Tatsuo Matsumura
1914 - 2005最後の顔役
Yasushi Sasaki
Chiezō Kataoka, Ken Takakura
A shooting incident occurs at the Asahina family gambling hall in Tokyo's Joto district. It is the work of Gaijin boss Brown and his henchman Yamaoka, whose territory is in the Jonan district, in response to Kikuya, the head of the Asahina family, refusing to join the Syndicate. Yamaoka relentlessly pursues the Asahina family and uses his brother Komatsu to kill Shibaki, Kikuya's brother, who owns Nagoya territory. When Kikuya receives information that a general meeting of the Brown and Yamaoka Syndicate is to be held in Nagoya, he is determined to root out the syndicate and rushes to Nagoya, ready to die...
The Big Boss
或る夜ふたたび
Heinosuke Gosho
Nobuko Otowa, Shūji Sano
Poor social conditions badly affect the relationship between a married couple, when the husband, who is desperately searching for work, fails to notice the terrible sacrifices made by his wife when she accepts a job at a local inn.
Twice on a Certain Night
切腹
Masaki Kobayashi
Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Ishihama
Down-on-his-luck veteran Tsugumo Hanshirō enters the courtyard of the prosperous House of Iyi. Unemployed, and with no family, he hopes to find a place to commit seppuku—and a worthy second to deliver the coup de grâce in his suicide ritual. The senior counselor for the Iyi clan questions the ronin’s resolve and integrity, suspecting Hanshirō of seeking charity rather than an honorable end. What follows is a pair of interlocking stories which lay bare the difference between honor and respect, and promises to examine the legendary foundations of the Samurai code.
Harakiri
Samurai Rebellion
Masaki Kobayashi
Toshirō Mifune, Yôko Tsukasa
The mother of a feudal lord's only heir is kidnapped away from her husband by the lord. The husband and his samurai father must decide whether to accept the unjust decision, or risk death to get her back.
Samurai Rebellion
The Maid Story
Shiro Toyoda
Hisaya Morishige, Reiko Dan
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 forever looking for new maids. As the years go by maid servants become hired help and more bossy and independent, so Chikura and his wife find themselves adjusting their lives to keep up with changing times.
The Maid Story
Hiroshima
Roger Spottiswoode, Koreyoshi Kurahara
Wesley Addy, Kenneth Welsh
Hiroshima is a 1995 Japanese / Canadian film directed by Koreyoshi Kurahara and Roger Spottiswoode about the decision-making processes that led to the dropping of the atomic bombs by the United States on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki toward the end of World War II. Except as actors, no Americans took part in the production. The three-hour film was made for television and evidently had no theatrical release, but is available on DVD for home viewing. A combination of dramatisation, historical footage, and eyewitness interviews, the film alternates between documentary footage and the dramatic recreations. Both the dramatisations and most of the original footage are presented as sepia-toned images, serving to blur the distinction between them. The languages are English and Japanese, with subtitles, and the actors are largely Canadian and Japanese.
Hiroshima
長崎ぶらぶら節
Yukio Fukamachi
Sayuri Yoshinaga, Tetsuya Watari
Screen icon Sayuri Yoshinaga stars in this historical melodrama about geishas in the southern city of Nagasaki set during the 1920s. Though she was sold to a geisha house at a young age, Aihara (Yoshinaga) has since become a master samisen player and woman of great elegance. Though not especially rich, she doles out money to street kids, in particular, a pretty young flower vendor named Oyuki, who becomes Aihara's godchild of sorts. Yet when a geisha (Reiko Takashima) from a rival red-light district insults Aihara and her brethren, she fights back. Soon an all-out geisha war looms. Dapper businessman and amateur scholar Tojiro Koga (Tetsuya Watari) appears on the scene and defuses tempers -- suggesting that difference be settled through a competition of artistic abilities. Smitten with her talent and mature beauty, Koga invites Aihara to record Nagasaki folk songs before they disappear forever
It Is a Long Walk
Zatoichi Challenged
Kenji Misumi
Shintarō Katsu, Jūshirō Konoe
Ichi is staying at an inn when a woman dies. Her dying wish is that Ichi take her son to his father, an artist living in a nearby town. After arriving in the town, Ichi finds out that the father has been forced by a local boss to create illegal pornography to pay off his gambling debts. Ichi makes it his mission to save tha man and reunite the family, even though it brings him into conflict with a samurai he sort of befriended on his way to the town.
Zatoichi Challenged
Xiongmao Monogatari TaoTao
Tatsuo Matsumura
The Story of Panda – Taotao, directed by Shuichi Nakahara and Tatsuo Shimamura, was the first animation produced as a Chinese-Japanese joint venture. Released in December, 1981, the film is about Taotao, a small panda from Sichuan, who was captured and sold to a European zoo, where he got into adventures with his animal friends. The series includes a film in 1981 and a 52-episode series in 1983.
Xiongmao Monogatari TaoTao
Dodes'ka-den
Akira Kurosawa
Yoshitaka Zushi, Kin Sugai
This film follows the daily lives of a group of people barely scraping by in a slum on the outskirts of Tokyo. Yet as desperate as their circumstances are, each of them—the homeless father and son envisioning their dream house; the young woman abused by her uncle; the boy who imagines himself a trolley conductor—finds reasons to carry on.
Dodes'ka-den
Madadayo
Akira Kurosawa
Tatsuo Matsumura, Kyōko Kagawa
Based on the life of Hyakken Uchida, a Japanese author and academic. The film opens with Uchida resigning his job as a German professor at the onset of WWII. The story is told mostly in vignettes as he is cared for by former students in his old age.
Madadayo
A Story from Echigo
Tadashi Imai
Yoshiko Sakuma, Shoichi Ozawa
A sake factory worker on holiday returns to his home town, where he rapes the wife of one of his co-workers in the forest. The other man returns home to find his wife changed and suspects that she has been unfaithful.
A Story from Echigo
