Miki Odagiri

Documentary made by Toho for the Masterworks reissue of all of its Kurosawa films. This one focuses on "Ikiru" (1952).

In the 12th century, Buddhism was still a relatively new religion in Japan. At that time, one school (Shingon) offered extensive training in complex and very demanding practices which might eventually bring about spiritual purification and realization. Various Zen schools offered students a lengthy path, literally composed of a blank wall and unceasing meditation. Yet another school (Tendai) emphasized complex metaphysics and the study of philosophical systems. Basically, all of them were designed to cater to the few who were able to give up everything else in their lives and focus on liberation, such as scholars and noblemen. In this historical and biographical drama, this is the situation that the young Shinran (1173-1263) discovered when he began exploring Buddhism as an alternative to the violence and ceaseless civil wars that racked Japan at the time.

Lonely youth Shinji meets Hatsue, a pretty pearl diver, on the beach and the two fall in love. But Shinji has a rival for Hatsue's affections, Yasuo. Yasuo spreads unpleasant gossip about his rival, and Hatsue's father forbids her to see Shinji. But when the boy saves the passengers on a boat owned by Hatsue's father, his luck in love begins to change.

A conscript from a poor background writes the Emperor asking if he can stay in the army when his service is up.

The actions and downfall of a man who lives a life of cold calculation, adapted from a Hideo Shirasaki novel.

1962 Japanese movie

Story of a romance between a middle-aged journalist and a young woman.

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.

A remake of High Noon (1952) as a Japanese jidai-geki sword-fighting movie.

Two detectives begin a stakeout based on the slim chance of catching a murderer whom they suspect will try to reunite with an old flame.

Mokichi Asai is a widowed father living in Nara with three daughters—Chizuru, Ayako, and Setsuko. The youngest, Setsuko, plays matchmaker for her older sisters, leading to humorous and awkward romantic entanglements.

A group of Okinawan high school girls are drafted as nurses during the American invasion of the island. As the enemy army advances further, the situation for the girls becomes increasingly desperate as food and shelter run out and the number of injured climbs, leading to the film's tragic finale.

No synopsis available yet.

A young woman, who must support her father as a middle-aged man's mistress, finds herself falling in love with a student closer to her age.

Lending money, job hunting for civilians and babysitting. All these things are usually not listed on a policeman's job description. But for the officers of this local police station, it‘s part of their daily routine. One day, patrolman Yoshii (Hisaya Morishige) finds an abandoned baby and a six year old girl standing in front of the station. When he's declined by the welfare office, orphanage and local health clinic to take them in, he decides to take care of them himself.

No synopsis available yet.

Based on the novel by proletarian writer Sunao Tokunaga. The story is about a long strike by workers at a large printing house and the strikers' steadfastness, which neither hunger nor violence could break. The heroine of this story actively participates in her colleagues' struggle against layoffs, oppression, and police brutality.

Japanese drama film.

A great ambition to portray with sharp satire and humor the course of modern anxiety and love that is about to be driven to despair.

Yasuichiro Isa, who works in the labor section of Sone Mining Tokyo Headquarters, paid a monthly fee for his younger brother, Reiji, who was in trouble because he had a bonus of 10,000 yen more.

Japanese drama film.

After Shuichiro moved to Tokyo, the Tanno family became completely female, including Mrs. Tanno, Shuichiro's daughter-in-law Manzuko, painter Takashiro Egi, Shizu Kazemaki, Mitsue Nanbu, an intellectual who works in a university laboratory, and an old woman.

No synopsis available yet.

From runaway brides to a typhoon, the continued adventures of Ushikata police station.

A romantic adventure tale about a young guy working on a whale-hunting vessel and his love for a childhood sweetheart.

Film directed by Eichi Koishi and starring Wakao Ayako

Akiko Yasutomi, an 18-year-old high school student, lives in poverty with her mother Hisako, but she has feelings for her cousin, a medical student named Masato Miki, who lives upstairs. However, when Masato becomes a part-time tutor for Akiko's classmate, Natsuko Shigeno, and Akiko becomes close to Natsuko, Akiko feels lonely. These feelings also help her to lose her purity to Junichi Yoda, whom she met by chance through an accidental mistake.

Set in a rubber company in Tokyo, this comedy depicts the sorrows of salarymen in a humorous way, centering on the commotion caused by the passionate salaryman Goro Mutsu, who is transferred from Kyushu.

Film directed by Shima Koji and starring Wakao Ayako

The female members of the family of the Minister of Health and Welfare, who has just proposed a program of birth control, become pregnant one after the other. - Nikkatsu

A priest in Hokkaido adopts a blind orphan girl, and as she grows up he finds himself falling in love with her.