
Acting
Fumio Watanabe
Born — Died
1929-10-31 — 2004-08-04
Place of birth
Tokyo, Tokyo Prefecture, Japan
Known for
Acting
Credits
69 titles
Fumio Watanabe October 31, 1929 – August 4, 2004 was a Japanese actor most known for his work with Japanese New Wave director Nagisa Oshima. He was born in Tokyo and graduated from the University of Tokyo before joining the Shōchiku studio in 1956.
Known for
7.0Key Hunter is a prime-time Japanese television detective series. It aired on Saturday nights in the 9:00–9:56 p.m. time slot on the Tokyo Broadcasting System network from April 6, 1968 to April 7, 1973. There were a total of 262 episodes, and it was one of the most popular action dramas in Japan at the time. The story involved "Key Hunter", a special clandestine unit of the International Police, which endeavored to solve various crimes. "Key Hunter" was a unique TV show, which started out as a grand scale spy thriller never before seen in Japan. The episodes were individually themed on global crimes and political strife. The initial hardboiled theme later evolved to include intellectual elements involving action, and occasionally with comical elements as well. Tetsuro Tamba starred in the 1967 film You Only Live Twice as Japanese Secret Service agent Tiger Tanaka, an ally of James Bond. This role greatly influenced his image in "Key Hunter".
Key Hunter
1968
NRThe 4th NHK Asadora. Starring Michiko Hayashi as a woman born in poverty who lives a brave life. She lost her husband in war and now must take care of their 5-year-old child alone. Adapted from the novel of the same name by Fumiko Hayashi.
Uzushio
1964
5.6A young magistrate recalls three tales of heinous crimes committed by women, and the brutal punishments that ensued.
Shogun's Joy of Torture
1968
NRThirteen years after his mother took her own life as a ritual sacrifice for the Black Mass, samurai Kyoshiro (Masakazu Tamura), who lives his life with his eyes turned away from happiness, uses his beloved sword to slay his enemies who come at him.....
Nemuri Kyoshiro
1972
8.2Kaji, sent to the Japanese army labeled Red, witnesses cruelties in the army and revolts against the abusive treatment against a fellow recruit. He also sees his friend Shinjô defecting to the Russian border, and he ends in the front to fight a lost battle against the Russian tanks division.
The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity
1959
NRNo synopsis available yet.
シークレット部隊
1972
Film credits
1980s · 4 titles
10.0No synopsis available yet.
The Key
1983
6.2In the middle of the 16th century, Hideyoshi, a power hungry warlord sets out to destroy the Momochi clan. He sends his war commander in search of the clan's hidden gold only to find that two daggers are the key to the hiding place of the treasured gold. Spanning decades, the quest for the missing daggers takes Shiranui through war and ancient tradition.
Shogun's Ninja
1980
6.7A young man murders his new bride and goes insane. He wakes in an asylum with no memory, left in the hands of two mysterious doctors who relate his condition with his biological identity.
Dogra Magra
1988
6.2Tokyo is suddenly covered by a dome-shaped electromagnetic cloud for an unknown reason and is totally blocked and isolated from other parts of the world. The temperature inside the cloud is slowly increasing. The Soviet Pacific fleet is getting closer. The U.S. is forcing Japan to form a new government. Scientists and research workers outside Tokyo have to race against time to find out how to get through the cloud in order to rescue the 12,000,000+ lives in Tokyo and the fate of the country.
Tokyo Blackout
1987
1970s · 31 titles
7.1After being cruelly set up and deceived by Sugimi, a detective in cahoots with the mob with whom she was whole-heartedly in love, Matsushima’s desire for revenge knows no bounds.
Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion
1972
6.8Takuma Tsurugi takes on the government, the police, the mafia and an international ring of kidnappers who aim to dispossess a beautiful young heiress of her millions.
The Street Fighter
1974
6.418 years after the mysterious death of her mother, Maya takes religious vows to find out what terrible things happened to her mother inside the Sacred Heart Convent. As soon as the door closes to the nunnery, the nuns start torturing her. She also has to deal with a lecherous archbishops and a lesbian mother superior.
The Transgressor
1974
7.1After being used and betrayed by the detective she had fallen in love with, young Matsu is sent to a female prison full of sadistic guards and disobedient prisoners.
Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41
1972
6.9A Japanese bullet train is threatened with a bomb that will explode automatically if the train slows below 80 km/h, unless a ransom is paid. Police race to find the bombers so the train crew can learn how to defuse the bomb.
The Bullet Train
1975
4.4Kumi Taguchi is a model who leaves her boxer boyfriend after he sustains an injury. She meets and quickly marries Hideo, the heir to a corporate empire. Hideo's father, Takehiko, lusts after Kumi. Takehiko sends his son away, ostensibly on a business trip, but actually so that he can be murdered by Takehiko's henchmen. Takehiko seduces Kumi, but is frustrated when she refuses to perform oral sex on him. Angered, Takehiko forces Kumi to undergo surgery in which her clitoris is transferred to her throat, thereby requiring that she engage in oral sex in order to have an orgasm. Hideo, the supposedly murdered son, returns having paid off his assassins. Hideo shoots and kills his father, but Kumi grabs the gun and kills Hideo so that she can inherit the family's fortune
Deep Throat in Tokyo
1975
7.2The three-film saga comes to a conclusion as three leaders of the underworld battle it out to determine who will become Don of Japan.
Japanese Godfather: Conclusion
1978
7.0Global South guerrillas hijack the Japanese oil tanker Arabian Light, threatening to blow it up in Tokyo Bay, unless the Cabinet complies with an economically devastating ultimatum.
Conflagration
1975
5.8Set in 13th century Kyoto, where the Imperial court is under control of the clergy. Shijo was a peasant girl sold to a powerful daima as a concubine. Bored by her life in seclusion she starts an affair with State Councillor and the brother of a retired Emperor. Realising that she is only a plaything of the court, she becomes a nun and wanders the country.
It Was a Faint Dream
1974
5.0Kiyohime, a daughter of Tokugawa Ienari is married-off to Tadateru Ogura, the lord of a Kyushu clan. However, the lord's sexual inexperience and Kiyohime's strict morals lead to significant crisis in their marriage. To improve his sexual prowess, the lord is introduced to Sandra, a French woman held captive by usurer-smuggler Hatakaya. This results in the lord's choosing Sandra as his mistress. Kiyohime's attendants see this move as an insult and have Sandra beaten and imprisoned. Nevertheless, Sandra escapes with the help of Morita, a retainer of the lord. Out of bitterness and as some sort of revenge, the lord imposes a sex ban on his subjects.
The Erotomaniac Daimyo
1972
6.8Oshima’s magisterial epic, centering on the ambivalent surviving heir of the Sakurada clan, uses ritual and the microcosm of the traditional family to trace the rise and fall of militaristic Japan across several decades.
The Ceremony
1971
7.4Official Shogunate executioner Ogami Itto has been framed for disloyalty to the Shogunate by the Yagyu clan, against whom he now is waging a one-man war, along with his infant son, Daigoro.
Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance
1972
6.2Akiyama 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
7.0Using a lesser mobster as bait a government agent infiltrates a narcotics-smuggling gang to try to capture the boss. But his survival has a price.
Dangerous Trade in Kobe
1973
9.0Fresh out of jail, a smart-mouth wise guy Goro takes the name “Big Brother Katsumata.” Not fitting in well with established gangs, he forms a rag-tag gang called “the Shinjuku Brothers.” The members of their gang are thugs who only wish they were traditional yakuza. When they turn up at the funeral for a gangster, they are not welcomed, but a senior boss intervenes to keep things calm. The boss of bosses invites them to join a respected local council of warlords. Katsumata is suspicious of why such powerful men would extend an invitation to lowlife like himself.
Thugs of Shinjuku
1970
5.4Yuki Onozaki, who was studying at a Women's College in Tokyo, was originally a young and ignorant girl, but her life changed completely in the summer of a certain year. During the summer vacation, Yuki returned to her hometown of Kyoto, only to be raped by the lover of her mother. Yuki then abandoned her studies and chose a depraved life. She met the gang leader Kiyoshi Oba and factory industrialists. Although these men could give her more or less physical comfort, they could not open Yuki's locked heart. It was not until the appearance of the young architect Yoichiro Honma that Yuki's love flower gradually bloomed. Soon, Yoichiro's first love while studying in France, Sandra, finds her, which makes Yuki's heart surge. After several twists and turns, Yoichiro decided to marry Yuki, but the trials never stopped...
The Insatiable
1971
6.2The most dangerous hired gun in Kyushu's underworld has managed to trigger a vicious gang war, and now, there's a contract on his life. Though nobody is more skilled in the arts of dealing death, can the tattooed hitman fend off the entire Japanese mafia as he searches for the man who wants him dead?
The Tattooed Hitman
1974
7.0No synopsis available yet.
Dagger
1971
6.8The great Bunta stars as a gangster who is sent to jail for the sake of his gang, but when he’s released he finds everything completely changed and his gang has swept him aside for being too violent. He tries to start a new life with his two ”brothers” but can’t seem to escape old affiliations
Outlaw Killers: Three Mad Dog Brothers
1972
7.0Ken Takakura stars as Ryoji one of the Aramasa family's loyal lieutenants whao takes the burden of his family being insulted by the Tanuma's family goons, by retaliating on his own. After injuring the head of Tanuma's family, and slaying others along the way, he then surrenders to the law and serves time. Before his last year to serve, the head of the Aramasa family falls ill and decides to retire, Ryoji miss chance to be successor, his old friend is reluctant but accepts. Now this gives the Tanuma family a chance for revenge! But with Tomisaburo Wakayama (Sekine) always having your back, how can you go wrong?
House of Gamblers
1970
10.0Terrorists hijack an oil tanker and threaten to blow it up unless Japan meets their demands.
High Seas Hijack
1977
9.0The last in the series. Sugawara runs into two mahjong cheaters (Ichiro Araki and Mako Midori + sidekick Takuzo Kawatani) whom he takes for friends in need as his naivety prevents him from seeing their true nature.
The Viper Brothers and the Young General
1975
7.5When 150 guns are stolen from Iwakuni base and two police officers are shot dead, a detective criminal tries to find out the truth.
Internal Sleuth
1973
7.1An outlaw pushes the residents of Edo's red light district to rebel against a growing number of stifling, moralistic laws.
The Scandalous Adventures of Buraikan
1970
7.7An ambitious Kansai yakuza don moves in on Tokyo using financial and political tactics, sparking conflict with a local criminal association.
Japanese Godfather: Ambition
1977
5.0Set loose in a postwar world with no rules, an ex-juvenile delinquent begins building the most powerful gang in Tokyo's glittering Shibuya ward.
Quarreling with Yakuza
1973
8.7Japanese crime film.
Cobra
1974
7.0Ninth installment in the "Gokudo" series. Depicts the activities of Shimamura Seikichi and his henchmen.
Gokudo of Kamagasaki
1973
7.4The story takes place in the sunset days of the yakuza in 1965. The postwar turmoil that created the black market and lubricated illegal business opportunities was giving way to Japan Inc. A young Bunta Sugawara takes over as the oyabun of a crime syndicate in Yokohama, where he is struggling to keep operations at the port there alive. As his syndicate is eroding quickly, a major heavy industries company offers his gang the chance to chase some vagrants out of a shantytown where they are squatting on land where a factory is to be built. The job would secure steady profits for Bunta's crime ring for years to come. However, Bunta and other members of his outfit grew up in the shanty, and they would be muscling their friends and neighbors. This sets the stage for an internal struggle that complicates the violent struggle with a rival mafia organization in Tokyo.
Bloodstained Clan of Honor
1970
6.4An undercover cop insinuates himself into a yakuza family. Managing to avert an assassination attack on the boss he is assigned to kill a rival boss.
Kamikaze Cop, Marihuana Syndicate
1970
10.0With a Kansai syndicate vying for Tokyo, one man reunites with his roguish half-brother in the midst of negotiations, when all hell breaks loose.
The Maizuru Showdown between The Yakuza Brothers
1974
1960s · 22 titles
5.6A young magistrate recalls three tales of heinous crimes committed by women, and the brutal punishments that ensued.
Shogun's Joy of Torture
1968
7.2A family of four lives off of scams in which they pretend to be injured by automobiles.
Boy
1969
7.7A woman and her daughter are each forced to contend with an increasing pressure to marry, particularly from three men who knew her late husband.
Late Autumn
1960
7.5A Korean man is sentenced to death in Japan but somehow survives his execution, sending the authorities into a panic about what to do next.
Death by Hanging
1968
5.8After committing murder, businessman Atsushi is blackmailed into keeping a suitcase of embezzled money. What follows is a descent into lustful, reckless actions and regret.
Pleasures of the Flesh
1965
6.6A harsh young man seduces a freeloading young woman and eventually takes advantage of her knack for hitchhiking to rob middle-class men.
Cruel Story of Youth
1960
4.8In Tokyo's Shinjuku district, the lives of a young man prone to theft, a young woman he meets at a bookstore, and a kabuki actor intersect.
Diary of a Shinjuku Thief
1969
7.7In a time of continuous civil wars ravaging the fields of feudal Japan, the eldest son of a very poor peasant family, living alongside the bridge over the Fuefuki river, decides to serve a warlord to escape his miserable condition, being soon followed by his younger brothers. Although not all the men of the family take this tragic path of death, women of the family will be doomed to endure the pain of loss during the next five generations.
The River Fuefuki
1960
7.5An Osaka gangster Shimamura just got married. His new bride, Mineko is also involved in drug trafficking. When she goes to China to make a deal, things get botched pretty badly. Shimamura must travel to save her and recoup his employers’ losses.
Yakuza on Foot
1969
6.2Two young women must come to terms with the fact that a man they're deeply linked to is a murdering rapist.
Violence at Noon
1966
6.5In Osaka's slum, capricious folks without futures engage in pilfering, assault and robbery, prostitution, and the trading of ID cards and blood.
The Sun's Burial
1960
6.5Long takes and a highly theatrical visual approach combine to form a tense and confrontational look at the decline of a socialist student activists' movement in Japan.
Night and Fog in Japan
1960
NRKokubu Masaru (Bunta Sugawara) is a hard-headed, hot-tempered member of a street vendor clan run by an elderly boss (Kanjuro Arashi). They come into conflict with an unholy alliance of evil Yakuza bosses (Watanabe, Amatsu and Kawazu).
Kanto Street Peddlers
1969
7.5No synopsis available yet.
Organized Violence II
1967
6.9Yoshida's first feature follows the lives of young students against a background of jazz, emptiness and boredom. The plot is fairly simple: a "good-for-nothing" from a poor background falls in love with the young secretary of his rich friend's father. The woman senses good in him and tries to lead him on the right path.
Good-for-Nothing
1960
NRNo synopsis available yet.
Invitation to Jail
1967
7.0Coal miner Isamu Oba is forced to quit his village and leave his mother and siblings behind. Mining buddy Ichiro accompanies him to Tokyo, and the pair enjoy several "fish-out-of-water" sequences before finding employment at a boxing gym with trainer Sawada and his spunky sister Tomoko. The boys also find part time night jobs as roving minstrels in the club district courtesy of benevolent gang boss Asakawa. Of course, they run afoul of boss Karasawa's cruel gang. Karasawa also has it in for Asakawa, and this indirectly throws a spanner into the works as far as Isamu's burgeoning success as a kickboxer. When Asakawa's HQ is burned to the ground by Karasawa's men, Asakawa tries to kill Karasawa - which, of course, leads to his own gruesome death. Isamu goes on the rampage with his sword, wiping out Karasawa and men.
Rogue
1968
7.3The first film in the 2 part series about Ryuzen, a renegade martial-arts priest who, in addition to breaking all the commandments against sex and gambling, opens his own gambling den in direct defiance of the local yakuza boss. Exciting action and a twisty plot this movie breaks new barriers in Japanese cinema. Katsu Shintaro is superb in one of his better non-Zato Ichi roles as he fights off the advances of a love-lorn woman and risks his life to defeat the powerful gambling boss who has a stranglehold on the town.
The Hoodlum Priest
1967
6.9After 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
5.7Three students spend their holidays at the seaside where they are mistaken for Koreans, a minority which is looked down on in Japan. The action develops into a crime story.
Three Resurrected Drunkards
1968
NRNo synopsis available yet.
Sanctuary
1961
NRJiro, a smooth-talking, womanizing bartender, flees from a Yakuza boss to Yanagase.
Yanagase Blues
1967
1950s · 3 titles
8.2Kaji, sent to the Japanese army labeled Red, witnesses cruelties in the army and revolts against the abusive treatment against a fellow recruit. He also sees his friend Shinjô defecting to the Russian border, and he ends in the front to fight a lost battle against the Russian tanks division.
The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity
1959
7.4Wataru's outwardly liberal views on marriage are severely tested when his daughter declares her love for a coworker and is adamant to live her own way, instead of agreeing to an arranged marriage. Outwitted by his female relatives, Hirayama stubbornly refuses to admit defeat.
Equinox Flower
1958
7.0A love triangle develops between a benevolent student, his innocent girlfriend, and a cruel petty criminal, all as a point of diagnosis of a social disease that had Japan slowly succumbing to lawlessness during the post-War era.
Black River
1957
Series credits
7.0Key Hunter is a prime-time Japanese television detective series. It aired on Saturday nights in the 9:00–9:56 p.m. time slot on the Tokyo Broadcasting System network from April 6, 1968 to April 7, 1973. There were a total of 262 episodes, and it was one of the most popular action dramas in Japan at the time. The story involved "Key Hunter", a special clandestine unit of the International Police, which endeavored to solve various crimes. "Key Hunter" was a unique TV show, which started out as a grand scale spy thriller never before seen in Japan. The episodes were individually themed on global crimes and political strife. The initial hardboiled theme later evolved to include intellectual elements involving action, and occasionally with comical elements as well. Tetsuro Tamba starred in the 1967 film You Only Live Twice as Japanese Secret Service agent Tiger Tanaka, an ally of James Bond. This role greatly influenced his image in "Key Hunter".
Key Hunter
1968
NRThe 4th NHK Asadora. Starring Michiko Hayashi as a woman born in poverty who lives a brave life. She lost her husband in war and now must take care of their 5-year-old child alone. Adapted from the novel of the same name by Fumiko Hayashi.
Uzushio
1964
NRThirteen years after his mother took her own life as a ritual sacrifice for the Black Mass, samurai Kyoshiro (Masakazu Tamura), who lives his life with his eyes turned away from happiness, uses his beloved sword to slay his enemies who come at him.....
Nemuri Kyoshiro
1972
NRNo synopsis available yet.
シークレット部隊
1972
NRNo synopsis available yet.
The Great Chase
1978
NRBased on the Osamu Tezuka manga
Vampires
1968
7.0Momoe lives a life of luxury until one day, she loses everything... her money, her father and her lover. She must now find a way to support herself. With no experience whatsoever, she nonchalently applies for a position at at French restaurant where she once enjoyed a consomme soup many years earlier. Momoe was attracted to the French restaurant, La Petit Lapin, because of the wonderful owner, Kansuke and the delicious soup that was invented by the chef, Orita Keiji. Keiji, a first-rate chef, was trained in Paris at the two-star restaurant, Grand Bleu, and is as a result, a little spoiled and snobby. Find out what happens next when Momoe is taken on as an apprentice and must prove herself to Keiji.
Delicious Relation
1996
NRA hard-boiled detective drama. Detective Aida, who belongs to the Special Investigation Department founded by the Special Prosecutor's Office, gathers the outcasts of the Metropolitan Police Department and fights evil with an unconventional investigative method.
Hijo no License
1973
NRThe tumultuous life of the fallen Isoroku Yamamoto is depicted, along with his family, friends, and subordinates, his bonds with the women who loved and watched over him, and the sorrows of the nameless people who have disappeared in the torrent of history.
Umi ni kakeru Niji: Yamamoto Isoroku to Nippon Kaigun
1983
