Shozaburo Abe

Ureshii koro

Hiromasa Nomura

Ureo Egawa, Hiroko Kawasaki

A young couple is harrased by an uncle.

朧夜の女

Heinosuke Gosho

Toshiko Iizuka, Shin Tokudaiji

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 wastrel life. Bunkichi admonishes the boy to study harder, but it seems his uncle's advice may already be too late.

隣の八重ちゃん

Yasujirō Shimazu

Yumeko Aizome, Ryōtarō Mizushima

Keitaro is a law student and Yaeko is a high school girl. They are neighbors, and their friendship is starting to develop into something more romantic. Then, Yaeko's sister Kyouko has a breakup with her husband and returns home. Kyouko is clearly interested in Keitaro and Yae becomes anxious.

Chushingura

Teinosuke Kinugasa

Jusaburo Bando, Kazuo Hasegawa

This 1932 adaptation is the earliest sound version of the ever-popular and much-filmed Chushingura story of the loyal 47 retainers who avenged their feudal lord after he was obliged to commit hara-kiri due to the machinations of a villainous courtier. As the first sound version of the classic narrative, the film was something of an event, and employed a stellar cast, who give a roster of memorable performances. Director Teinosuke Kinugasa was primarily a specialist in jidai-geki (period films), such as the internationally celebrated Gate of Hell (Jigokumon, 1953), and although he is now most famous as the maker of the avant-garde silent films A Page of Madness (Kurutta ichipeji, 1926) and Crossroads (Jujiro, 1928), Chushingura is in fact more typical of his output than those experimental works. The film ranked third in that year’s Kinema Junpo critics’ poll, and Joseph Anderson and Donald Richie noted that 'not only the sound but the quick cutting was admired by many critics.

限りなき舗道

Mikio Naruse

Setsuko Shinobu, Akio Isono

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 intrigued movie talent scouts, ends up taking a suffocatingly domestic turn after a wealthy businessman accidentally hits her with his car.

恋の花咲く 伊豆の踊子

Heinosuke Gosho

Kinuyo Tanaka, Den Obinata

"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 there, including their youngest girl. The student finds the naïve girl attractive even though he eventually has to part with the family after spending memorable time together.

生さぬ仲

Mikio Naruse

Shin'yō Nara, Yukiko Tsukuba

An actress returns to Tokyo after a successful stint in Hollywood to reclaim—with the help of her gangster brother—the daughter she abandoned years before.

西住戦車長伝

Kōzaburō Yoshimura

Shozaburo Abe, Munenobu Aburai

Following a young man through his childhood ambition to follow his father into the military to losing his life in combat in China.

人生のお荷物

Heinosuke Gosho

Tatsuo Saitô, Mitsuko Yoshikawa

Family drama. 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. (British Film Institute)

与太者と海水浴

Hiromasa Nomura

Akio Isono, Kōji Mitsui

お絹と番頭

Hiromasa Nomura

Masao Hayama, Mitsuko Higashiyama

A story of a store that makes Tabi socks.

与太者と小町娘

Hiromasa Nomura

Shozaburo Abe, Akio Isono

A Japanese comedy from the end of the silent era (it has music) from a popular series. A feud, a practical joke and romance are the set up for some great comedy and drama from a team of distinctive appearance who are exploiting their silent cinema styles to the full.