s · 32 titles

Symphony of Love poster
NR

A romance between a young koto prodigy and the head of a koto school’s daughter.

Symphony of Love

1958

Repast poster
7.6

In post-WWII Osaka, a middle-aged woman is forced to examine her dreary life and marriage when her husband's young and flirtatious cousin arrives for a brief stay to escape an arranged marriage.

Repast

1951

The Munekata Sisters poster
7.1

Setsuko is in an unhappy marriage to Mimura, an unemployed, alcoholic engineer. She had always been in love with Hiroshi but both failed to propose when Hiroshi left for France a few years ago. But now he's back and Mariko tries to reunite them, although she too is secretly in love with Hiroshi.

The Munekata Sisters

1950

Portrait of Madame Yuki poster
6.8

A young woman takes up her new job as the servant of a noblewoman and soon discovers that underneath her facade of luxury lies great unhappiness.

Portrait of Madame Yuki

1950

The Buried Treasure poster
NR

A lighthearted comedy featuring city dwellers flocking to a remote mountain hot spring inn, all entangled in the mystery of hidden gold bars.

The Buried Treasure

1956

Undercurrent poster
6.2

In Kyoto a young kimono maker with traditional ideas gets involved with a married professor.

Undercurrent

1956

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

Untamed Woman poster
7.5

A woman marries, gives birth to a stillborn child, and divorces, falls in love with a hotel-keeper, only to find herself subordinated to his drive for success, takes up with a tailor who cannot console himself with her strong personality.

Untamed Woman

1957

Sound of the Mountain poster
7.4

An ingratiating bride develops warm ties to her father-in-law while her cold husband blithely slights her for another woman.

Sound of the Mountain

1954

Husband and Wife poster
6.9

A married couple looking for an apartment move in with the husband's co-worker, a widower. The husband becomes jealous of the widower and his wife.

Husband and Wife

1953

Vagabond Employee: Outcry poster
NR

When a corrupt executive takes over his struggling company and violates his girlfriend, a young salaryman declares war, leaving his job to expose the truth by any means necessary.

Vagabond Employee: Outcry

1959

Wife poster
7.2

Ten years into a marriage, the wife is disappointed by the husband's lack of financial success, meaning she has to work and can't treat herself and the husband finds the wife slovenly and mean-spirited: she neither cooks not cleans particularly well and is generally disagreeable. In turn, he alternately ignores her and treats her as a servant. Neither is particularly happy, not helped by their unsatisfactory lodgers. The husband is easily seduced by an ex-colleague, a widow with a small child who needs some security, and considers leaving his wife.

Wife

1953

All About Marriage poster
10.0

Ultra-perky model likes single freedom but feels ryosai kenbo ("good wife, wise mother") pressure, exemplified by her bored-to-tears sister.

All About Marriage

1958

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

Beyond The Stars poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Beyond The Stars

1956

The Precipice poster
9.0

Kosaka drops to death while ice climbing with his friend Uozu to see the sunrise on the New Year’s Day. The investigators try to find the cause of the death, then discover that the cut rope was made in the factory for which Uozu’s brother works.

The Precipice

1958

Mutiny in the North Sea poster
NR

A maritime action drama set aboard a whaling ship rocked by a labor-management conflict. Shintoho's second color feature.

Mutiny in the North Sea

1956

New Tale of Genji: Shizuka and Yoshitsune poster
NR

1956 Daiei movie

New Tale of Genji: Shizuka and Yoshitsune

1956

Elegy poster
9.0

Wataru Naohiko who has the prosecutor general as his father became a young composer and its symphony "saint" invoked the world echoed. But his disciple Uchiyama and his best friend prosecutor Daisuke Toki accused his music as a sesame of pause-only technique, not a truly heart-hungry art.

Elegy

1951

Bright Young Maidens poster
10.0

In order to get Kanako (Izumi Yukimura) married, her mother places a rental listing in the student medical school newsletter and attempts to find a suitable lodger who will catch the eye of her daughter.

Bright Young Maidens

1958

Nanatsu no seiza poster
NR

A story of first love between a misogynistic astronomer and a dancer he met on the street.

Nanatsu no seiza

1951

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

Tokyo Omnibus poster
NR

The story tells of Tsuchiya, a university professor and a widower who is in love with a widow who runs a small restaurant, and his son is in love with a runaway girl who turns out to be the leader of a religious sect. Kusano is the henpecked proprietor of a rice biscuit shop who dreams of owning a bird and dog shop and his daughter is in love with a boarder, employed by the private detective agency searching for the runaway girl. The agency head has his own dream of arranging thirty marriages and has already accomplished twenty-seven. Tatsumi is a newspaper reporter who dreams of a big scoop to enable him to marry a girl TV producer and his friend a mountain climbing enthusiast who dreams of joining a Himalayan expedition but is opposed by his wife. His love of the mountains is shared by a boarder in their home and by a fishmonger's son.

Tokyo Omnibus

1959

Autumn Interlude poster
NR

A young woman (Kuga), recuperating at a sanitarium in Karuizawa, falls in love with a young student (Ishihama) but returns to Tokyo to be with her father (Yamamura).

Autumn Interlude

1954

A Rainbow Plays in My Heart: Part 2 poster
9.0

An Ishiro Honda film. The second part of A Rainbow Plays in My Heart released the same day as the first film.

A Rainbow Plays in My Heart: Part 2

1957

Where Chimneys Are Seen poster
6.6

Where Chimneys Are Seen focuses primarily on the interconnected lives of two couples in a lower-middle-class neighborhood in Senju, a poor industrial section of Tokyo.

Where Chimneys Are Seen

1953

A Rainbow Plays in My Heart: Part 1 poster
NR

An Ishiro Honda film. The first part of A Rainbow Plays in My Heart released the same day as the second film.

A Rainbow Plays in My Heart: Part 1

1957

Diary of an Elegant Hot Spring poster
NR

At a coastal hot spring inn, a group of women navigate work, personal struggles, and unexpected scandals. When a guest threatens to expose one maid's past, she must decide whether to run or face it—with help from a kind local officer.

Diary of an Elegant Hot Spring

1958

A Ripple in a Morning poster
7.0

Atsuko is an office secretary who is also her family's primary source of income and caretaker in postwar Japan.

A Ripple in a Morning

1952

Dimple of Tokyo poster
10.0

Buntaro, the president of a food trading company got tired of the day-to-day routine of life. The new secretary, Nobuko, suggested her "shacho-san" (the president) run away from the job. Nobuko took Buntaro to her home and introduced him to her own family as friend, "Sachio-san"...

Dimple of Tokyo

1952

Sound in the Mist poster
7.5

In the heart of the Japanese Alps, in Kamikochi, Nagano Prefecture, botany professor Kazuhiko Onuma spends time with Tsuruko, his lover. One night, Kazuhiko's wife Kazuyo comes to see them and confronts the professor about his extramarital affair, and Tsuruko, an inevitable witness to the confrontation, leaves the professor the following morning. Over the next decade, whenever he visits the mountain cabin every autumn equinox, the memory of Tsuruko will forever haunt Kazuhiko...

Sound in the Mist

1956

When We Came Back poster
NR

Melodrama by Kiyoshi Saeki

When We Came Back

1950

1940s · 12 titles

Army poster
6.8

Though plagued by ill health all his life, a young Japanese man is obligated to fulfill his family's longstanding military tradition.

Army

1944

Bibō no kaoyaku poster
NR

Ken Uehara plays the role of a prominent figure in the red-light district and portrays his violent personality.

Bibō no kaoyaku

1949

Yotsuya Ghost Story Part 1 poster
6.6

Iemon Tamiya is an impoverished masterless samurai who craves a better life, which he cannot have because of his marriage to Oiwa, who is completely devoted to her husband.

Yotsuya Ghost Story Part 1

1949

The Living Magoroku poster
6.8

A wealthy family will not allow the military to grow crops on their fields due to their superstitious beliefs about their son's illness.

The Living Magoroku

1943

Sanmenkyō no kyōfu poster
NR

Romantic thriller film.

Sanmenkyō no kyōfu

1948

Marriage poster
7.7

In postwar Japan a young woman is unable to marry her sweetheart because her family's in difficult circumstances and needs her income to keep afloat.

Marriage

1947

Hills of a Foreign Country poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Hills of a Foreign Country

1949

Odoriko monogatari poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Odoriko monogatari

1947

Messenger from the Moon poster
NR

It was a sanatorium in the highlands. Patients such as Totsuka, Hirota, and Hashida were battling their illnesses under the devoted care of Michiko, a nurse so beautiful and noble that she was nicknamed “The Messenger from the Moon.” When Totsuka learned that Hirota, who was about to be discharged, secretly loved Michiko, he devised a plan and arranged for them to spend some time alone in a birch grove. Hirota and Michiko made a firm vow for their future, but around that time, an unexpected visitor arrived at Hirota’s hospital room.

Messenger from the Moon

1949

No artwork available
NR

A melodrama in which two lovers reunite after a long journey through life.

Aizenso

1949

Yotsuya Ghost Story Part 2 poster
6.6

Part 2 starts where the first film ended, with Iemon disposing of the bodies of his wife and Kohei, marrying upward, and being blackmailed by the evil Naosuke.

Yotsuya Ghost Story Part 2

1949

Jubilation Street poster
6.1

The few residents left on the streets in Tokyo share their individual stories and come to understand the melancholy of saying goodbye.

Jubilation Street

1944

1930s · 3 titles

Series credits