Love story between a student and girl whose parents are itinerant entertainers. Set in Japan in the 1920's.
Shogi, a Japanese form of chess, is a game that requires skill and determination. When poor sandal-maker Sakata decides to pursue his dream of becoming the Shogi Grand Master Champion, everything is at stake – including his family. What will it cost for Sakata to follow his passion?
王将
1948
0
The tragic, true story about Hachikō, an Akita dog who was loyal to his master, Professor Ueno, even after Ueno's death.
ハチ公物語
1987
7
Faraway Sunset tells the story of the famed bacteriologist who is known to have discovered the agent that cause syphilis, and for his relentless search for a cure to yellow fever. As a toddler, his mother's neglect had caused an accident to his left hand, fusing together all the fingers in a bizarre twist of fate. Naturally extremely remorseful for being the cause of her son's handicap, she does everything she could to ensure that he gets to lead a normal life, despite having to fend off bullies and unfair prejudices.
遠き落日
1992
0
A woman, Tome, is born to a lower class family in Japan in 1918. The title refers to an insect, repeating its mistakes, as in an infinite circle. Imamura, with this metaphor, introduces the life of Tome, who keeps trying to change her poor life.
にっぽん昆虫記
1963
7
Kenji, the eldest son of Masajiro, a wealthy moneylender, refuses to work in the family business and becomes obsessed with farming, jewelry and religion.
銀河鉄道の父
2023
6
Veteran filmmaker Nobuhiko Obayashi rounds out the second of his two trilogies about his hometown of Onomichi with this film about the budding relationship between a young lad and an eccentric old man. Fifth-grader Yuta (Takuro Atsugi) is a typical city child looking forward to a summer of reading comic books and playing video games. Instead, he is bundled off to his grandparent's house on the Inland Sea. His grandfather, Yuta's parents explain, has been acting strangely as of late -- he eats the offerings in the family altar and once tried to lead attendants at a funeral in a rousing round of calisthenics. Since his mother and father are swamped with work, and his elder sister (Nana Sano) is studying for college entrance exams, Yuta has been asked to look after Grandpa. The old man takes Yuta on a tour of Onomichi, regaling him with 70 years of its history. Along the way, Grandpa slips in and out of the past, increasingly unable to discern between the two.
あの、夏の日 とんでろ じいちゃん
1999
0
Based on the true story of the Bandō prisoner-of-war camp in World War I. It depicts the friendship of the German POWs with the director of the camp and local residents at the stage of Naruto, Tokushima Prefecture, in Japan.
バルトの楽園
2006
4
In the late 1890s, coal is a precious new natural resource. During an era of rapid economic growth, dreams are instilled into the lives of many across Japan. A vigorous young man with a look of fearless determination, sets foot on the northern part of Kyushu, an area where Yakuza thrived. His name is Kingoro Tamai (Yujiro Ishihara). With plans to travel the world, Kingoro worked diligently at a coal mine. His loyalty and hard work earned the respect of his peers, his courage won the heart of the beautiful Mon (Ruriko Asaoka), and his success evoked jealousy in his enemies.
花と竜
1962
0
An unhappy young woman from an abusive family is married off to a fearsome and chilly army commander. But the two learn more about each other, love may have a chance.
わたしの幸せな結婚
2023
7
Pre-war Asakusa was a riotous district of cabarets, dance-halls and brothels - a striking backdrop for Shimazu's story of innocence and experience. Pretty, young Reiko is the new dancer in an infamous theatre troupe, and her fellow performers try to protect her virtue in a land of vice. Meanwhile, an ageing actor wants to be a hero off stage as well as on, and the troupe matriarch Marie has to keep them all together.
浅草の灯
1937
5
The story follows Benio "Haikara-san" Hanamura, who lost her mother when she was very young and has been raised by her father, a high-ranking official in the Japanese army. As a result, she has grown into a tomboy - contrary to traditional Japanese notions of femininity, she studies kendo, drinks sake, dresses in often outlandish-looking Western fashions instead of the traditional kimono, and is not as interested in housework as she is in literature. She also rejects the idea of arranged marriages and believes in a woman's right to a career and to marry for love.
劇場版 はいからさんが通る 前編 ～紅緒、花の17歳～
2017
5
After her mother runs away from home, Tomoko is raised to be a geisha. One day Tomoko meets her mother in a red-light district in Tokyo and her life deeply gets in trouble.
香華
1964
7
Ichiro’s family used to be a large landowner, but now he is living in poverty with his mother. His mother works hard to get her son through school. Under such circumstances, Ichiro meets Wakako, the daughter of a wealthy man, and they fall in love with each other, but they are opposed by those around them because of their different social status.
地上
1957
0
After marrying the head of the military, Benio hears her husband died in Siberia during a war. However after finding out he's alive and fighting against his home land, Benio starts looking for her first love. Wondering why he didn't return and wanting to welcome him back. Hardships will happen and hearts may be broken, as he might have moved on.
劇場版 はいからさんが通る 後編 ～花の東京大ロマン～
2018
4
An adaptation of Akira Yoshimura's original suspense novel starring Rentaro Mikuni. 4th year of the Taishō era. About 15 families who moved in search of agricultural land to the land of the pioneers in Hokkaido led a peaceful life. One day, one of the pioneers, Mikio Shimakawa's wife Yura, and her child Taichi are attacked and killed by a bear that cannot hibernate. To resolve the situation, Shimakawa goes against all odds and turns to Ginshiro, the most hated hunter in the village, for help. While Shimakawa was away from the village, Yura and his friends were holding a funeral, the bear attacked again...
羆嵐
1980
0
A woman marries, gives birth to a stillborn child, and divorces, falls in love with a hotel-keeper, only to find herself subordinated to his drive for success, takes up with a tailor who cannot console himself with her strong personality.
あらくれ
1957
7
During his idle journey on the Izu Peninsula, a university student, Kawasaki, encounters a group of traveling entertainers – including Kaoru (Sayuri Yoshinaga), one of the “odoriko”. Kawasaki is taken and cannot take his eyes off her. When he is invited to stay at the same lodgings, the two grow closer. In time, the two come to learn the pain of love.
伊豆の踊子
1963
8
Considered one of the finest late Naruses and a model of film biography, A Wanderer’s Notebook features remarkable performances by Hideko Takamine – Phillip Lopate calls it “probably her greatest performance” – and Kinuyo Tanaka as mother and daughter living from hand to mouth in Twenties Tokyo. Based on the life and career of Fumiko Hayashi, the novelist whose work Naruse adapted to the screen several times, A Wanderer’s Notebook traces her bitter struggle for literary recognition in the first half of the twentieth century – her affairs with feckless men, the jobs she took to survive (peddler, waitress, bar maid), and her arduous, often humiliating attempts to get published in a male-dominated culture.
放浪記
1962
7
A young yakuza in love with the girl who's to marry his clan oyabun, kidnaps the girl before fleeing with her. In Tokyo, he hides under the identity of a worker while the young woman becomes a waitress in a restaurant.
花と怒涛
1964
6
The world is in turmoil with the October Revolution of 1917, riots over the inflationary price of rice, and the military expedition to Siberia in 1918. But Shinsuke, a brothel owner, spends his days in the arms of geishas, paying little heed to the events happening around him.
四畳半襖の裏張り
1973
4