Haruko Katō

Acting

Haruko Katō

Born — Died

1922-11-24 — 2015-11-02

Place of birth

Akasaka, Tokyo, Japan

Known for

Acting

Credits

75 titles

Haruko Katō (加藤 治子 Katō Haruko, 24 November 1922 – 2 November 2015) was a Japanese actress. Haruko Katō was born in Akasaka, Minato, Tokyo, on 24 November 1922. After attending the Shochiku Girls' Opera School, she joined the Shochiku Girls' Opera Company under the stage name Kyoko Mifune. She was signed by the film production company Toho in 1939, making her film debut in Hanatsumi Nikki that same year. In 1940, she joined the New Theatre Research Society, which had been founded by Hiroshi Akutagawa and Michio Kato, whom she married in 1946.

Known for

Howl's Moving Castle poster
8.4

Sophie, a young milliner, is turned into an elderly woman by a witch who enters her shop and curses her. She encounters a wizard named Howl and gets caught up in his resistance to fighting for the king.

Howl's Moving Castle

2004

Kiki's Delivery Service poster
7.8

A young witch, on her mandatory year of independent life, finds fitting into a new community difficult while she supports herself by running an air courier service.

Kiki's Delivery Service

1989

Kimi no na wa poster
8.0

A story of a man and a woman who meet amid the Great Tokyo Air Raid in 1945.

Kimi no na wa

1991

Time Limit Investigator poster
6.7

Shūichirō Kiriyama works at the Limitation Task Force, the place where the cases which have reached the statute of limitations are destroyed. Getting bored of his job, he decides to find a hobby, because it seems important to him to have a hobby. So he decides to puzzle out the unsolved cases on his free time, helped by his coworker Mikazuki, who seems to have a crush on him.

Time Limit Investigator

2006

Furuhata Ninzaburo poster
8.8

Furuhata Ninzaburō is a Japanese television series that ran periodically on Fuji Television from 1994 until its final episodes in 2006. It was written by Japanese playwright Kōki Mitani and is often referred to as the Japanese version of Columbo. The series is a police detective drama starring actor Masakazu Tamura as Furuhata Ninzaburo and Masahiko Nishimura as his stereotypically bumbling sidekick, Shintaro Imaizumi. The program aired weekly and featured a guest villain each time, usually a famous talent in Japan. Pop-stars like SMAP, television hosts like Sanma Akashiya and even sports figures like Ichiro Suzuki have been featured on this program. It was one of the most popular television dramas in the history of Japanese television, having spawned several seasons and TV specials.

Furuhata Ninzaburo

1994

A Thousand and One Nights poster
6.7

Aldin, a vagabond water vendor, embarks of a series of fantastical and tragic misadventures through the Middle East in search of love, fortune, and power.

A Thousand and One Nights

1969

Film credits

2010s · 2 titles

2000s · 9 titles

Howl's Moving Castle poster
8.4

Sophie, a young milliner, is turned into an elderly woman by a witch who enters her shop and curses her. She encounters a wizard named Howl and gets caught up in his resistance to fighting for the king.

Howl's Moving Castle

2004

Spy Sorge poster
6.6

A foreign spy using the Sorge alias is assigned to Tokyo the capital of Japan just prior to the outbreak of World War II and in the midst of the Japanese imperial ambitions in Eastern Asia. The spy becomes acquainted with a sympathetic communist who like he is attached to the ideals of freedom and rule of the masses. Sorge is able to feed the Soviet Union useful information regarding the Axis allies and their movements in Asia and beyond.

Spy Sorge

2003

It's On Me poster
NR

News comes out that several people found 1 kg of solid gold in their mail boxes. Maya Yamabuki moves back to her hometown and surprises the movers by the amount of money she gives them.

It's On Me

2009

Perfect Education 4: Secret Basement poster
3.8

A shy, nerdy man, Takeru finds a schoolgirl hooker Lily is unconscious in a Tokyo park, so he decides to bring her home and lock her up in a secret basement. Although Lily is afraid of him, in fact, Takeru didn't do anything to hurt her. After Lily begins to uncover a shocking episode

Perfect Education 4: Secret Basement

2003

Pistol Opera poster
6.1

An assassin fends off numerous attacks from her comrades, who are trying to move up in rank by killing off the competition.

Pistol Opera

2001

Blooming Again poster
8.0

After the death of a man in their nursing home, a group of residents find his notebook titled "Shinibana" containing a plan to tunnel into and steal 1.7 billion yen from a bank.

Blooming Again

2004

Chameleon poster
5.7

Keiko who leads a lonely life as a fortune teller on the streets meets Goro, a leader of the con-artists. One day, Goro witnesses a group of men kidnapping a middle-aged man in the parking garage. Goro records the man on his cell phone without knowing he could be in big trouble.

Chameleon

2008

Life Is Journey poster
NR

LIFE IS JOURNEY is an anthology of four stories about people who live in solitude, but who yearn for togetherness. Each day brings chance meetings and reluctant partings, joy and pain. The first vignette, "Life", portrays half of a woman's life in one-scene, one-cut, nine-minute sequence. "N" is a comical take on a man abandoned by his lover. "Ya" explores the bond of female friendship as one woman consoles a brokenhearted girlfriend. In "Nowhere", a man and a woman roam the streets of a foreign land in search of lost time.

Life Is Journey

2003

Awakening poster
5.0

After the unexpected death of her husband a new life begins for Toshiko. 30 years of a happy marriage seem to suddenly vanish as she finds out that her husband had lived a double life. Struggling between her anger and the chance to begin a new chapter for herself, she finds her life moving into unchartered waters as she faces her 60th birthday.

Awakening

2007

1990s · 7 titles

Sharaku poster
7.0

Crippled Kabuki player Tonbo is taken in by a strolling company of itinerant actors. An influential publisher notices his honest, bold art, and nurtures him despite persecution and betrayal.

Sharaku

1995

Tasmania Story poster
8.5

Eiji Kawano (Kunie Tanaka) has recently broken from the Japanese company he used to work for. As an immigrant to Tasmania, he has been won over by the island's immense natural beauty, and he is conscience-bound to oppose his former employer's ecologically unsound practices. He is also estranged from his grown son, who still resides in Japan. When his son comes to Tasmania for a visit, he must face the challenge of renewing their relationship.

Tasmania Story

1990

A Brief Message from the Heart poster
8.0

A young woman tries to reconcile with her mother, who left their family for another man.

A Brief Message from the Heart

1995

Bonds poster
5.6

Tetsuro Haga is a troubled gangster, living under the assumed identity Ise for ten years, to escape jail for gunning down his cruel adoptive father. His life begins to unravel when a journalist following him takes an interest in the wife of a boyhood chum, and the wife of another close friend takes an interest in Ise. A couple of murders later, Ise/Haga goes on the run and also sets out for revenge.

Bonds

1998

Body and Soul poster
3.0

A group of four friends and lovers in their forties recall their past intimacies while trying to build new ones.

Body and Soul

1997

Kura poster
7.5

In spite of a longstanding tradition forbidding women from working in a sake brewery, Retsu, a young blind woman, challenges herself to overcome her disability in order to save her family's sake business.

Kura

1995

Secret Liaisons poster
7.0

Movie adaptation of a novel by Rampo Edogawa.

Secret Liaisons

1995

1980s · 21 titles

Kiki's Delivery Service poster
7.8

A young witch, on her mandatory year of independent life, finds fitting into a new community difficult while she supports herself by running an air courier service.

Kiki's Delivery Service

1989

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters poster
7.8

A fictional account of the life of Japanese author Yukio Mishima, combining dramatizations of three of his novels and a depiction of the events of November 25th, 1970.

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters

1985

A Taxing Woman's Return poster
6.4

Ryōko Itakura returns as the tough-as-nails government taxing agent. This time she must figure out a way to expose a fanatical religious cult lead by a corrupt sociopath.

A Taxing Woman's Return

1988

Gonza the Spearman poster
7.0

During the peaceful Tokugawa period, handsome samurai Gonza becomes entangled in a tragic love triangle and a web of deceit while trying to advance his social standing through the tea ceremony.

Gonza the Spearman

1986

Tokyo Blackout poster
6.2

Tokyo 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

Gray Sunset poster
6.2

Grandfather Fuyukichi Takano, a former university professor, gets fired from his museum job when he is affected by Alzheimer's disease, but his affliction serves to deepen family ties. Japan's submission to the 58th Academy Awards for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

Gray Sunset

1985

The Wild Daisy poster
6.3

Born in affluent families among the Japanese mountains, two close cousins fall in love and have to suffer through the social constraints of their time.

The Wild Daisy

1981

Kizu poster
10.0

Once again, director Shunichi Kajima and star Takanori Jinnai are teaming up to create a new type of yakuza film that stylishly depicts the short but vibrant life of legendary urban yakuza Takashi Hanagata.

Kizu

1988

Capone Cries a Lot poster
6.0

Umiemon is a naniwa-bushi singer who travels with his wife to the United States in hopes of achieving fame and fortune.

Capone Cries a Lot

1985

Deaths in Tokimeki poster
7.2

Deaths in Tokimeki tells the story of a nondescript hitman, in a remote country villa, waiting to carry out a job: the assassination of the leader of a religious cult.

Deaths in Tokimeki

1984

Caribe: Symphony of Love poster
7.0

The love story of an architect and a fashion designer in Mexico.

Caribe: Symphony of Love

1985

No artwork available
NR

Adaptation of a 1956 novel by Yukio Mishima.

The S.S. Happiness Sets Sail

1980

Umi e, See You poster
10.0

Team DANKAI are set to compete in the Paris-Dakar Rally, an off-road endurance race spanning thousands of miles and multiple continents. Prior to the event, DANKAI leader Mizuki is ordered by their sponsor to add popular celebrity Ryuichi Yoshii to the roster for publicity. This exacerbates DANKAI's resentments and baggage. Needing a steady hand to mediate dispute and navigate their support vehicle, Mizuki recruits legendary retired mechanic/driver Eiji Honma to the team. Soon Honma discovers his ex-wife Kei is also participating in the rally, alongside her current husband, the bullfighter Antonio Vázquez. Honma's truck also comes to include stowaway passenger Yuko Takei, Yoshii's pop star girlfriend who is trying to salvage their relationship.

Umi e, See You

1988

Beyond the Shining Sea poster
7.0

Heartbroken Ukiko takes refuge with a relative after a devastating breakup. While away, she makes a dangerous match with the husband of her frigid cousin.

Beyond the Shining Sea

1986

The Dancer poster
6.4

Against the backdrop of late 19th-century Berlin, Toyotaro Ota, a young Japanese uni student studying in Germany, meets and falls in love with 16-year-old local dancer Elise. Their unconventional affair and subsequent cohabitation stir up a massive scandal that threatens his reputation, eventually reaching the ears of officials in Japan.

The Dancer

1989

Someday, Someone Will Be Killed poster
5.5

While trying to search for her missing father, Atsuko Moriya meets a group of outcasts that help her. Having only an encrypted disk in her possession and while being chased by unknown people, Atsuko tries to solve the mystery of her family origins.

Someday, Someone Will Be Killed

1984

Something Like It poster
5.0

Life seems to be good for Shintoto, an up-and-coming rakugo artist who has just had his first sexual experience at a local brothel. Lucky for him, he gets to date the beautiful sex worker he meets that day, and a younger high school rakugo aficionado is also vying for his attention. But for clumsy, heart-on-his-sleeve Shintoto, life doesn’t stay rosy for long.

Something Like It

1981

The House of Wedlock poster
8.0

Tokiko Enomoto finds out that her husband Kazuya, who mostly lives at an apartment near his work while she and their children live at home, has been having an affair with a live-in mistress, Ryōko, at his apartment. Tokiko tells her two sons, Tarō and Jirō, that she has decided to divorce their father. The children are shocked but understand their mother's position. Kazuya realizes the damage he has done and tries to remedy the situation.

The House of Wedlock

1986

Lanterns on Blue Waters poster
5.8

The story of a Japanese man who as a 16-year-old went to Maui to work in the sugar cane fields in order to support his family back in Japan. Now 89 and still living in Hawaii he is visited by his granddaughter who brings him a letter from his disinherited and recently dead son. This brings back memories of his life with his wife and family following the attack on Pearl Harbor, in particular of his son who had gone off to join the war for the Americans.

Lanterns on Blue Waters

1983

Carefree Goddesses poster
7.0

No synopsis available yet.

Carefree Goddesses

1987

The Scent of Honey between a Man and a Woman poster
NR

The film depicts the counterattack by Haimis, who was swindled out of a large sum of money by a marriage swindler. Shizue (Tomoko Hoshino) goes to visit her parents' grave and meets Yamakawa (Ryo Tamura), who works for an airline company. Shizue is unwittingly captivated by his stylish manner and charming manner of speaking. However, Yamakawa is a marriage swindler. Shizue is lured by his clever words, and is forced to pay him over 5 million yen in tribute.

The Scent of Honey between a Man and a Woman

1987

1970s · 5 titles

1960s · 10 titles

A Thousand and One Nights poster
6.7

Aldin, a vagabond water vendor, embarks of a series of fantastical and tragic misadventures through the Middle East in search of love, fortune, and power.

A Thousand and One Nights

1969

The Girl I Abandoned poster
9.0

Tsutomu Yoshioka, a Tokyo office worker, is engaged to Mariko, the niece of his company's president. But Yoshioka has a crisis of consence when he remembers his former love Mitsu, a rural girl whom he met and later left while in college. Shimako, a former friend, persuades Yoshioka to meet with Mitsu while she plots to blackmail Yoshioka by photographing the meeting to break up Mariko and Yoshioka.

The Girl I Abandoned

1969

春日和 poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

春日和

1967

Fūryū onsen bantō nikki poster
NR

1962 Japanese movie

Fūryū onsen bantō nikki

1962

Till Tomorrow Is poster
8.0

Natsuko’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

Green Fruit poster
NR

Two sisters live with their family. The elder is reserved; the younger lively. Yet, the former is first engaged and all goes well until the young man disappears

Green Fruit

1964

Young Girls Are Everywhere poster
8.0

No synopsis available yet.

Young Girls Are Everywhere

1966

East China Sea poster
10.0

Rokurō starts a part-time job on a fishing boat, but the ship has an engine failure in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

East China Sea

1968

若い川の流れ poster
NR

The story follows Misako Kitaoka, a junior college graduate and Nitto Lease sales department employee, as she grows through work, love, and friendship. For the sake of the company's managing director and his wife, Misako recommends her colleague Tensuke Sone to Fusako, the managing director's daughter and best friend. Fusako and Sone meet at the executive director's Karuizawa villa, but for some reason Kensuke becomes angry when he learns that Misako is the one who recommended him...

若い川の流れ

1968

Camellia Gate poster
NR

Chikako, who was living in a room at a temple affiliated with Yasaka Shrine in Kyoto while attending a women’s college, was deeply shocked when her boyfriend, Hashida, coldly rejected her after she told him she was pregnant.

Camellia Gate

1964

1950s · 4 titles

Series credits

Kimi no na wa poster
8.0

A story of a man and a woman who meet amid the Great Tokyo Air Raid in 1945.

Kimi no na wa

1991

Time Limit Investigator poster
6.7

Shūichirō Kiriyama works at the Limitation Task Force, the place where the cases which have reached the statute of limitations are destroyed. Getting bored of his job, he decides to find a hobby, because it seems important to him to have a hobby. So he decides to puzzle out the unsolved cases on his free time, helped by his coworker Mikazuki, who seems to have a crush on him.

Time Limit Investigator

2006

Furuhata Ninzaburo poster
8.8

Furuhata Ninzaburō is a Japanese television series that ran periodically on Fuji Television from 1994 until its final episodes in 2006. It was written by Japanese playwright Kōki Mitani and is often referred to as the Japanese version of Columbo. The series is a police detective drama starring actor Masakazu Tamura as Furuhata Ninzaburo and Masahiko Nishimura as his stereotypically bumbling sidekick, Shintaro Imaizumi. The program aired weekly and featured a guest villain each time, usually a famous talent in Japan. Pop-stars like SMAP, television hosts like Sanma Akashiya and even sports figures like Ichiro Suzuki have been featured on this program. It was one of the most popular television dramas in the history of Japanese television, having spawned several seasons and TV specials.

Furuhata Ninzaburo

1994

Veterinarian Dolittle poster
6.2

Tottori Kenichi is a foul-mouthed but gifted veterinarian nicknamed Dolittle. His catch phrase is 'pet care means business'. He is the director of his animal clinic and rescues not only 'voiceless' pets but also helps their owners, who lack understanding and caution, with their problems and worries. Working with him is animal nurse Tajima Asuka. Hanabishi Masaru is Dolittle's rival, a charismatic vet and director of another animal hospital who has not only an opposite personality but also a different stance towards pet care.

Veterinarian Dolittle

2010

Yumechiyo Nikki poster
NR

Yumechiyo is the madam of a geisha house in a remote hot spring in the San'in region. When Yumechiyo learns that she is dying of leukemia caused by the atomic bomb, she writes about her life in the form of a diary, which is a collection of human dramas and the joys and sorrows of her life.

Yumechiyo Nikki

1981

Hito wa sore wo scandal to iu poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Hito wa sore wo scandal to iu

1978

Ashura no Gotoku poster
3.7

Kuniko Mukōda's masterpiece, a poignant and subtle portrait of the jealousy and suspicion that secretly swirl behind seemingly peaceful family relationships.

Ashura no Gotoku

1979

Marriage Begins With A Lie poster
NR

The story follows Ryota Mizusawa, a kitchen unit salesman, and Masumi Sakaki, a hand model and single mother of two children. Due to a real estate scam, both Ryota and Masumi are sold the same apartment. To retain their new home, they decide to pose as a married couple, leading to a series of comedic and heartfelt situations as they navigate their unconventional living arrangement.

Marriage Begins With A Lie

1993

Korekara: Umibe no Tabibitotachi poster
NR

Through the lives of people aging in a seaside retirement home, the drama depicts the aging process that comes to everyone.

Korekara: Umibe no Tabibitotachi

1993

突然の明日 poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

突然の明日

1980

Terauchi Kantarō Ikka poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Terauchi Kantarō Ikka

1974

なんたって18歳! poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

なんたって18歳!

1971

Fuyu no Undokai poster
NR

A love story about a young man who, despite being shunned by his father after shoplifting in high school, strives to live strongly with the support of his girlfriend..

Fuyu no Undokai

1977

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

森繁久彌の七人の孫

1987

Kyukei no Koya poster
NR

Based on novel 1962 "Kyukei no Koya" by Seicho Matsumoto. A serial murder occurs around the heroine Kumiko because she finds evidence that her father, who should have died, was "alive." Set in 1945, near the end of WW II, Kenichiro Nogami is reported to have died in a Swiss hospital. In fact, he is working behind the scenes to save Japan from destruction. For this cause, Kenichiro Nogami has left behind his wife and nation to work in hiding.

Kyukei no Koya

1978