
Acting
Nobuko Otowa
Born 1925-10-01 · Yonago, Tottori Prefecture, Japan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Nobuko Otowa (1 October 1925 – 22 December 1994) was a Japanese film actress. She appeared in 134 films between 1950 and 1994. She was married to film director Kaneto Shindō. She posthumously won the award for best supporting actress at the 19th Japan Academy Prize for A Last Note, having been diagnosed with terminal liver cancer during its production. Description above from the Wikipedia article Nobuko Otowa, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Acting credits
5.9The world-famous woodblock artist Hokusai (1760-1849), a widower in need of a steady income, lives with his daughter Oei in the house of his friend Bakin.
Edo Porn
1981
NRNo synopsis available yet.
The Bell of Love
1959
6.8A Japanese family is torn apart by the tensions of an avoidable nuclear world war between the superpowers.
The Last War
1961
Former playmates (Naito and Tamura), both long ago abandoned by their parents, recall their youth and fall in love.
Once a Rainy Day
1966
7.7While her son, Kichi, is away at war, a woman and her daughter-in-law survive by killing samurai who stray into their swamp, then selling whatever valuables they find. Both are devastated when they learn that Kichi has died, but his wife soon begins an affair with a neighbor who survived the war, Hachi. The mother disapproves and, when she can't steal Hachi for herself, tries to scare her daughter-in-law with a mysterious mask from a dead samurai.
Onibaba
1964
6.3Farmer Abare Goemon is confronted by brigand-like samurai. He raises an army of farmers to fight them and does so brilliantly. When Lord Asakura sees the success Goemon has achieved, he attempts to recruit him to fight in a conflict between Asakura and another clan. Goemon refuses, and Lord Asakura sets out to destroy him.
Rise Against the Sword
1966
8.0A family of four are the sole inhabitants of a small island, where they struggle each day to irrigate their crops.
The Naked Island
1960
7.1A retired actress whose husband has recently died visits her summer home. There she has encounters with old friends and acquaintances who bring various stories and news of death and the past
A Last Note
1995
7.2In 39 interviews with actors and actresses, writers, producers and staff members, interspersed with film excerpts and stills, Shindō recounts the life and career of his friend and mentor Mizoguchi.
Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director
1975
8.0Natsuko’s daughter Saori is born blind in 1941, just before her father is drafted. Despite an attempted surgery and years of struggle, her condition proves permanent. Growing up, she faces stigma and danger but eventually finds hope and love with a fellow blind student.
Till Tomorrow Is
1962
6.7Oshima’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
10.0Based on "Une vie" by Guy de Maupassant
Life of a Woman
1953
NRNo synopsis available yet.
Record of Loving Your Wife
1959
NRA beautiful but sad romantic melodrama about three sisters who are uninhibited, pure and lovely, and who stand tall like the peaks of a place that has endured the winds and snow of love! Eisuke Taniguchi (Shimizu), president of Towa Electric Works, has three beautiful daughters. The eldest, Kozue (Todoroki), is an intelligent and dynamic modern girl, the second, Yoko (Otowa), is a modest girl with Japanese tastes, and the third, Hanayo (Wakayama), is a mischievous girl who has not yet lost her schoolgirl temperament. All three have feelings for Kiichiro Matsuzaki (Uehara), the president of a magazine company. He was married to Kozue, the eldest daughter, by agreement between their parents, but it was Yoko whom he loved, so he asked her to end her engagement to him.
Shojohou
1950
10.0The movie depicts the strength and resilience of a woman who spent her entire life as a merchant in Semba, Osaka.
Flower Shop Curtain
1959
8.0A Japanese film from 1963, Directed by Shirô Toyoda.
The Diplomat's Mansion
1961
6.6Ten years before the outbreak of the Second World War in Asia, a Japanese Go master and his Chinese rival meet in China to play a game of Go (loosely described as an Asian version of chess). It soon becomes evident that the Chinese master's son is the most talented player that the Japanese master has ever encountered, and he convinces the boy's father to let him bring the child back to Japan to train him as a professional Go player. Years pass, and as the young Chinese master grows to maturity in Japan, the Japanese invasion of China forces him to choose between his triumphant career and his loyalty to his native country. His decision is complicated by his marriage to the daughter of the Japanese master, with whom he has produced a child. His choice will profoundly alter the lives of two families. Their saga serves as a reflection of the tragic relations between their two great countries, and the possibility of reconciliation and healing.
The Go Masters
1982
7.8A story of Japanese writer Kafu Nagai (1879-1959), a man about sixty with a huge reputation of seducer who falls madly in love for a young geisha named Oyuki. Meticulous and smartly dressed, Nagai patiently wrote in his diary his thoughts during many years. A melancholy reflection on the passage of time and a brilliant interpretive exercise.
The Strange Tale of Oyuki
1992
10.0No synopsis available yet.
Before Dawn
1953
7.5An ageing fishing boat, Dai-go Fukuryu Maru ("Lucky Dragon No. 5") sets out from the port of Yaizu in Shizuoka Prefecture. It travels around the Pacific line fishing. While the ship is near Bikini Atoll, the ship's navigator sees a flash. All the crew come up to watch. They realize it is an atomic explosion, but take time to clear their fishing gear. A short time later, grey ash starts to fall on the ship. When the ship returns to port the sailors have been burned brown. They unload the fish, which are then transported away. They visit the local doctor and then go to Tokyo for an examination. It turns out they are all highly radioactive. Their symptoms become worse, and the contaminated fish causes a panic.
Lucky Dragon No. 5
1959
NRA contemporary comedy.
The Curio Master
1960
7.1Shows the devastation caused by the atomic bomb, and by use of a fictional storyline, portrays the struggle of the ordinary Japanese people in dealing with the aftermath.
Children of Hiroshima
1952
8.0Story of a woman, Saiko, who divorces her doctor husband when she is given a baby by a stranger who claims it is the husband's child. Saiko embarks on an affair with her cousin's husband, but a crisis threatens when she discovers that her ex-husband is about to remarry.
Hunting Rifle
1961
7.4In the Sengoku period, a woman and her daughter are raped and murdered by soldiers during a time of civil war. Afterwards, a series of samurai returning from the war through that area are found mysteriously dead with their throats torn out. The governor calls in a wild and fierce young hero to quell what is evidently an Onryō ghost.
Kuroneko
1968