Bontarō Miake

Once an average and seemingly ordinary Tokyo girl, she suddenly finds herself as a TV star owing to her discovery by a casting company, which noticed...

The magical swordsman battles a gang of cutthroats, who are led by a peg-legged villain.

A lowly drunken samurai finds an abandoned baby in the woods and takes it home. A gift from a fox. But there's something special about the boy.

The salaryman is the object of admiration in the world. Because there is no more carefree job than this, this cheerful song comedy is set to the hit...

Film directed by Seiji Hisamatsu and starring Wakao Ayako

Based on the novel The Vampire (Kyūketsuki) by Edogawa Ranpo.

1962 Japanese movie

After the boxing champion retires, the head of a powerful gym, Minegishi (So Yamamura), recommends Yamanaka (Hiroshi Kawaguchi), who is no longer in...

1948 Japanese movie

Film directed by Saeki Kozo with Wakao Ayako.

The title of the film reflects the custom of writing poems and lyrics on paper lanterns. The film tells about the difficult relationship between the...

Reiko Ike stars as the daughter of a man who has been pushed into drug dealing by the local Yakuza mob. Having outlived his usefulness to the gang he...

Yukiko's fiance learns her mother runs a geisha house and ends their engagement. She despises what her mother does until one of her clients shows...

1962 Japanese movie

The exciting story of Jirocho and his yakuza gang that controlled the area of the Tokaido during the latter days of the samurai era. Awesome...

The southern tip of Shikoku. This village, surrounded by a bay, where, according to legend, the former warriors of the Heike clan settled, is famous...

Surviving fragments of a film by Tomu Uchida.

A comedy directed by Koji Shima about a men's game. Reckless and exciting, definitely worth watching! Miyoshi Oki was born in Hokkaido and grew up...

1962 Japanese movie

Tai Kato’s early 20th century set yakuza epic about an ordinary merchant girl (Hiroko Maki) who crosses paths with an assassin (Tetsuya...

An exciting film about thugs, in which murders and drugs, justice and resentment explode in the dark city of Tokyo with the help of guns and violence.

In eighth century China, the Emperor is grieving over the death of his wife. The Yang family wants to provide the Emperor with a consort so that they...

Kanji is a poor peasant widower who struggles to earn a living for his daughter and himself and to pay off his father-in-law's debts.

A rural village elder plans an event on the return of a farmer's daughter from the city, unaware that she has become a Westernized burlesque artist.

A once-powerful yakuza clan disbands as a result of a police crackdown, but one small group refuses to bow to police pressure, and launches a...

1950 Toho film directed by Senkichi Taniguchi

Following the tragic death of his father, a young boy's family trains his horse to compete in the local derby.

A female reporter is fired for writing about police corruption; to make money while hiding from the press, she posts a bounty upon herself.

A series of ghastly murders are being committed. The one similarity in each of the murders is that a weird buzzing sound is always heard right before...

Large star-shaped aliens travel to earth in hopes of warning them about an oncoming catastrophe. To prevent panic about their appearance, one alien...

Hayase, a schoolteacher, assists Sakai in editing a German-Japanese dictionary. Hayase owes much to Sakai, as Sakai raised him for 13 years after...

In the heart of the Japanese Alps, in Kamikochi, Nagano Prefecture, botany professor Kazuhiko Onuma spends time with Tsuruko, his lover. One night,...

A chance ride in a car leads to an unforgettable relationship. A misunderstanding leads to more misunderstanding... Love and thrills in this...

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, a brilliant tactician, is a loyal subject of the emperor, despite his grave misgivings about leading Japan's navy into war...

The sequel to Daibosatsu tôge (1960) and the second of the trilogy follows the adventures of Ryunosuke Tsukue after he is blinded.

Disguised as a beggar monk, Ryunosuke is harassed along the road by the rowdy members of a country dojo or fencing school malingering outside their...

Kitagawa Utamaro is a famous ukiyo-e artist known for his paintings of beautiful women. The courtesan who became his model became even more popular....

Adaptation of the Yukio Mishima novel.

During the reign of Hidetada, the second shogun of the Tokugawa dynasty, the advisor Okubo Hikozaemon (Ganjiro Nakamura) entrusts the young Takechiyo...

1945 Japanese movie

Zoku teppō inu (続鉄砲犬) is a 1966 film directed by Mitsuo Murayama. It is the sixth film in the Inu series.

Momoko and Asako are half sisters, daughters of the famous architect Tsuneo Mizuhara, who also have another half sister in Kyôto, Wakako, whom...

1962 Japanese movie

Young lawyer Jiro receives a late night phone call from a distraught woman sending him on a journey to uncover corruption and exploitation stemming...

Princess Kiyo accidentally injures a local priest, Anchin, while on a hunt. She apologizes, but feels irritated by Anchin’s indifference to her...

Horror film directed by Kôzô Saeki.

A Japanese version of the musical comedy "Yes, Mr. Brown"

Comedy drama film

A young scriptwriter with a yakuza upbringing, an iron-fire dancer, a young painter, and a pure-hearted downtown girl fall in love in Asakusa in this...

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi.

A classic melodramatic love tragedy addressing social inequality in Taishō-era Japan, The nostalgic scenes of 1920s Tokyo provides a valuable visual...

Gotō Matabei is the most able and fierce samurai of the Kuroda clan. However, he gradually dislikes the ruthless personality of Kuroda Nagamasa and...

Mysterious incidents occur one after another on the express train as it plows through the dark night on the railroad tracks! The first woman is...

The first part of a fascinating melodrama based on Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, the action of which is transferred to the era of the Meiji...

The second part of the melodrama based on the novel Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, the action of which is transferred to the era of the Meiji...

1962 Japanese movie

Two brothers run a factory canning crabs. The elder brother Kotaro is righteous and insists on honesty. The younger brother is fixated on money. They...

1948 adaptation of Golden Devil

1948 adaptation of Golden Devil, part 2

Melodrama about two sisters with different mothers.

1945 Japanese movie

With delicate, unobtrusive strokes, Naruse evokes both the humor and bitterness of his characters’ dilemmas, in this bleak, compelling poignant...

A war widow with a young boy manages a farm with her bossy mother-in-law. When a reporter comes to interview her, the two begin an affair. He turns...

1945 Japanese movie

Retired police inspector Kurusu is vacationing at a seaside hotel when one night he hears a child's screaming...but there are no children staying in...

Ex-war financier Kuraishi Kinnosuke is visited by a ghostly face in the middle of the night telling him to return the 5.5 million yen jewel he stole...

An Indian prince leaves his world of comfort and riches behind to wander and meditate for six years in search of spiritual enlightenment. Siddartha...

A fishing village is terrorized by a giant whale, and the fishermen are determined to kill it.

With World War II is coming to its end and Japan nearing defeat, Japanese military leaders step up suicide attacks on Allied ships. Toei legend Koji...

The story contrasts the life of two doctors, former classmates and now both assistant professors at Naniwa University Hospital in Osaka. The...

After a businessman is murdered, an investigation identifies a suspect who is then put on trial for that crime.

In the prewar days leading up to the Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937, head flight instructor Lt. Katō Tateo of the Imperial Japanese Army-Air Corps...

Ren Yoshimura directed this Daiei melodrama that was based on the novel entitled "Pandora's Box" by Dazai Osamu.

In a rural district of Tokyo, the owner of a farm is abandoned by his two daughters who are attracted to the life of the big city.

Set around Ginza’s neon billboard boom, the movie is a drama of romance, corporate intrigue and tragic crime. A reporter (Ken Utsui)...

In medieval Japan, a woman and her children journey to find the family's patriarch, who was exiled years before.

The film is about the Yamato's suicide mission to Okinawa in March 1945 to defend the homeland threatened by U.S. bombers. Adapted from Mitsuru...

In pre-war Shanghai, a man falls in love with a mysterious woman, but she eventually disappears. Back in Japan, he is obsessed by her memory and...

In 1963, Funaki Kazuo's debut song of the same name was released and then it was adapted to a movie based on Kenji Tomishima 's novel “Shake to...

Soichi Ataka is the eldest son of Ataka family. Although mentally challenged, he's a person with a gentle heart. Soichi's wife, Kuniko is devoted to...

Tomotaka Tasaka's earliest surviving surviving film is a powerful adaptation of Hector Malot's "Nobody's Girl".

A young boss proves his right to rule his gang.

A sweet and melancholy story that depicts, with beautiful sentimentality, the day when a dreamy and lovely young girl first discovers love in the...

The troubled relationship between a writer and his ballet teacher wife, who has for years loved another man, finally leads to the breakup of the...

An early example of the Japanese war film, closer to documentary realism than the kind of propaganda produced at the height of the Pacific War. "A...

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

A sad love film where the action takes place in Kyoto, in a trading house.

The first movie of Tôru Murakawa’s “Game” trilogy, in which an assassin hired to recover a kidnap victim becomes embroiled in...

Taki no Shiraito is a very independent young woman with a famous water juggling act in a travelling carnival troupe. She falls in love with an...

One of Kinugasa's last films--based on the story by Tanizaki Jun'ichirō.

Late romance by acclaimed filmmaker Kinugasa Teinosuke.

The Dai-bosatsu toge trilogy is based on Kaizan Nakazato's unfinished long series of novels (41 books, written from 1913 to 1941). Set in the last...

Onna no Toba, is the first film in long-running series Daiei Studio's Woman Gambler with Kyoko Enami starring where she plays the woman gambler Ogin,...

Fourth film in the long-running series Daiei Studio's Woman Gambler with Kyoko Enami starring where she plays the woman gambler Ogin.

Horror film directed by Koji Shima.

A traditional bar mistress in Kyoto clashes with her Tokyo rival.

During the 1200's, legendary Buddhist monk Nichiren returns from his studies to lead Japan out of moral crisis and prepare to fight Mongol invaders...

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. Released in 2 parts. His only release of 1931

Tenth film in the long-running series Daiei Studio's Woman Gambler with Kyoko Enami starring where she plays the woman gambler Ogin.

Kinichi and Akiko meet when they visit their fathers in prison. After successfully gambling on a bicycle race, they spend an enjoyable day together...

A war breaks out on the streets between rivaling Yakuza clans.

Story of love, jealousy and hatred among waitresses of a deluxe bar.

Ryokichi Ibuki is a clerk who learns company "top secrets" and becomes an industrial blackmailer. Kaoru Koizumi, a confidential secretary in love...

Yukiko Shiba, a doctor, and Akira Sakai, a composer and musician, are lovers. Their love is a forbidden one. He is married, with children. She is a...

Fascinated with women from an early age, Yonosuke had his first sexual encounter at the age of seven. From that day on, he recklessly and forwardly...

A musical about the escapades of some tanuki passing themselves off as humans in human society.

This film begins with a teacher describing to his students how brave the crew was which died as result of Japan's first submarine accident. The film...

A young man is determined to have as many affairs as possible but not to get married. One of his conquests is of a different mind however. For she is...

In 1905, Japan was seriously threatened in the Russo-Japanese War. Japan determined a decisive attack on Russia to end the war. A reconnaissance...

The first story concerns an attractive young woman who works in a Tokyo nightclub. Her plan for a solid financial future has a double whammy. In the...

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...

In the summer of 1941, the United States and Japan seem on the brink of war after constant embargos and failed diplomacy come to no end. "Tora! Tora!...

Japanese drama

Two car manufacturers spy on each other to try to find out details and prices of a new sports car each is about to launch.

Ushimatsu's father told him never to reveal his lower-caste heritage; years later, he now contemplates confiding in an activist fighting against such...

The story follows Oshino, a geisha who is trying to start a new life with a lover who is a painter. However, her past filled with debts and pimps...

When a young woman is named as the prime suspect in a murder, her girlfriend and her girlfriend's boyfriend set out to prove her innocence. Their...

A 1937 Japanese language film directed by Tomu Uchida, starring Ryo Akaboshi, Mitsuru Date and Hisao Furutani.

Namiko gets a crush on Ishizuka, a young CEO of a nightclub, but he was plotting to destroy her husband’s company by greenmail.

Film directed by Saeki Kozo with Wakao Ayako.

Gamera escapes from his rocket enclosure and makes his way back to Earth as a giant opal from New Guinea is brought back to Japan. The opal is...

Kanazawa in the Taisho era. A former junior high school student, Ichiro's family used to be a large landowner, but now they are living in poverty...

Film directed by Eichi Koishi and starring Wakao Ayako

The case of the counterfeit bills that spread all over Japan.

Industrial espionage in the pharmaceutical industry. Also know in English as “Black Parking Lot”.

Minowada, a young teacher at a National People's School, has his own theory of education and the daughter of his linguistics teacher becomes drawn to...

The final film in Shimizu’s thirty-plus year career, Image of a Mother remains true to Shimizu’s central themes as a young boy must learn...

A journalist decides to do his own investigation after a series of strange murders are committed during a local election campaign.

One of Uchida’s early sound films, Unending Advance is based on a curious story by Yasujiro Ozu, in which an examination of the quotidian...

Obscure Masumura film shot in 1961.

A comedy directed by Yasuzo Masumura starring Yunosuke Ito.

The lives of five prostitutes employed at a Japanese brothel while the nation is debating the passage of an anti-prostitution law.

A timely masterpiece that boldly reveals women's secrets on the issue of when abortion is acceptable...

Tamio Moroi, a young university graduate, works at a large brewery where he is taught to do nothing but look busy. When his father goes insane, he is...

1959 youth comedy.

Detective Goto, who had sniffed out drugs as the culprit behind the murder of an elderly woman, was run over and killed while pursuing the culprit....

A dead beauty is found in the trunk. Kubota (Miaki), Okayama (Kawazu) and Tsuji (Funakoshi) begin investigating this mysterious crime at the...

The fall of an accountant enthralled by the sexual charms of a cabaret dancer.

The film depicts a group of boys and girls who graduate from a local junior high school and head to Tokyo to find employment, and the teachers who...