Acting

Yōyō Kojima

Born

1891-12-16 (134)

Place of birth

Tokyo, Japan

Known for

Acting

Credits

35 titles

Known for

Ikiru poster
8.3

Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.

Ikiru

1952

Nanairo Kamen poster
9.0

Seven Color Mask (七色仮面, Nanairo Kamen) is the name and title character of a tokusatsu TV series, later called New Seven Color Mask (新七色仮面, Shin Nanairo Kamen). It was created by Kōhan Kawauchi, who also created Moonlight Mask. This B&W TV show was the first superhero TV series by Toei Company Ltd. It was broadcast on NET (now TV Asahi) from June 3, 1959 to June 30, 1960, with a total of 57 episodes divided into 7 segments. Aside from being Toei's first TV superhero show, this series was also the debut of actor Sonny Chiba, who was 19 at the time, who took over the title role from Susumu Namijima after Episode 32.

Nanairo Kamen

1959

Red Peony of Night poster
NR

A romantic melodrama about the shifting relationship between Ryosuke and Miki as their precarious employment and social circumstances shift around them.

Red Peony of Night

1950

The Eleventh Hour poster
7.4

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.

The Eleventh Hour

1957

Conduct Report on Professor Ishinaka poster
6.9

Three humorous love stories set in rural Japan.

Conduct Report on Professor Ishinaka

1950

The Man of Seven Faces poster
6.3

Detective Tarao investigates the deaths of police officers who were involved in solving a kidnapping case.

The Man of Seven Faces

1960

Film credits

1950s · 12 titles

Ikiru poster
8.3

Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.

Ikiru

1952

Red Peony of Night poster
NR

A romantic melodrama about the shifting relationship between Ryosuke and Miki as their precarious employment and social circumstances shift around them.

Red Peony of Night

1950

The Eleventh Hour poster
7.4

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.

The Eleventh Hour

1957

Conduct Report on Professor Ishinaka poster
6.9

Three humorous love stories set in rural Japan.

Conduct Report on Professor Ishinaka

1950

Duel in the Sun poster
NR

A film by Kiyoshi Saeki

Duel in the Sun

1950

Police Precinct: The Pickpocket Killer poster
NR

After discovering a slaughtered corpse, the investigating team of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department began canvassing the area around the crime scene. As a result, they found a wallet with bloodstains that seemed to belong to the victim, a woman's wallet that did not fit the field, earrings, and other valuable materials, which led them on a foot search. The woman's purse had been picked up by a male prostitute on the subway, and from the prostitute's testimony, they were able to identify the pickpocket's face, but the next day, the man was found dead in a road accident, apparently murdered.

Police Precinct: The Pickpocket Killer

1957

Yasubei Nakayama poster
NR

Jidai-geki about the life of Yasubei Nakayama, a famous ronin who did participate in the revenge against Lord Kira Yoshinaka as detailed in Japan's famous epic Chushingura

Yasubei Nakayama

1951

No artwork available
NR

One of the earliest Japanese cop films following a mysterious killing on the last train to Mitaka, Tokyo.

Murder on the Last Train

1955

新遊侠伝 poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

新遊侠伝

1951

The Tragic General: Yamashita Tomoyuki poster
NR

When Japan entered into the great tragedy that was unforgettable, the general general of the history of the Ming Dynasty, hokudai Yamashita, left the Malay front and occupied Singapore at once, and was praised as a "Malay tiger." However, the situation in Japan changed steadily by the failure of Sai pan from the GA Talca translation.

The Tragic General: Yamashita Tomoyuki

1953

あゝ洞爺丸  poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

あゝ洞爺丸 

1954

Maboroshi Kaito Dan poster
NR

This is the first film in the third installment of the adventure film for boys that depicts the battle between a thief who calls himself "the secret envoy of the Demon Lord" and private investigator Hideo Sayama. In the Toei, the roles are twenty faces and Kogo (Twenty Faces) and Akechi Kogo, with a content that seems to be strongly conscious of the "boys' Detectives" series of Edogawa Rampo, which was later made into a movie.

Maboroshi Kaito Dan

1955

1940s · 9 titles

An Enemy of the People poster
9.0

Tadashi Imai 1946 movie

An Enemy of the People

1946

Travels to the East poster
8.0

Shot mostly in Tokyo, this comedy depicts two Chinese tourists who have travelled from their country to Japan in order to experience the latter country.

Travels to the East

1940

Mother Never Dies poster
6.2

The premature death of a young mother serves as inspiration for her husband and son.

Mother Never Dies

1942

Green Earth poster
NR

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.

Green Earth

1942

The Battle of Kawanakajima poster
7.0

This epic depicts the battle between Uesugi Kenshin and Takeda Shingen. The focus of the story is the struggle by the unit leader in charge of the main supply wagons and the supply troops to transport materiel to the Uesugi army. To this are added episodes involving an itinerant woman.

The Battle of Kawanakajima

1941

Flowers Blooming In the Storm poster
8.0

Jidaigeki from 1940

Flowers Blooming In the Storm

1940

No artwork available
NR

A modern take on history with songs and comedy presented by Enoken (as Gonza), Fujiyama (as Sukeju), and Kasagi (Gonza’s wife Osaki).

Enoken's Singing Detective Story

1948

Oath on the Burning Sands poster
7.5

A Japanese army engineer (Hasegawa) on the mainland must put his personal feelings for a beautiful Chinese woman (Ri) aside if he is to succeed at building a highway through the "bandit"- (aka anti-Japanese militia-) infested hinterlands.

Oath on the Burning Sands

1940

Living Image poster
NR

A film dealing with the comings and goings of individuals in the immediate postwar period.

Living Image

1948

1930s · 11 titles

Karayuki-san poster
NR

"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)

Karayuki-san

1937

Saga of the Vagabonds, Part Two: Forward at Dawn poster
10.0

Story of a bandit king part 2.

Saga of the Vagabonds, Part Two: Forward at Dawn

1937

Tokai no kaii 7-ji 03-bu poster
NR

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!

Tokai no kaii 7-ji 03-bu

1935

Saga of the Vagabonds, Part One: Tiger and Wolf poster
8.0

Story of a bandit king.

Saga of the Vagabonds, Part One: Tiger and Wolf

1937

No artwork available
8.0

Song of the White Orchid was a co-production of Toho and Mantetsu, the railway that served the colonial region of Manchuria, and the first film in the Kazuo Hasegawa/Shirley Yamaguchi (Ri Koran) “Continental Trilogy.” Handsome Hasegawa (representing Japan) runs up against an impertinent Yamaguchi (representing the continent); not surprisingly, in the course of the film the woman comes around and realizes the benevolent intentions of the Japanese. In Song of the White Orchid Yamaguchi leaves Hasegawa, who plays an expatriate working for the railway, because of a misunderstanding. She joins a communist guerilla group plotting to blow up the Manchurian railway. Learning of the subterfuge that led to the misunderstanding, she renews her faith in Hasegawa—and by extension Japan—and tries to undermine the plot.

Song of the White Orchid

1939

No artwork available
NR

Enoken's anachronistic take on the beloved (and already very funny) Edo-period novel "Shank's Mare," aka Tōkaidōchū Hizakurige, in which Yaji and Kita, two plebeian nobodies, have all sorts of strange and colorful encounters on the long road from Edo to Kyoto.

Enoken's Yaji and Kita

1939

Hikoroku Laughs a lot poster
NR

Hikoroku Laughs a lot

Hikoroku Laughs a lot

1936

Mother's Melody poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Mother's Melody

1937

No artwork available
8.0

Hide-chan (Hideko Takamine) and her family are on a trip to Tokyo. While visiting a fairground, a pickpocket (Kamatari Furukawa) steals the father's wallet. While everyone is trying to hunt down the thief, Hide-chan decides to make the most of it and enjoy her stay, while the thief and his main pursuer (Akira Kishii) play hide-and-seek among the funfair's spectacles and freakshows

The Kingdom of Spectacles

1937

The Scent of Pheasant’s Eye: An Episode from the Tales of Flowers poster
4.0

Mitsuo the Counselor's son marries writer Miyoko, however a tender romance blossoms between Miyoko and Mitsuo's sister Kaoru. When the family falls to bankruptcy, heartache ensues; Miyoko's illness worsens and she is sent to a sanatorium, separating the lovers. Based on a story from Tales of Flowers by Nobuko Yoshiya

The Scent of Pheasant’s Eye: An Episode from the Tales of Flowers

1935

What Made Her Do It? poster
6.8

Sumiko's father sends her to live with her alcoholic uncle. He sells her to a circus, which is the start of a downward spiral in an unforgiving world.

What Made Her Do It?

1930

Series credits