Takeshi Sakamoto

The adventures of a modern day descendant of a famed Edo era thief are the basis for this short supernatural comedy romp.

Shuhei Horikawa, a poor schoolteacher, struggles to raise his son Ryohei by himself, despite neither money nor prospects.

Brothers Keiji and Ryoichi move to a new neighborhood in the Tokyo suburbs after their father, an office clerk, is promoted. The boys join the local...

A film about the rivalry between Captain Gondo and the harpooner Yosuke Yamagami, working on the best whaling ship Hayabusa Maru. One day they will...

An aging actor returns to a small town with his troupe and reunites with his former lover and illegitimate son, a scenario that enrages his current...

Approaching their graduation ceremony, Saegusa, Sanae, and their classmates go on an overnight trip to Hakone with their teacher Ms. Kawahara, who...

A young yakuza, Yatappe, wanders around the country in search of his long-lost little sister, Oito. While traveling, he rescues a young girl, Osayo,...

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...

The story of a boy who befriends a lonely middle-aged man.

A hard-hearted old woman in a bombed-out Tokyo neighborhood reluctantly takes in an abandoned boy, leading to a heartwarming bond between them.

1939 Japanese movie

An unemployed Japanese man and his two sons wander the industrial flatlands of Depression-era Tokyo, until he chances upon an old friend and...

A professor, Komiya, and his bossy wife, Tokiko, are to look after Setsuko, their high-spirited niece from Osaka. Despite being a minor, Setsuko is a...

Kotobuki-za is a story of the Naniwa-bushi singer Baichuken Tsurumaru.

A matchmaker looks to unite a young woman from a wealthy Tokyo family with the humble owner of an auto garage.

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.

Tokiko patiently awaits her husband's return from WWII when her four-year old son falls ill. She takes him to the doctor but has no means of paying,...

In Depression-era Tokyo, the life of a single mother and her young son are disrupted by the return of her ex-husband, who fathered the child and...

During the Depression, a young man struggles to provide for his family after he is sacked for defending an older colleague.

When a family has to relocate due to the war, they are ostracized by their new community.

A Japanese mountain inn patron's foot is cut by an ornamental hairpin accidentally left behind by a former patron, leading to much curiosity among...

Japanese silent film from 1928, ranked as Kinema Junpo's second-best Japanese movie of the year.

In Depression-era Tokyo, a struggling middle-aged single father with a young son comes across a homeless young lady and convinces a bar owner to take...

A film adaptation of the original novel by Kazuo Dan. This exciting film, set in Asia on the eve of violent changes, tells the story of a young man...

A Tokyo family escaping the war relocates to a Hokkaido village; their daughter is set to marry the local leader's son, but her siblings disapprove.

Shinpachi Morimura, who was born in a fusuma craftsman's house, wants to join the Japanese navy. However, his father wants him to continue in the...

On vacation's eve, a boy is sent to the countryside to live with his uncle after his father is imprisoned and accused of embezzlement.

Otoku asks her brother Bunkichi to speak with her son Seiichi, a young man for whom sacrificed everything but who now seems to be headed for a...

On the outskirts of Tokyo, a family of Mitsu Nakahara lives in one of the small huts surrounded by barracks and tin pens. Mitsu's husband died in the...

A young widow, made world weary by her abusive, neglectful husband, finds herself in a minor scandal when she's seen with her intense, no-nonsense...

Domestic comedy involving a strong wife and a "henpecked" husband taking place in a family-run judo school.

The narrative is about a woman who faces hard times, when her husband is arrested for a crime committed by his boss. The woman also has a child to...

This was 1942, so it was a national policy film, no matter what you call it. But when the war was still on the winning side, there wasn't even a...

An older sister and brother (Mieko Takamine and Masayoshi Otsuka) come to visit their grandfather (Takeshi Sakamoto) who lives deep in the mountains....

A young, talented singer (Misora) is orphaned, not once but twice, and has to turn to a rather unlikely, and unwilling, parental figure, while...

A kidnapped boy proves to be more than his abductor can handle.

1962 Japanese movie

Third film in the "Ekimae" series, this time set in Hamamatsu. A widow named Keiko and her brother Jiro run the bento shop, "Goraku." One day, Keiko...

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

Tetsuo Nomoto, a young college graduate tries to find a decent job by himself. Later on, he will marry his girlfriend, Machiko, whom he hides the...

While under sedation in a dentist's office, a young art student has sex fantasies about naked women, vampires and a beautiful patient he saw in the...

A Japanese screwball comedy about the battle between the sexes: two timid men, egged on by their wives, end up in a bitter duel over an expensive...

After the father of her son leaves her high and dry, Kazuko gives her child up for adoption and takes a job at a hot spring resort, watching her son...

Directed by Mikio Naruse. It is presumed to be lost.

A demobilized soldier becomes a day laborer with a road construction gang, and his wife goes to work to bolster their income. Their modest dream is...

A man who works late hours at a deadening job lives together with his wife and his younger sister. The younger sister's a modern girl who's starting...

The sweet but naive denizens of a charming port town are hoodwinked by a couple of con men at the outset of World War II. But the hustlers’ plan...

Raucous small-time thief Kenji falls in love with sweet and simple Yazue, but when she finds out what kind of guy he really is, she leaves him until...

Graduate Okajima finds his old-fashioned beard makes life difficult in a comedy exploring the tension between tradition and modernity.

When a young man inherits his father's lucrative business, he cheats the system to set up three of his college friends with jobs.

A farmer’s boy, obsessed with his balsa-and-paper flying models and with dreams of real aircraft, develops a friendship with the daughter of the...

The story deals with Fuji, nicknamed Waka-danna (Young Master), the star athlete on his university's rugby team. The son of a wealthy soy sauce...

Born to a prestigious family, Natsuko is not impressed by any one of her suitors. Determined to spend her life serving god, she sets off to a convent...

A period piece about the love of a wealthy blind woman, a teacher of koto and shamisen, and her devoted manservant. Based on a novella by Tanizaki...

Follows six male friends from elementary school whose career paths diverge—newspaper reporter, engineer, boxer, sushi restaurant owner—but whose...

Shigeo is an aspiring writer living with his girl friend Minako and hoping for success and a better tomorrow every day. Both live on what Minako...

Inoue was something of a rarity in the sense, that he was a Shochiku house director who seems to have worked mostly in period films, often with big...

Pretty Oshige is deceived by her first love. After this, she lives a hard lifestyle, working at a number of jobs. Her only pleasure is her nephew,...

Mikio Naruse’s final silent film is a gloriously rich portrait of a waitress, Sugiko, whose life, despite a host of male admirers and even some...

Directed by Mikio Naruse. It is presumed to be lost.

Where Chimneys Are Seen focuses primarily on the interconnected lives of two couples in a lower-middle-class neighborhood in Senju, a poor industrial...

"The Dancing Girl of Izu" tells of the story between a young male student who is touring the Izu Peninsula and a family of traveling dancers he meets...

A playwright moves to a rural neighborhood to avoid the distractions of the city, but he discovers there are plenty of ways to get sidetracked in his...

A middle-aged father has just married off his third daughter, but still has his nine year old son to raise whom he resents as he was unwanted.

This pair of gentle yet witty and inventive comedies from the director of The Neighbour's Wife and Mine typify both the formal experimentation of...

1945 Japanese movie

A carpenter, Shigetsugu, learns a lesson of love and humanity from five orphaned children and an affectionate woman named Oritsu. It's a winning...

Three stories revolve around independence, a man searching for his wife, and a poor craftsman trying to make money.

Japanese mystery film marking Yuka Mizuhara's film debut.

At the wedding of Kohei (Hasegawa) and Michiko (Todoroki), a whisper echoes along with a gust of wind. As if manipulated by the mysterious voice,...

Two childhood friends go their own ways but meet again some years later after they have both married. They get re-acquainted, meet each others’...

A melodrama by noted auteur and father of director Yoshitaro Nomura, Hotei Nomura. This is apparently the first adaptation of Izumi Kyoka's The...

A melodrama about a businessman's relations with the three women in his life.

A geisha helps a runaway who looks just like her.

A human drama about the bond between parents and a child and family love. The daughter leaves her foster parents and ends up with her mother in...

The story of the trials and tribulations of a lighthouse keeper and his wife.

Live-action adaptation of Yoshiro Kato’s manga.

An anthology of thirteen patriotic stories about Japanese citizens contributing to the war effort.

Jyuta, an honest owner of a taxi company, has a younger half-brother who is involved in the yakuza world and doesn’t get along well with his...

Popular geisha Koharu suspects that Yusaku, a handsome stranger she falls in love with, is involved in a robbery of precious diamond.

A 1937 Japanese film.

Kinuyo is a daughter of doctor of Chinese medicine, and Yasuo is a son of surgeon. Their families always fight like cat and dog. This relationship is...

University friends Ben and Shūichi unknowingly vie for the attention of the beautiful Chieko while on a skiing trip.

The brothers of Children In The Wind deal with declining family fortunes: they must work when the father becomes sick, and eventually live with their...

Movie about a devoted and single woman and her daughter. The mother's nickname is "Bokuseki" (wooden head) because of his supposed stubbornness....

Strip dancer Carmen falls in love with Hajime, who is engaged to the daughter of a right-wing politician.

A Japanese film

Before a young woman can be sold to a geisha, she becomes pregnant.

Three young women make a suicide pact, but they grow to have a better understanding of themselves.

Japanese comedy film.

A young couple is harrased by an uncle.

A wealthy family will not allow the military to grow crops on their fields due to their superstitious beliefs about their son's illness.

A silent 3-reel comedy short that uses the 1933 film King Kong as a backdrop to the story. It was produced by Shochiku Studios (who released the...

A President of the confectionery company announced his retirement, and his sixteen year old granddaughter, Madoka was ordered to be a new head. But...

A boy falls in love with a girl. Neither of them know that she's to be sold to a brothel.

A student comes up with various schemes to avoid paying a tailor the money he owes him. Considered to be a lost film.

In a back alley of the Shitamachi district of Tokyo, Kihachi bears witness to a series of romantic complications involving the inhabitants of the...

A salaryman finds some money in the street and gets a reward for returning it to its rightful owner. However his colleagues immediately start...

When Tsukamoto is made redundant he cannot bring himself to tell his wife. Instead he investigates other employment opportunities. Considered to be a...

Comedy about a young man juggling several girlfriends. Considered to be a lost film.

A married man falls for a dancer and his wife's uncle hires a private detective to spy on him. Considered to be a lost film.

Melodrama about a talented singer who finally makes her debut

A reformatory in the remote countryside houses 200 delinquents and problem children. The teachers and caretakers face much trouble. The school is...

Alongside Tokyo's Sumida River is a ragpickers' settlement known as Ant Village. One night, a young Catholic girl, Satoko Kitahara, who has been...

Part two of Shimizu's major silent Seven Seas, a family drama of the intertwining fates of the rich, decadent Yagibashis and the far less prosperous...

A young doctor, Kozo Tsumura, falls for young nurse Katsue Takaishi. But she's got a secret: she's a widow with a son. Kozo and Katsue decide to run...

After the death of her husband, an elderly woman and her youngest, unmarried daughter are forced to sell their house to cover his debts and decide to...

A melodrama about an orphan and her mother who are separated and lose contact, but are later reunited.

Aiko, a bar hostess, falls for the son of a company president who also keeps a mistress, and whose family disapproves of his relationship with the...

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...

Adaptation of Kishida Kunio's novel. Set against the backdrop of a power struggle within a hospital, depicts the love lives of the director's...

A pair of blind masseurs, an enigmatic city woman, a lonely man and his ill-behaved nephew—The Masseurs and a Woman is made up of crisscrossing...

A fishing union depends on two brothers to make up the losses caused by the dishonest captains they replaced.

Lost silent film

A musical film made for the inauguration of Shochiku's Ofuna Studio, with an all-star cast of the era.

A hen-pecked man works as his artist wife's model and a house-husband. When her patron flirts with her and humiliates him, he decides to get revenge...

In a Tokyo boarding house a group of students and recent graduates struggle to complete their studies and find jobs. Considered a lost film.

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

The film features the first scene with kissing in a Japanese film. Kiss scenes were encouraged by the American occupiers of Japan following World War...

Michiko gets pregnant after a rape. She marries a boring business partner of her father to avoid the shame. Later she meets the rapist again who is...

A young couple flee their disapproving parents, get lost of Mt. Akagi and find a cache of gold protected by the ghost of a gangster.

Rikitaro and Osayo are popular entertainers who throw knives. They are sweethearts. At one day They help Ocho, who is a beautiful pickpocket when she...

A blacksmith is chased out of the village by the sinister village chief and forced to move to the forest with his wife and two sons. The...

It chronicles the experiences of a neighbourhood doctor, whose taste for tonkatsu (a popular Japanese dish, similar to a pork schnitzel) earns him...

Inochi uruwashi

A nurse's tale of self-sacrifice during wartime. The title is borrowed from a patriotic song made popular by singer Hamako Watanabe during the Second...

Television production of I Want to Be a Shellfish. On a post-war peaceful day in Japan, Toyomatsu Shimizu, a barber as well as a good father and...

Heinosuke Gosho evokes in this film the family conflicts engendered by the eternal problem of a father who projects his professional desires on the...

A story of an orphan boy who wanted the love of parents so badly, another orphan sincerely pitied him to the point he gives his secret birthright as...

A young girl gives up high school to help out family expenses and starts to work as a bus conductor.

That Night's Woman

Mariko is an innocent girl who grew up in the highlands of Shinshu. She moves to Tokyo to live with her father who has successfully returned to...

1961 Japanese movie

1956 Japanese movie

1956 Japanese movie

A wandering swordsman helps a doll maker and his fiancée fight against a ruthless gang in a small town. As tensions escalate, epic duels and...

When noble wanderer Moritaro saves a disowned merchant’s son from gangsters, he becomes entangled in a town’s struggle against corruption....

A road trip comedy set against the backdrop of the famous historical sites of Tohoku and Hokkaido.

Japanese war movie.

1961 Japanese movie

A period drama about samurai who survived a loss in battle. An early jidaegeki by Hiroshi Shimizu.

Silent jidaigeki released on New Year's Eve, 1926.

Japanese silent drama from 1927.

Japanese jidaigeki from 1927.

Japanese jidaigeki from 1927. The titular character's nickname may suggest agility, stealth, or other outstanding skills.

Japanese silent film from 1928.

Hirano's wife Yasuko had grown weary of her life of poverty. Her feelings of dissatisfaction deepened when she met her elegantly dressed friend...

Japanese silent film from 1929.

Japanese silent film from 1929.

Japanese silent film from 1929.

A modern girl suddenly intrudes into a widower's family home.

Japanese silent film from 1932.

Japanese home drama starring Kinuyo Tanaka.

A heartrending love story between an aspiring singer and a unnamed composer. Sobbing love songs sung by a heroine Mieko Takemine.

Swimmers Akio and Natsuko train hard for national competition while Natsuko struggles with family chaos — her father’s affair and her mother’s...

Japanese film from 1933, adapted from Masao Kume's serialized newspaper novel.

Japanese drama from 1934. A major production of Shochiku Studio, directed by Hiroshi Shimizu.

Japanese film from 1934.

The Yoshikawa family is a typical small town family. With only the father's and daughter's salaries to support the family's six members, life is not...

Bank robbers hide their loot in an underwater cave in a small fishing village, but the Ama (female divers) of the village suspect something and dive...

Produced by Shochiku’s all-star cast as a commemorative film to mark the completion of the “Shochiku Kaikan” in Tsukiji, Tokyo, this movie...

A ronin sets out on a journey with his horse, with no particular destination in mind. Re-released in 1953.

After being discharged from the military, Kenzo, convinced of his older brother Kenichi’s innocence—who had been executed five years earlier for...

A private detective chases a female pickpocket into a film studio and dashes through the sets. With special appearances by a star-studded cast.

A film about the life of Kiyoshi Yamashita, a Japanese painter with disabilities.

Adapted from a novel by Kaoru Funayama