Yoshiko Kuga

Acting

Yoshiko Kuga

Born 1931-01-21 · Ushigome, Japon

Yoshiko Kuga (久我 美子, Kuga Yoshiko, 21 January 1931 – 9 June 2024) was a Japanese actress. Kuga was born in Tokyo, Japan. In 1946, while still attending Gakushuin Junior High School, she became an actress for Toho studios. In 1947, she made her debut as one of the lead actresses in the omnibus movie Four Love Stories (四つの恋の物語, Yottsu no Koi no Monogatari). In the 1950s, she started working independently and starred in many productions of the Shochiku studios under the direction of Keisuke Kinoshita. Other important directors include Kenji Mizoguchi (The Woman in the Rumor), Yasujirō Ozu (Equinox Flower), and Tadashi Imai (An Inlet of Muddy Water). Since the 1970s, she appeared mainly on television and on stage. Kuga was married to actor Akihiko Hirata from 1961 until his death in 1984. She died from aspiration pneumonia on 9 June 2024, at the age of 93.

Acting credits

Godzilla vs. Biollante poster
7.4

After the previous Godzilla attack, a miniature arms race ensues to collect his cells. Concerned over Godzilla's possible return, the Japanese government uses the cells to create a new bio-weapon, ANEB (Anti-Nuclear Energy Bacteria). They seeks the aid of geneticist Genshiro Shiragami, who's experiments result in a new mutation.

Godzilla vs. Biollante

1989

Good Morning poster
7.7

Two boys beg their parents for a television set, nagging them until all patience is lost. The parents order the boys to be quiet and the boys do exactly that--refusing to utter a word. The boys' silence ultimately puts the whole neighborhood into turmoil.

Good Morning

1959

Drunken Angel poster
7.6

In postwar Tokyo, a blunt, alcohol-soaked doctor diagnoses a swaggering young yakuza with tuberculosis, forging an uneasy bond that’s tested when the gangster’s ruthless former boss returns and drags him back toward the swampy underworld he can’t escape.

Drunken Angel

1948

Zero Focus poster
6.3

One week into newlywed Teiko Uhara's marriage, her husband, Kenichi, leaves on a short business trip and never returns. Teiko travels across Japan to search for him, and along the way discovers some surprising facts about her husband's past. With only a pair of old photographs among his belongings to go off of, Teiko tries to figure out what has happened to him.

Zero Focus

1961

Shinzōyaburi no oka poster
NR

A moving story depicting the spirit of a young marathon runner who set a new world record in Boston, encouraged by the love of his family, a young woman’s prayers, and warm friendship.

Shinzōyaburi no oka

1954

Cruel Story of Youth poster
6.6

A 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

To the Ends of the Earth poster
NR

In this downbeat, emotionally gripping drama, a lone guardian of some small huts on one of the northernmost, small islands off Japan remembers his once happier past and the events that destroyed everyone he held dear.

To the Ends of the Earth

1953

The Snow Flurry poster
6.9

After surviving the double suicide pact she made with her lover, a woman gives birth to their child.

The Snow Flurry

1959

An Inlet of Muddy Water poster
6.3

A Japanese woman writes down three stories she has witnessed or heard of in her diary, each about the difficult situation a young woman finds herself in.

An Inlet of Muddy Water

1953

The Idiot poster
7.0

A gentle, war-shattered ex-soldier, Kinji Kameda, arrives in wintry Hokkaidō and is pulled into a volatile tangle of love and pity between the disgraced Taeko Nasu, the proud Ayako, and his possessive friend Akama. Kameda’s saintly compassion exposes everyone’s wounds, steering the quartet toward jealousy, violence, and inexorable tragedy. Adapted from Dostoevsky’s novel.

The Idiot

1951

Four Days of Snow and Blood poster
7.3

Based on the "2.26 Incident", an attempted coup d'état in Japan 1936, launched by radical ultra-nationalist parts of the military. Several leading politicians were killed and the center of Tokyo was briefly held by the insurgents before the coup was suppressed.

Four Days of Snow and Blood

1989

Women in Prison poster
4.0

The woman prison has a cast all with a story of their own and with no dull or routine day. There is an employee who is divorced after her husband had an affair. She loves the jailed criminals and almost sees them as family. One day at a workshop someone faints while working hard to make money because she has a poor boyfriend. Another inmate is knocked up Another is a mother and has her child with her.

Women in Prison

1956

Equinox Flower poster
7.4

Wataru'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

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Honoo no hada

1951

Portrait of Madame Yuki poster
6.8

A young woman takes up her new job as the servant of a noblewoman and soon discovers that underneath her facade of luxury lies great unhappiness.

Portrait of Madame Yuki

1950

Yōsei wa hana no nioi gasuru poster
NR

A romance between a female student and a young professor, where friendship, temptation, and jealousy intertwine.

Yōsei wa hana no nioi gasuru

1953

No artwork available
NR

Eiji Izutsu, a young architectural engineer, suddenly came into a massive inheritance on the condition that he marry a woman named Chigusa Takemura, who owned a jade ring. If he failed to fulfill this condition, the inheritance would go to Chigusa instead.

Byakuran kōran

1952

The Woman in the Rumor poster
7.3

After living a traumatic experience in Tokyo, Yukiko returns to Kyoto, where Hatsuko, her mother, runs a brothel, which upsets Yukiko very much.

The Woman in the Rumor

1954

Tokyo Fair Weather poster
7.2

This is a biographical film about the late Yoko Araki, who was the wife of Japan's leading photographer, Nobuyoshi Araki.

Tokyo Fair Weather

1997

Love Letter poster
6.8

Five years after the end of the Second World War, Reikichi, a repatriated veteran, translates love letters for Japanese women to American GIs, while searching for his lost love, Michiko.

Love Letter

1953

Yagyu Secret Scrolls poster
6.5

In the Tokugawa Era, the clan of Lord Yagyu has hidden away three scrolls containing clan secrets which, if revealed, would cause revolution and disaster for the clan. The information is divided among the three scrolls, all of which must be possessed for the secrets to be understood. When Princess Yuhime steals the scrolls, Tasaburo, a samurai with magical powers, and his brother Senshiro are sent to retrieve them.

Yagyu Secret Scrolls

1957

Taira Clan Saga poster
6.8

Japan, 1137. The Taira family, a samurai clan, becomes involved in the disputes between Emperor Toba and the monks of Mount Hiei.

Taira Clan Saga

1955

Enoshima Elegy poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Enoshima Elegy

1951

Kyūjō hiroba poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Kyūjō hiroba

1951