
Acting
Isao Kimura
Born 1923-06-22 · Senda, Hiroshima, Japan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Isao Kimura (木村 功 Kimura Isao), also known as Kō Kimura, was a Japanese actor. He appeared in several films directed by Akira Kurosawa. The first was Stray Dog (1949) as Yusa the criminal. Perhaps his most notable collaboration with Kurosawa was in Seven Samurai as the youngest of the samurai, Katsushiro. During his career he also appeared in several films directed by Mikio Naruse as well as appearing in the famous Lone Wolf and Cub film series. In addition to a film career spanning almost thirty years, Kimura founded and directed an acting company which ultimately went bankrupt. He died of esophageal cancer at 57 years old.
Acting credits
8.5A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food.
Seven Samurai
1954
8.4A Yokohama shoe executive faces a wrenching choice when kidnappers mistakenly seize his chauffeur’s son but demand the ransom anyway.
High and Low
1963
8.3Kanji 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
7.9Returning to their lord's castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the spirit's prophecy comes true, Washizu's scheming wife, Asaji, presses him to speed up the rest of the spirit's prophecy by murdering his lord and usurping his place. Director Akira Kurosawa's resetting of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" in feudal Japan is one of his most acclaimed films.
Throne of Blood
1957
6.7This movie is based on an immortal literary work "The Snow Country," a story about a life of geisha Komako who lives in a region with heavy snowfalls.
Snow Country
1965
NRThe struggles of a low-ranking samurai (Nakamura) coming to terms with the end of the Tokugawa shogunate and the end of Japan's feudal age with the 1868 Restoration.
Will to Conquer
1970
7.6A bad day gets worse for young detective Murakami when a pickpocket steals his gun on a hot, crowded bus. Desperate to right the wrong, he goes undercover, scavenging Tokyo’s sweltering streets for the stray dog whose desperation has led him to a life of crime. With each step, cop and criminal’s lives become more intertwined and the investigation becomes an examination of Murakami’s own dark side.
Stray Dog
1949
6.7After 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
6.0A story about the lives of four sisters and their manipulative mother who must come to terms with each of their decisions in life.
Four Sisters
1962
NRNo synopsis available yet.
Look Up, Noble One
1966
NRHayata and his best friend Ushijima came to Tokyo to become champions. Hayata repeatedly sought to join Tamura's boxing club, but Tamura fell in love with Ushijima's punch. Then Hayata decides to become Ushijima's manager and make good money on his friend's talent. Ushijima himself is a peaceful, kind guy who doesn't really like boxing, but under the wise guidance of Hayata, he starts to defeat one opponent after another...
Showdown in Blood
1957
6.0Provincial 14th century governor Moronao, attracted to the wife of a court magistrate, tries to seduce her and when she rejects his advances plots to send her husband into battle.
Conquest
1965
7.5A director faces creative block while working on his latest film – a reimagination of his adolescence growing up in a mountain village in rural Japan.
Pastoral: To Die in the Country
1974
7.0No synopsis available yet.
Knightly Advice
1962
7.1With most of his family already dead at Ogami Itto's hands, Retsudo launches one final plot to destroy him, and when that fails, unleashes the fury of every remaining member of the Yagyu clan.
Lone Wolf and Cub: White Heaven in Hell
1974
7.1Poverty-stricken sisters reach the age when they start attracting marriage proposals. They must decide between marrying for love or money, but their ambitions clash when they both fall for the same man.
Our Marriage
1962
NRNo synopsis available yet.
I Saw the Killer
1956
8.7A successful textile industrialist from the provinces, who is beloved by his employees for his kindness, cannot find a wife because of a disfiguring birthmark on his face. Even the courtesans in Yoshiwara refuse to entertain him, until an indentured peasant prostitute, Tamarazu, takes the unsavoury assignment and treats him with brash tenderness.
Hero of the Red Light District
1960
6.4Shingo and Ritsuko have a baby: Takashi. They happen to be a happy couple, but soon Ritsuko wants to know who is the true father of Takashi, born by artificial insemination.
Impasse
1967
6.1Anzukko (Little Peach) is the daughter of a successful writer. She turns down each one of her suitors, until she marries a beginning writer named Ryokichi. Their life quickly sinks into despair.
Little Peach
1958
7.3In this first episode, we are introduced to Takezo, what Musashi used to be before he became the man of legend. His beginning are not exactly auspicious. He sides with the Toyotomi at Sekigahara, and as a result finds himself on the losing side of the historic battle. He and his friend Matahachi manage to escape the slaughter although the latter is wounded in his leg. They stumble across the young Akemi who makes her living with her mother Oko by robbing corpses of their armor and anything else they can sell. Oko takes it into her head to seduce Matahachi, which she does first by skillfully sucking the gangrene from his blood, and then just by sucking.
Miyamoto Musashi
1961
6.9A detective tries to outwit an art loving thief who has kidnapped the daughter of a jeweler to get to an exquisite diamond.
Black Lizard
1968
NRA story of a passionate teacher and his great effort for the children in a poor village.
The Yamabiko School
1952
6.5Satoko is a mistress by trade or fate: when her master, the silkscreen artist of the Kohoan Temple in Kyoto, dies, she is given to the temple's lascivious head priest Kikuchi. She is drawn to a melancholy young acolyte, Jinen, who has observed the profligacy of his cruel master and Satoko's utter dependence on the man. Jinen is both fascinated and disturbed by Satoko's interest in him; he is similarly caught between loathing of Kikuchi and of the dark circumstances of his birth and his own moral weakness. The story unfolds in a dreamlike manner—a flashback inspired by a now-infamous image on a silkscreen in the souvenir shop at the so-called Temple of the Wild Geese.
The Temple of Wild Geese
1962