Nobuko Otowa

At Shizumoto, a geisha shop not far from Ginza, a group of geisha are going about their day, putting up a modest resistance to the tragedies of life....

While her son, Kichi, is away at war, a woman and her daughter-in-law survive by killing samurai who stray into their swamp, then selling whatever...

A family of four are the sole inhabitants of a small island, where they struggle each day to irrigate their crops.

Shigeki Kachi, Tosuke Satomura, and Nanako, who belong to the theater company Vuanbert around Dosa, withdrew at the indignation of the chairman...

In the Sengoku period, a woman and her daughter are raped and murdered by soldiers during a time of civil war. Afterwards, a series of samurai...

Natsuko’s daughter Saori is born blind in 1941, just before her father is drafted. Despite an attempted surgery and years of struggle, her...

A touching story of pure love and tears between a boy and a girl, drawn by the innocent duo of Chieko Baisho and Shinichiro Mikami, based on "Nagashi...

1962 Japanese movie

After the closure of a coal mine leaves her husband unemployed, Fumiko travels from Kyushu to Kyoto with her daughter Kimiko, and they become...

Shinnosuke is introduced to Shizu as a prospective marriage partner, but he falls in love with her widowed sister Oyu. Convention forbids Oyu to...

Directed by Senkichi Taniguchi

1962 Japanese movie

1954 Japanese movie

Set in downtown Tokyo, it depicts the activities of a weak youth baseball team, the Chidori Boys, and the ordinary people who live there.

Shows the devastation caused by the atomic bomb, and by use of a fictional storyline, portrays the struggle of the ordinary Japanese people in...

Oshima’s magisterial epic, centering on the ambivalent surviving heir of the Sakurada clan, uses ritual and the microcosm of the traditional family...

The world-famous woodblock artist Hokusai (1760-1849), a widower in need of a steady income, lives with his daughter Oei in the house of his friend...

A young Japanese-American comes from California looking for a bride, going on blind dates with three candidates from Osaka, Hiroshima and Nagoya.

A Japanese family is torn apart by the tensions of an avoidable nuclear world war between the superpowers.

A retired actress whose husband has recently died visits her summer home. There she has encounters with old friends and acquaintances who bring...

Two residents of Edo city Yaji and Kita make a journey to the temple of Ise, as part of a religious pilgrimage, but actually to get away from their...

The ship Kaijin Maru is left adrift after losing all means of navigation in a storm. The four people on the ship are becoming increasingly desperate...

Japan, February 1868. As the Tokugawa shogunate declines and the power of Emperor Meiji grows, Gonzo, a soldier of the Restoration Army, returns to...

An ageing fishing boat, Dai-go Fukuryu Maru ("Lucky Dragon No. 5") sets out from the port of Yaizu in Shizuoka Prefecture. It travels around the...

Haru, an aging scriptwriter, has isolated himself somewhere in the woods of Nagano to work on his first novel. As the last surviving member of his...

In the Tokugawa Era, the clan of Lord Yagyu has hidden away three scrolls containing clan secrets which, if revealed, would cause revolution and...

Michio Yamada, a recent school graduate, is sent to Tokyo to work as a fruit-packer in a department store as part of a government programme. He takes...

Shuji was once a feared member of the Yakuza crime syndicate, but he's reformed his ways, abandoned his old life and left the city for a small...

Follows the story of an insurance company executive from Tokyo, Mr. Mito, who is demoted to the Osaka office. He takes a room at a small inn and...

The movie depicts the strength and resilience of a woman who spent her entire life as a merchant in Semba, Osaka.

Provincial 14th century governor Moronao, attracted to the wife of a court magistrate, tries to seduce her and when she rejects his advances plots to...

A woman takes revenge on her husband after he leaves her for a younger woman by harassing the couple with unwanted phone calls at night.

1958 Japanese movie

Takeshi Yasui, a junior high school student is found dead in a river. The police investigate it as a murder related to bullying. The dead boy turns...

Based on a true story, an elderly woman resiliently spends nine months attempting to retrieve her husband's dead body, fighting government...

Ayako Wakao won the Blue Ribbon and the Kinema Jumpo for this film.

Postwar Tokyo. Pin and Toku live in the squatter area of Kappanuma. Pin and Toku are avid gamblers. They take in Tsuru, a slightly demented woman who...

The story of a teacher who comes to a village on the Inland Sea and the relationship that develops between her and her 12 pupils.

Story of a Beloved Wife is an autobiographical work based on Shindo's first marriage. Jūkichi Uno stars as a struggling screenwriter, and Nobuko...

Can a woman love two men at the same time? Set against the backdrop of Kyoto's rich history, this story depicts a woman's difficult choice for love....

After over 50 years of wandering up and down Japan, finally in the 1970s, the rough-hewn blind shamisen player and folk-song collector named...

The fifth "Ekimae" film set in a Chinese restaurant in Yokohama's Chinatown.

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...

One day a company executive learns that his younger brother, whom he recommended, embezzled company funds. To save the situation he withdraws his...

A villager's family is ostracized after he makes an accusation of rigged elections

Ginko, a poor cobbler's daughter, becomes a geisha to support her family. She passes from one geisha house to the next, trying to find love and hope...

Genji, the illegitimate offspring of a Japanese potentate, goes by the philosophy of "love 'em and leave 'em" as a matter of course. Only when his...

The story tells of the adoration of Sasuke for his mistress, the blind samisen-teacher Shunkin, who treats him imperiously and subjects him to cruel...

Nobuko Otowa plays a former Seto Inland Sea island farmer who has moved to the mainland in order to find work, but instead ends up dead. The film...

A single mother from the country raising a 6th grade boy comes to Tokyo, leaves the boy to live with his uncle's family, runs a struggling grocery...

In 1943, critical developments in the Pacific War have placed Japan at a disadvantage, although the fiery breaths of war hadn't yet reached Okinawa...

Directed by Hiroshi Inagaki, the drama, set in the brothels of Shimabara in post-war Kyoto, is a moving look at the lives of women of tenacity and...

The life and travels of adventurer Naomi Uemura, who disappeared in Alaska in 1984. A member of the first Japanese expedition to reach the summit of...

A group of five rookie insurance salespersons, driven to desperation by the impossibility of their work in Japan's failing postwar economy, form a...

Tradition and modernity clash when a young woman inherits a sweet-making firm in Kyoto.

A jewelry store president begins to fall for the doctor treating her husband's illness.

“Quit working as a nurse!” “All right, I will!” thus began the married life of Yasuo and Keiko. But the reality is harsh. Keiko even had 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...

It depicts the emotional ups and downs of a designer who runs a clothing store and her husband over the course of a summer.

In this Japanese drama, a village girl goes to Tokyo and becomes a sex worker to support her ailing mother. While there she meets an unmarried...

The relationship between a rich young student and his lower class friend changes when they start to live both at a guest house. Both will be...

A young woman is forced by circumstance into a loveless marriage while still in love with another. This episodic tale follows their story through...

Story of a woman, Saiko, who divorces her doctor husband when she is given a baby by a stranger who claims it is the husband's child. Saiko embarks...

Three stories about the relationship between men and women: "Playgirl" (Masumura/Shirasaka), "Company No. 2" (Yoshimura/Kasahara), and "San Nyotai"...

Former playmates (Naito and Tamura), both long ago abandoned by their parents, recall their youth and fall in love.

Japanese comedy film.

After an elderly man is discharged from a hospital following a misunderstood, life-affirming impulse toward a fellow patient, he finds himself caught...

Bored Hatamoto movie #14

The melodramatic story of a pink crew’s tragi-comedic adventures on location. A fictionalized adaptation of set photographer Ichiro Tsuda's 1980...

A woman looks after her father in law.

1980 Japanese film.

The body of Sakai Hatsuko, a woman of 23 who has been slain with a knife, has been found in a forest. Some days later, Ueda Hiroshi, a 19-year-old...

Story of a romance between a middle-aged journalist and a young woman.

Japanese drama film.

The film is a series of vignettes from Taiji Tonoyama's life and film clips, interspersed with a dialogue to camera by Nobuko Otowa, addressing the...

The men who surround and torment the young protagonist (demanding teacher, owner of the company that rapes his own daughter, despotic and...

A divorced woman enters a marriage arranged by her mother in exchange for money to save the life of her seriously ill son.

Hama-chan shows up to work with his son on his back when his wife goes to her class reunion and his mother throws her back out.

When Yumiko Tsuyama, a potter by profession, comes inquiring about a room for rent in an old mansion overlooking Osaka, she finds a bizarre...

In 39 interviews with actors and actresses, writers, producers and staff members, interspersed with film excerpts and stills, Shindō recounts the...

Kazuo Miyagawa’s prizewinning black-and-white cinematography draws out the moral shadings of Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata’s 1952 novel...

Comedy based on the writings of Ango Sakaguchi.

A seasoned prosecutor uncovers the perfect crime committed by a young lawyer.

A dark family secret sends a 21-year-old French student (Hoshi) on a journey of self-discovery.

The legend of the birth of Shintoism. In Fourth Century Japan, the Emperor's son Ouso expects to succeed his father on the throne, but Otomo, the...

Based on the novel by Torahiko Tamiya.

Nine maids serve the household of a writer and his wife. The couple treat their maids like daughters and marry them off to eligible men. So, they are...

A young Japanese-American man arrives at his grandmother's old hometown in Yamaguchi, begins to stay at her family's elite but dysfunctional...

A well-respected drama teacher confesses to his housekeeper that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima has left him impotent. With the coming of spring,...

Farmer Abare Goemon is confronted by brigand-like samurai. He raises an army of farmers to fight them and does so brilliantly. When Lord Asakura sees...

The lives of a family of kelp (kombu) merchants in Osaka across three generations, spanning from the Meiji era through the aftermath of World War II.

20th film adaptation of the novel Ono ga tsumi (published 1900-1901).

Gen is a lonely orphan boy. His sole sense of companionship comes from an imaginary friend, the god Prince Fudo-Myo. Prince Fudo-Myo comes to the...

A Japanese teenager travels to New Caledonia in search of the fabled "island closest to heaven" that her late father had told her about.

Floating Vessel (源氏物語 浮舟 , Ukifune) is a 1957 color Japanese film directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa. Drawn from parts of the famous Genji...

Based on Kakuko Mori's autobiography, about her life and retirement from acting due to her increasing blindness.

A comedy about the lives of people living in the shopping district of Osaka.

A documentary about the lives of actors in the Sakura-tai theatrical troupe, which had arrived in the island of Hiroshima to begin preparations for...

A story of Japanese writer Kafu Nagai (1879-1959), a man about sixty with a huge reputation of seducer who falls madly in love for a young geisha...

Poor social conditions badly affect the relationship between a married couple, when the husband, who is desperately searching for work, fails to...

The film consists of three short stories. Tomiko, the heroine of the first story, "The Flower Girl" (dir. Kozaburo Yoshimura), is a little girl who...

Based on "Une vie" by Guy de Maupassant

The final part takes Shingo into a confrontation with his friend Yagyu Katsunoshin’s uncle in a duel that could change the destiny of Japan.

A touching story about little Futyan and his sister Matiko. Their parents are very poor, but the children are not discouraged—they run to school...

​A powerful priest uses his magical abilities to imprison the rain gods within a waterfall, causing a devastating drought. The imperial court sends...

Hideo is sold in marriage to a Japanese farmer in San Francisco to settle her family's debt. Over the next 20 years, the couple works hard and raises...

The university professor Ozeki Hitoshi (Ryu Chishu) is regarded as an eccentric by people in his surroundings. When his daughter Tokiko is asked to...

A beautiful but sad romantic melodrama about three sisters who are uninhibited, pure and lovely, and who stand tall like the peaks of a place that...

A film adaptation of Seicho Matsumoto's novel of the same title, starring Muga Takewaki and Yoko Shimada. Set in Japan at the end of the war, the...

Ten years before the outbreak of the Second World War in Asia, a Japanese Go master and his Chinese rival meet in China to play a game of Go (loosely...

A great ambition to portray with sharp satire and humor the course of modern anxiety and love that is about to be driven to despair.

Kantaro, known as a rowdy boy in the town of Ina, attacked the local boss, Kaneoni's Arahira, all by himself, but was defeated by a large group of...

The 21st film in the Ekimae series, commemorating the 35th anniversary of Toho. The film is a loose remake of the first film in the series, Ekimae...

After the heartbreak of losing a close colleague, a television star vanishes, presumed to have drowned in Lake Izu. A mysterious empty boat, a forged...

The story follows Tomoko, a writer who becomes involved in a strange and distant relationship with Shingo, a married novelist. Though they haven't...

A Film By Shiro Toyoda

Kawasaki, a high school student from Ichiko, walks along a mountain path toward Amagi and encounters a troupe of traveling performers. He becomes...

This rare silent black & white and color Super-8 footage was shot with the camera of actor Kei Sato (Hachi in the film) during the production of...

Modern love story about three disparate sisters, one (Tsukasa) of whom who suspects her husband (Kobayashi) has been unfaithful.

A Japanese film from 1963, Directed by Shirô Toyoda.

A 1963 Japanese musical drama directed by Kôzô Saeki

A Japanese film from 1965, directed by Shirô Toyoda.

Chizuru, the beautiful daughter of a Kyoto restaurant owner, feels trapped by the marriage plans her mother has arranged for her. When an older...

The classic tale of the shogun's illegitimate son Aoi Shingo is told in three parts as he strives to become the greatest fencer in Japan, while his...

Brings Shingo face to face against Yagyu Tajima, the Shogun’s fencing instructor in a match that could save a domain near Osaka.  Meanwhile Shogun...