Sumiko Hidaka

慾望

Kōzaburō Yoshimura

Nobuko Otowa, Mitsuko Mito

Nobuko Otowa won the Blue Ribbon for the Best Actress for this movie among others.

復讐の七仮面

Sadatsugu Matsuda

Chiezō Kataoka, Sō Yamamura

The eighth film in the "master detective with seven faces" series. Bannachi patrols the town in his taxi when he sees a man heading into Shiodome Town. Next day the man is found brutally murdered and the mystery starts to unravel.

Double Suicide

Masahiro Shinoda

Kichiemon Nakamura, Shima Iwashita

Successful and married with children, paper-mill owner Jihei knows better than to contradict the strict social and moral codes of 18th-century Japan. But when he meets the lovely courtesan Koharu, he becomes a man obsessed. Koharu returns his love, even foregoing other customers while Jihei schemes to somehow buy her freedom. His efforts yield ruinous consequences for his business and his family life, and Koharu is meanwhile purchased by another client.

Naniwa no koi no monogatari

Tomu Uchida

Kinnosuke Nakamura, Ineko Arima

The adopted son of an Osaka courier falls in love with a prostitute and, discovering that she is about to be purchased by a client, steals money from his employer to redeem her. Hunted criminals, the two young lovers take flight to Yamato, but, as in Chikamatsu's other domestic tragedies of love and duty (known as sewamono), they must be pursued and their passion destroyed by death. Favourite Uchida themes, such as the indenturing of a prostitute (cf. YOSHIWARA; A BLOODY SPEAR AT MT. FUJI), and his characteristic emphasis on performance and theatrical artifice re-emerge here; but the daring device of having Chikamatsu appear as a character - not unlike having Shakespeare interpolated into a film adaptation of one of his plays - is just one of many surprises this remarkable film holds. “Extraordinary” (Donald Richie).

The Shrikes

Minoru Shibuya

Ineko Arima, Chikage Awashima

Clouds at Sunset

Masahiro Shinoda

Shima Iwashita, Tsutomu Yamazaki

A Japanese soldier deserts his position and travels to a small town on the Sea of Japan to start over. When a young maid falls for him, he talks her into sleeping with an older man for money.

美女と怪龍

Kōzaburō Yoshimura

Chiyonosuke Azuma, Nobuko Otowa

Kabuki adaptation: A princess, a figure from the literary past who anticipates a modern woman, tempts a self righteous priest.

続警察日記

Seiji Hisamatsu

Tōru Abe, Michiyo Aratama

From runaway brides to a typhoon, the continued adventures of Ushikata police station.

Tetsu no tsume

Nobuo Adachi

Joji Oka, Sumiko Hidaka

During the war a man is bitten by a creature which looks like a cross between a bear and an ape in the jungle. Later he starts to transform to a monster like creature who kills with his claw like fingers.

The Mad Fox

Tomu Uchida

Hashizo Okawa, Michiko Saga

A court fortune-teller loses his mind after a conspiracy leads to the death of his lover. Hope appears to be on the horizon after he becomes romantically involved with his dead lover’s twin sister, but more complications arise thanks to a chance encounter with a clan of shape-shifters.

夜の鼓

Tadashi Imai

Rentaro Mikuni, Ineko Arima

Following a yearlong attendance upon his shogun in Edo, samurai Hikokuro makes a long-awaited return to his home and doting wife, Dane. Initially greeted by the effusive welcome of his family, spiteful whispers also reach his ear about an adulterous affair carried on, in his long absence, between his wife and a famous drummer. With Hikokuro’s honor imperiled by rumor, his family insists on a formal investigation into the veracity of the gossip. Through the combined testimony of many witnesses, a tale unwinds around the visits of a traveling musician hired to tutor the family heir, the spurned attentions of the man who started the rumor, and the ultimate truth behind the accusations. The conclusion of events prove as much an indictment of bushidō as it is of the reluctant parties involved. Adapted from a 1706 play by Chikamatsu Monzaemon and based on a true case.

Akitsu Springs

Yoshishige Yoshida

Mariko Okada, Hiroyuki Nagato

Yoshida’s first big-budget production and colour film is a haunting tale of unrequited love and postwar disillusion. The story of the fatal attraction between a spineless intellectual and a strong woman is conventional, but its enactment is radically new.

縮図

Kaneto Shindō

Nobuko Otowa, Sumiko Hidaka

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 in the process. No matter how hard she tries, she just can't escape her sad fate.

Miyamoto Musashi V: Musashi vs Kojiro

Tomu Uchida

Kinnosuke Nakamura, Ken Takakura

The fifth and final installment with the build up of the epic battle between Sasaki Kojiro and Miyamoto Musashi. With all the familiar characters making appearances: Otsu (Musashi's great love), Akemi, Matahachi (his former fellow soldier), old lady Osugi (still doggedly trying to defeat Musashi), and even the return of Priest Takuan (the man responsible for his journey towards enlightenment). But most of all, the boastful, long-haired and long-sworded Sasaki Kojiro.

濹東綺譚

Shiro Toyoda

Fujiko Yamamoto, Hiroshi Akutagawa

In this Japanese drama, a village girl goes to Tokyo and becomes a hooker to support her ailing mother. While there she meets an unmarried teacher (at least he says he's unmarried) and falls in love. When she learns that he lied and is married to a woman whose child was fathered by another man, she is crushed. He returns to his wife. The woman becomes more distraught when she learns her uncle has misused the money she has sent. As the final straw, her mother dies, and the girl becomes sick.

足摺岬

Kōzaburō Yoshimura

Isao Kimura, Keiko Tsushima

1950s Japanese drama.