Movies
6,905 Results
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Pale Flower (1964)
- Director
- SHINODA Masahiro
- Cast
- IKEBE Ryo, KAGA Mariko, FUJIKI Takashi
A yakuza gangster freshly released from prison encounters a mysterious young woman at a gambling den, who requests that he introduce her to games with higher and higher stakes. Stylishly dressed in outfits designed by MORI Hanae, KAGA Mariko cuts a c...
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THE BALLAD OF NARAYAMA (1983)
- Director
- IMAMURA Shohei
- Cast
- OGATA Ken, SAKAMOTO Sumiko, AKI Takejo
The second film adaptation of FUKAZAWA Shichiro's novel of the same title, based on the legend of a small mountain community whose custom it was for aged relatives to be carried to a mountain and left there to die. Unlike KINOSHITA Keisuke's 1958 ver...
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A History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess (1970)
- Director
- IMAMURA Shohei
- Cast
- AKAZA Tami, AKAZA Etsuko, AKAZA Akemi
Etsuko, the hostess of a Yokosuka drinking establishment catering to foreigners, reflects on her past for the camera. Encouraged by the results of his experimental pseudo-documentary A Man Vanishes (Ningen johatsu, 1967), Imamura was only too happy t...
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The World of Dementia (1985)
- Director
- HANEDA Sumiko
- Cast
Conceived with the purpose of conveying the everyday reality of elderly dementia patients, Haneda's film painstakingly documents the lives of residents in a care facility, turning the camera on their interactions and support for one another. The film...
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Into the Picture Scroll‐THE TALE OF YAMANAKA TOKIWA (2004)
- Director
- HANEDA Sumiko
- Cast
- KATAOKA Kyoko
An adaptation of the 12-volume, 150-meter-long picture scroll of the same name by early-Edo period painter IWASA Matabei, which was in turn based on a popular bunraku puppet play. Panning slowly sideways, the camera captures in rigorous detail the ac...
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Flora on the Sand aka Jungle Interlude (1964)
- Director
- NAKAHIRA Ko
- Cast
- NAKAYA Noboru, INANO Kazuko, NISHIO Mieko
After a chance encounter with a precocious high school student, a cosmetics salesman is solicited by the young girl to seduce and "hurt" her older sister. The film is adapted from a famous novel by YOSHIYUKI Junnosuke, a member of the so-called "thir...
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Juvenile Jungle aka Crazed Fruit (1956)
- Director
- NAKAHIRA Ko
- Cast
- ISHIHARA Yujiro, TSUGAWA Masahiko, KITAHARA Mie
While spending the summer at their Shonan holiday villa, two brothers lust over and fall in love with the same woman, setting them on a one-way course to destruction. Characterized by its bold editing style and cutting-edge visual flair, Nakahira's m...
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All Mixed Up (1964)
- Director
- MASUMURA Yasuzo
- Cast
- WAKAO Ayako, KISHIDA Kyoko, KAWAZU Yusuke
A literary adaptation from Masumura's mid-career period. The title is taken from the Japanese name for the swastika, an ancient Buddhist symbol representing good fortune, whose four-pronged shape serves as a visual metaphor for the intertwined fates ...
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A Cheerful Girl (1957)
- Director
- MASUMURA Yasuzo
- Cast
- WAKAO Ayako, KAWASAKI Keizo, SUGAWARA Kenji
In this lighthearted work from Masumura's early period, protagonist Yuko comes to Tokyo to find her mother after learning about her from her critically ill grandmother. The film, which unfolds beneath a cloudless blue sky, remains remarkably unsentim...
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The Elegant Life of Mr. Everyman (1963)
- Director
- OKAMOTO Kihachi
- Cast
- KOBAYASHI Keiju, ARATAMA Michiyo, YANAI Shigeru
Unremarkable office worker Eburi Man – a play on the English word "everyman" – makes an inebriated promise to a pair of editors to write them a serial novel that will attract a huge readership. The film comically portrays his process as he mines his ...
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The Last Gunfight (1960)
- Director
- OKAMOTO Kihachi
- Cast
- MIFUNE Toshiro, TSURUTA Koji, TSUKASA Yoko
The third installment in Toho's "made-in-Japan" gangster Underworld series, following on the heels of Underworld (Ankokugai, dir. YAMAMOTO Kajiro, 1956) and Boss of the Underworld (Ankokugai no kaoyaku, dir. Okamoto, 1959), starring MIFUNE Toshiro an...
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Branded to Kill (1967)
- Director
- SUZUKI Seijun
- Cast
- SHISHIDO Joe, MARI Annu, NAMBARA Koji
Suzuki's notoriously off-the-wall masterpiece about professional hitmen vying for rank subverted the template of the action films Nikkatsu was then mass-producing while also pushing at the limits of cinematic expression. When Hanada, the Japanese und...
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Carmen from Kawachi (1966)
- Director
- SUZUKI Seijun
- Cast
- NOGAWA Yumiko, WADA Koji, KAWACHI Tamio
In this unabashed crowd-pleaser, NOGAWA Yumiko plays the curvaceous Tsuyuko, a young woman from a poor household who falls in love with Akira, the heir to a factory. Fed up with her hometown, she leaves for the city where she finds work in a nightclu...
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The Sword-Cut (1962)
- Director
- MISUMI Kenji
- Cast
- ICHIKAWA Raizo, FUJIMURA Shiho, NAGISA Mayumi
A showcase of Misumi's skills as a modernist director, and the first installment in the "Sword Trilogy," a collaboration between the director and Daiei star ICHIKAWA Raizo. Ichikawa plays Takakura Shingo, a samurai whose foster father and sister are ...
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The Tale of Zatoichi (1962)
- Director
- MISUMI Kenji
- Cast
- KATSU Shintaro, AMACHI Shigeru, BANRI Masayo
The first installment of the popular Zatoichi series, which over the course of twenty-six films stamped its mark on popular culture worldwide. Zatoichi, a humble blind swordsman skilled in the quick-draw sword technique of iai-jutsu, encounters Hirat...
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A Room for Rent (1959)
- Director
- KAWASHIMA Yuzo
- Cast
- Frankie SAKAI, AWASHIMA Chikage, KATSURA Kokinji
A quick-moving yarn that follows the exploits of a zany cast of characters living in an old Osaka boarding house. The film's unique stylings are said to have angered IBUSE Masuji, the author of the novel it was originally based on; Kawashima, meanwhi...
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Elegant Beast (1962)
- Director
- KAWASHIMA Yuzo
- Cast
- WAKAO Ayako, ITO Yunosuke, YAMAOKA Hisano
In this dazzlingly original work set entirely within a single public-housing apartment, we follow the Maedas, a family of four whose surface elegance belies their moral depravity, as they engage in one act of deception after another. Featuring an ori...
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Conflagration (1958)
- Director
- ICHIKAWA Kon
- Cast
- ICHIKAWA Raizo, NAKAMURA Ganjiro, NAKADAI Tatsuya
A young Buddhist acolyte fanatically obsessed with Shukakuji Temple despairs at how its beauty is being tarnished by worldly corruption and decides to set it ablaze. The film adapts MISHIMA Yukio's The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, with Ichikawa usi...
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The Burmese Harp (1956)
- Director
- ICHIKAWA Kon
- Cast
- MIKUNI Rentaro, YASUI Shoji, MIHASHI Tatsuya
At the close of the war in Burma, Corporal Mizushima is tasked with persuading a holed-up group of soldiers who are still fighting to surrender. After sustaining injuries when caught in crossfire, he is rescued by a Burmese monk, whereupon he resolve...
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Twenty-Four Eyes (1954)
- Director
- KINOSHITA Keisuke
- Cast
- TAKAMINE Hideko, TSUKIOKA Yumeji, TAMURA Takahiro
A chronicle of the emotional bond between a young schoolteacher – a new arrival to the island of Shodoshima – and her twelve students, set against the transitional period of the wartime years. Kinoshita was inspired by Jean Renoir's The River (1951) ...
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Farewell to Spring (1959)
- Director
- KINOSHITA Keisuke
- Cast
- TSUGAWA Masahiko, YAMAMOTO Toyozo, KAWAZU Yusuke
Five childhood best friends reunite early one spring in their hometown of Aizu-Wakamatsu, only to find themselves shaken by the discovery that they are not quite as similar as they once were. For this film focused on youth, Kinoshita called on a tale...
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The Island (1960)
- Director
- SHINDO Kaneto
- Cast
- OTOWA Nobuko, TONOYAMA Taiji, TANAKA Shinji
Shindo's celebrated work poetically depicting the struggle between man and nature. The film portrays the daily lives of a middle-aged couple and their young sons on a remote island as they cultivate the barren land, fetch water in a rowboat, and cont...
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A Last Note (1995)
- Director
- SHINDO Kaneto
- Cast
- SUGIMURA Haruko, OTOWA Nobuko, ASAGIRI Kyoko
Like many works of the director's later period, A Last Note grapples with the theme of aging. It focuses on famed (fictional) actor Yoko, whose retreat to her rural summer residence is interrupted by a visit from Tomie, an old friend and former actor...
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Ikiru (1952)
- Director
- KUROSAWA Akira
- Cast
- SHIMURA Takashi, ODAGIRI Miki, HIMORI Shinichi
Thrown into despair after his terminal cancer diagnosis, a city office bureaucrat fights to turn around his unremarkable life and do something of consequence with his remaining time. This was the first film Kurosawa co-wrote with famed scriptwriters ...
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I Live in Fear (1955)
- Director
- KUROSAWA Akira
- Cast
- MIFUNE Toshiro, MIYOSHI Eiko, SHIMURA Takashi
Convinced that a nuclear war is imminent, an elderly man decides to uproot his entire family and emigrate to Brazil. When they object to his plan, it sends him spiraling deeper and deeper into obsession. Kurosawa reportedly got the idea for the story...
