Masami Shimojō

Acting

Masami Shimojō

Born — Died

1915-08-26 — 2004-07-25

Place of birth

Busan, South Korea

Known for

Acting

Credits

67 titles

Japanese film and stage actor. He appeared in more than 100 films. Hoping to become a film director, Shimojō traveled to Tokyo in 1935 but ended up joining a theater troupe, debuting on stage in 1936. He made his film debut in 1940, but continued on stage well after World War II, primarily as a member of Gekidan Mingei. He was most known, however, for playing the uncle of Torajiro Kuruma in the long-running Otoko wa Tsurai yo series. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Known for

Tales of the Bizarre poster
7.8

Inspired by American TV movies like "Hitchcock Theater" and "The Twilight Zone," the show features multiple works with Tamori as the storyteller and actors as the main characters. While horror and supernatural themes are predominant, a variety of genres like comedy and drama are also produced. Most episodes, however, have a bad ending.

Tales of the Bizarre

1990

Furuya Ikkou's Great Detective Kindaichi Kousuke Series poster
7.0

No synopsis available yet.

Furuya Ikkou's Great Detective Kindaichi Kousuke Series

1983

Professional Killers poster
8.0

A shikakenin was an under-the-cover trade that undertook killing in Edo. Hanemon of Otowa, an agency that introduced laborers and maids, was also one of these. Katsugoro Iseya was a timber dealer who had come in as a client. His target was the constructions magistrate Hanno, and the Tatsumiya who sipped on the benefits. Hanemon who had a stong code towards killing, where he would only kill those who do no good to be in the world, accepts this request. Baian Fujieda, a needle doctor would carry out the killing. However, the professional killer Baian fails to bring down Tatsumiya. Hanemon then looks to another shikakenin, the ronin Sanai Nishimura for the role. Although Sanai's ability with the sword is good, he lives poorly in a tenement, and accepts this commission on the condition that it is kept a secret from his wife and child. Here, they close in on Hanno and Tatsumiya again...

Professional Killers

1972

Life of a Flower poster
7.0

The story chronicles the life of Ii Naosuke.

Life of a Flower

1963

Kids Return poster
6.9

Shinji and Masaru spend most of their school days harassing fellow classmates and playing pranks. They drop out and Shinji becomes a small-time boxer, while Masaru joins up with a local yakuza gang. However, the world is a tough place.

Kids Return

1996

Tora-san Plays Daddy poster
8.3

A playboy-gambler friend of Tora-san’s dies and, abandoned by his mother, his little boy suddenly turns up in Shibamata. Searching for the boy’s mother, Tora-san meets a cosmetics saleslady and the three become a surrogate family, with Tora-san as “daddy”.

Tora-san Plays Daddy

1987

Film credits

1990s · 11 titles

Kids Return poster
6.9

Shinji and Masaru spend most of their school days harassing fellow classmates and playing pranks. They drop out and Shinji becomes a small-time boxer, while Masaru joins up with a local yakuza gang. However, the world is a tough place.

Kids Return

1996

Tsugumi poster
7.5

Tsugumi, who lives in a small seaside town, has been in delicate health from birth. Her parents spoiled her and she is rough and selfish. However, a few people are attracted by her beauty and unique character.

Tsugumi

1990

Tora-san's Matchmaker poster
9.0

After failing to find a job, Mitsuo becomes a fisherman on a small island, and develops a crush on a young nurse there. Tora-san, dispatched to bring Mitsuo back home, himself falls in love with an attractive but troubled woman visiting her father.

Tora-san's Matchmaker

1993

Many Happy Returns poster
6.9

A young man named Kazuo Takayama runs across a religious group whose founder cures an old woman in a wheelchair, restoring her power to walk by a simple touch. Kazuo grows more interested in this new religion and tries to get more followers.

Many Happy Returns

1993

Tora-san's Tropical Fever Special Version poster
8.5

Carrying a bag full of samples, Mitsuo makes rounds to shoe stores in remote cities. While staying at budget hotels, his thoughts turn to Tora-san.

Tora-san's Tropical Fever Special Version

1997

Tora-san Makes Excuses poster
8.0

Tora befriends a pretty barbershop owner and runs into Izumi. When Tora twists his ankle, Mitsuo comes to care for him and see Izumi. Meanwhile, Izumi must choose between her new job in Tokyo and returning to Nagoya to care for her mother.

Tora-san Makes Excuses

1992

Tora-san to the Rescue poster
7.8

Tora-san works hard to bring together his nephew, Mitsuo, and Mitsuo’s girlfriend who is engaged to someone else.

Tora-san to the Rescue

1995

Tora-san Confesses poster
7.8

When Izumi can't stand seeing her mother flirt with other men, she leaves home. She sends a letter to Mitsuo and Mitsuo goes looking for her. But Izumi unexpectedly meets Tora-san.

Tora-san Confesses

1991

Akio Jissoji's Wonder Museum 2 poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Akio Jissoji's Wonder Museum 2

1992

Tora-san Takes a Vacation poster
7.7

Mitsuo goes to Nagoya to visit Izumi, whose father left Izumi’s sad, bar hostess mother for another woman, so together they decide to confront him in Oita. Meanwhile, Izumi’s mother befriends Tora-san and together they travel to Oita to meet them, with Tora-san quickly falling for her en route.

Tora-san Takes a Vacation

1990

The Rainbow Seeker poster
7.0

A young man fails his company entrance exams and leaves home to work at a run-down cinema in Tokushima, whose owner lives to bring entertaining films to the residents of his small town.

The Rainbow Seeker

1996

1980s · 20 titles

Tora-san Plays Daddy poster
8.3

A playboy-gambler friend of Tora-san’s dies and, abandoned by his mother, his little boy suddenly turns up in Shibamata. Searching for the boy’s mother, Tora-san meets a cosmetics saleslady and the three become a surrogate family, with Tora-san as “daddy”.

Tora-san Plays Daddy

1987

Final Take: The Golden Age of Movies poster
6.6

Director Ogata discovers a new female star in Koharu Tanaka, who works selling candy at a studio theater and she is given a part as a bit player. After the studio's top leading lady is embroiled in a scandal, Koharu is suddenly thrust into the limelight when she replaces her in a film and gains instant fame and fortune. But the going is not always easy, and she soon seeks help from unexpected quarters.

Final Take: The Golden Age of Movies

1986

Tora-san's Love in Osaka poster
9.0

When his travels bring him to Osaka, Tora-san falls in love with a local geisha. He helps her to track down her estranged brother, and informs his family that he plans to marry her. His plans are foiled when the geisha informs Tora-san that she is engaged.

Tora-san's Love in Osaka

1981

Tora-san's Song of Love poster
8.3

Tora-san returns to his family home to learn that his brother-in-law cannot go to Mitsuo's (Tora-san's nephew) athletic event. Tora-san volunteers to take his place, but gets into an argument with his brother-in-law's boss and returns to the road. He meets a young woman in Niigata who, unbeknownst to him, is a popular enka singer.

Tora-san's Song of Love

1983

Tora-san Goes Religious? poster
7.7

Tora-san visits brother-in-law Hiroshi's hometown to attend a memorial service for his late father. When the local temple priest becomes intoxicated, Tora-san wearing the priest's robe delivers the memorial speech, much to his family's surprise. Thinking he's found his true calling, Tora-san decides to join the order, and falls for the priest's divorced daughter.

Tora-san Goes Religious?

1983

Tora-san's Salad-Day Memorial poster
8.3

In his travels through Japan, Tora-san meets and falls in love with a female doctor, however he is afraid of committing to a relationship.

Tora-san's Salad-Day Memorial

1988

Tora-san Goes North poster
9.0

When his travels take him to rural Hokkaido, Tora-san helps a cantankerous old veterinarian (Mifune) in his relationships with his estranged daughter, and a woman in whom he is secretly interested.

Tora-san Goes North

1987

Tora-san's Forbidden Love poster
8.0

Tora-san spends several days at the home of a hard-working salaryman ("salaried worker"), who abruptly disappears. When the man's wife asks Tora-san to help find him, he falls in love with her, and secretly hopes the husband will not be found.

Tora-san's Forbidden Love

1984

Tora-san, the Expert poster
8.7

Tora-san gets into an argument with his uncle and sets out on the road again. In Kyushu he meets a young woman named Keiko and the shy zoologist Saburō, and attempts to play matchmaker between the two when they all return to Tokyo.

Tora-san, the Expert

1982

Tora-san, My Uncle poster
8.2

Tora-san's nephew Mitsuo is exchanging letters with Izumi, a former classmate whose parents divorced and took her out of Tokyo.

Tora-san, My Uncle

1989

Tora-san's Promise poster
8.7

Tora-san returns to his family's home to attend an elementary school class reunion. After he embarrasses himself by getting drunk and insulting all his ex-classmates, he resumes his travels. In Kyushu he meets an outspoken 18-year-old girl who becomes enamored of Tora-san and follows him around. One of Tora-san's old friends is terminally ill and makes Tora-san promise him to marry his wife once he is gone.

Tora-san's Promise

1981

Tora-san's Island Encounter poster
8.3

Tora-san's family's neighbor, Akemi, who had been married in Marriage Counselor Tora-san (1984), runs away from her husband, who is only interested in work. Tora-san follows her to Shikinejima, and attempts to bring her back to her home. In doing so he encounters a school-reunion group who are traveling to meet their elementary school teacher, which is a reference to the film Twenty-Four Eyes by Keisuke Kinoshita. Tora-san joins them and falls in love with the teacher.

Tora-san's Island Encounter

1985

Hearts and Flowers for Tora-san poster
8.0

During his travels, Tora-san gets drunk with an old man in Kyoto. Though Tora-san never fully comprehends his importance, the old man is a Living National Treasure ceramist. At his home, Tora-san makes a good impression on the old man's maid, who apparently falls in love with Tora-san.

Hearts and Flowers for Tora-san

1982

Oración poster
6.7

Set on a quiet ranch in Hokkaido. One day, a colt is born from a legendary bloodline. It is given the name Oracion or "prayer". When Oracion is grown, a factory owner buys the horse. Will he be the key to solving the man's problems? Based on the novel by Teru Miyamoto.

Oración

1988

Marriage Counselor Tora-san poster
8.0

In Shibamata, Tokyo, Tora-san's family prepares for a wedding. Meanwhile, the traveling Tora-san meets an old acqaintance in Iwate Province. Tora-san refuses to drink with him, afraid that the acquaintance, now settled and married, will again become attracted to Tora-san's wandering existence. Tora-san becomes attracted to a female barber, but must break off their relationship so that she too can live a secure life. She instead gets into an abusive relationship with a motorcyclist.

Marriage Counselor Tora-san

1984

Tora-san's Bluebird Fantasy poster
7.3

During his travels, Tora-san comes across a traditional theater he used to visit, and discovers that one of his old friends has died. Tora-san and his family help the friend's daughter, who becomes romantically involved with an aspiring artist.

Tora-san's Bluebird Fantasy

1986

Ah! Nomugi Pass — Fresh Green Edition poster
8.0

In a factory that prioritizes profits amid economic downturns, a female worker criticized for her poor performance commits suicide, prompting her colleagues to strike and demand improved working conditions.

Ah! Nomugi Pass — Fresh Green Edition

1982

Tora-san, the Go-Between poster
6.9

In Nagasaki, Tora-san and an acquaintance help an old woman who has fallen and injured herself. She invites them to her home where the three share a night of eating and drinking. The old woman's health deteriorates and she dies. At her funeral, Tora-san falls in love with the old woman's daughter, but winds up acting as a go-between for her and a young law student.

Tora-san, the Go-Between

1985

Tora-san's Tropical Fever poster
8.3

When cabaret singer Lily writes Toraya about her illness, Tora-san rushes to Okinawa to be by her side.

Tora-san's Tropical Fever

1980

Foster Daddy, Tora! poster
8.0

After a friend and business colleague dies, Tora-san visits the man's daughter, then takes her to Tokyo so she can study for a night school exam.

Foster Daddy, Tora!

1980

1970s · 13 titles

Tora-san's Dream of Spring poster
8.2

Tora-san's opinions about Americans get challenged when another wandering peddler Michael Jordan stops by Shibamata.

Tora-san's Dream of Spring

1979

Talk of the Town Tora-san poster
8.0

After a chance encounter with Hiroshi's father on a bus, Tora decides to get serious and reflect on the mortality of man. His plans are derailed when a beautiful lady starts working at Toraya.

Talk of the Town Tora-san

1978

Village of Eight Gravestones poster
7.0

The heir to a family fortune discovers that a curse has been placed on it, put there centuries before by a band of samurai warriors. Adaptation of novel by Seishi Yokomizo

Village of Eight Gravestones

1977

Tora-san Meets His Lordship poster
8.8

Tora-san befriends the descendant of a feudal lord. The man asks Tora to locate his deceased son's wife who resides somewhere in Tokyo.

Tora-san Meets His Lordship

1977

Tora-san, the Matchmaker poster
8.7

Tora-san helps out a runaway bride.

Tora-san, the Matchmaker

1979

Stage-Struck Tora-san poster
8.2

Tora-san leaves Shibamata once again after an argument with his family and finds himself at an inn where he meets Tomekichi, a young man who looks up to Tora-san.

Stage-Struck Tora-san

1978

The Village poster
7.4

This appears to be a labor of love. Its about a village which is given the opportunity to put on a musical. They would have to pay the overhead and, being that they are farmers and always busy and not rich, question the wisdom and feasibility of such an idea. A spokesperson for the acting troupe Ms. Kono lays out the whole thing and they must decide. You get little slices of rural life in Japan far, at least in sentiment, from Tokyo. The best thing about this film is that it has heart. The acting is good, but it is really about the simple storyline of outing on a show. Films rarely get made with such simplistic plots these days. Enjoy this little slice of what city people call “the simple life”.

The Village

1975

Tora-san's Sunrise and Sunset poster
8.8

Tora-san arrives in Shibamata on Mitsuo's first day of school only to find that on his account, Mitsuo was embarrassed. After a fight with his family, he goes to a bar to drink, then brings home a surly old man with a sad story, whose identity will surprise everyone. Later, Tora meets Botan, a geisha.

Tora-san's Sunrise and Sunset

1976

Tora-san Meets the Songstress Again poster
8.2

Tora-san visits Hokkaido and is reunited with Lily. Now divorced, she plans to resume her singing career and renews her unusual relationship with Tora-san.

Tora-san Meets the Songstress Again

1975

Tora-san's Lullaby poster
7.8

After Hiroshi is injured in a workplace accident, Torajiro gives Sakura the money he has saved and leaves to work as a traveling salesman once again. During his travels, Torajiro meets a father who shares a drink with him. In the morning, Torajiro is shocked to learn that the man has left his baby behind and a note asking Tora to take care of the child.

Tora-san's Lullaby

1974

Tora-san's Pure Love poster
9.2

When Tora-san's infatuation with his nephew's school teacher causes family turmoil, he leaves on his travels again. When he returns, he falls in love with the teacher's mother.

Tora-san's Pure Love

1976

Tora-san Plays Cupid poster
8.0

Tora-san becomes friends with Toraya's newest tenant, a pachinko-playing electrician that goes by the nickname Watt. Tora attempts to match Watt with a young waitress.

Tora-san Plays Cupid

1977

Moscow, My Love poster
5.2

A young talented dancer from Japan is invited to study ballet art at a school at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. She achieves professional success, for the first time real love comes to her. However, the girl’s happiness was short-lived — a sudden illness of blood interferes in the fate of the dancer, like an echo of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, where her parents lived.

Moscow, My Love

1974

1960s · 8 titles

The Great White Tower poster
7.3

The story contrasts the life of two doctors, former classmates and now both assistant professors at Naniwa University Hospital in Osaka. The brilliant and ambitious surgeon Goro Zaizen stops at nothing to rise to a position of eminence and authority, while the friendly Shuji Satomi busies himself with his patients and research.

The Great White Tower

1966

Jungle Block poster
7.0

A young doctor falls into a despair of developments. He plans to revenge the disgrace inflicted upon his sister, whose engagement was broken as a result.

Jungle Block

1960

青春のお通り poster
NR

1965 Nikkatsu movie.

青春のお通り

1965

Last Round poster
NR

1962 Japanese movie

Last Round

1962

The Sands of Kurobe poster
7.0

Kitagawa is an engineer charged with construction of a gigantic tunnel through the Japan Alps for the transportation of equipment in the building of the massive Kurobe Dam. The tunnel crosses an earthquake fault and Kitagawa is beleaguered not only by cave-ins and flooding, but by strife between management and the workers's union. Adding to Kitagawa's stress is the knowledge that as his attention is pulled inexorably toward the tunnel construction, his youngest daughter is dying from leukemia.

The Sands of Kurobe

1968

The Great Japanese Pick-Pocket Club poster
8.0

A crime story (with strong elements of comedy) that pits a determined detective against a gang of pickpockets in Osaka. The detective (played by Keiju Kobayashi) and the leader of the gang (played by Norihei Miki) have an interesting wartime backstory together that fuels much of the story.

The Great Japanese Pick-Pocket Club

1969

Love in Ginza poster
5.0

Hanjiro is a struggling painter that shares a tiny apartment in the back streets of Ginza with his jazz pianist friend who works at a bar. When he and his sweet heart, Hisako decide to get married, Hanjiro is faced with a tough decision. Needing to buy a ticket back home to tell his mother the good news, he compromises his creative principles for love and sells his portrait of Hisako. Hisako heads to the station to see him off, but gets hit by a car...

Love in Ginza

1962

I Love The Sun poster
NR

A coming-of-age drama based on a novel by Kei Moriyama.

I Love The Sun

1966

1950s · 8 titles

Vacuum Zone poster
8.5

Just before the end of the war, Japanese soldier Kitani is released from prison, having served his term for theft. Told in flashback, viewers learn about Kitani's past and reasons behind his prison sentence.

Vacuum Zone

1952

The Heart poster
7.0

In the dying months of the Meiji era, a sympathetic student befriends a married couple, but soon realizes they share a curiously strained relationship stemming from an unknown incident in their past.

The Heart

1955

Town of Violence poster
6.5

An attempt is made to suppress a journalist's investigation of collusion between a rural police chief and the local gangster bosses.

Town of Violence

1950

Turbid Youth poster
9.0

Shigeki Kachi, Tosuke Satomura, and Nanako, who belong to the theater company Vuanbert around Dosa, withdrew at the indignation of the chairman Hayashi and seeked their own careers in the film industry.

Turbid Youth

1954

Break Down that Wall poster
7.5

A man is wrongfully accused of murder.

Break Down that Wall

1959

Called to the Stand poster
8.0

Chief editor Shiro Kamisaka (Hisaya Morishige) of Sankei Publishing Inc. is being tried for embezzlement and the staging of Chiyo Umehara's suicide. The victim is a woman who's said to have had sexual relations with the defendant. Four intertwined witnesses: a critic, Shiro's employee, a singer, and his wife, are all called to the stand. His destiny now lies in their hands.

Called to the Stand

1956

The Wolves poster
6.9

A group of five rookie insurance salespersons, driven to desperation by the impossibility of their work in Japan's failing postwar economy, form a plan to rob a cash delivery truck in order to provide for their families.

The Wolves

1955

Forever, My Love poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Forever, My Love

1958

Series credits

Tales of the Bizarre poster
7.8

Inspired by American TV movies like "Hitchcock Theater" and "The Twilight Zone," the show features multiple works with Tamori as the storyteller and actors as the main characters. While horror and supernatural themes are predominant, a variety of genres like comedy and drama are also produced. Most episodes, however, have a bad ending.

Tales of the Bizarre

1990

Furuya Ikkou's Great Detective Kindaichi Kousuke Series poster
7.0

No synopsis available yet.

Furuya Ikkou's Great Detective Kindaichi Kousuke Series

1983

Professional Killers poster
8.0

A shikakenin was an under-the-cover trade that undertook killing in Edo. Hanemon of Otowa, an agency that introduced laborers and maids, was also one of these. Katsugoro Iseya was a timber dealer who had come in as a client. His target was the constructions magistrate Hanno, and the Tatsumiya who sipped on the benefits. Hanemon who had a stong code towards killing, where he would only kill those who do no good to be in the world, accepts this request. Baian Fujieda, a needle doctor would carry out the killing. However, the professional killer Baian fails to bring down Tatsumiya. Hanemon then looks to another shikakenin, the ronin Sanai Nishimura for the role. Although Sanai's ability with the sword is good, he lives poorly in a tenement, and accepts this commission on the condition that it is kept a secret from his wife and child. Here, they close in on Hanno and Tatsumiya again...

Professional Killers

1972

Life of a Flower poster
7.0

The story chronicles the life of Ii Naosuke.

Life of a Flower

1963

Natsuko no Sake poster
6.0

Natsuko, who was a copywriter, starts to cultivate rice called Tatsunishiki, which is a phantom kind and it is very difficult to grow. She does it to make her dead brother's dream come true. His dream was to make the...

Natsuko no Sake

1994

Flying Saucer War Bankid poster
6.0

Flying Saucer War Bankid is a tokusatsu series made by Toho. The series, consisting of 26 episodes, is a co-production with Nippon Television, and aired in Japan starting on October 3, 1976 until March 23, 1977. The series follows the titular Bankids, brightly colored superheroes, who fight invaders from the planet Bukimi.

Flying Saucer War Bankid

1976

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