Michiko Kawa

用心棒

Akira Kurosawa

Toshirō Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai

A nameless ronin, or samurai with no master, enters a small village in feudal Japan where two rival businessmen are struggling for control of the local gambling trade. Taking the name Sanjuro Kuwabatake, the ronin convinces both silk merchant Tazaemon and sake merchant Tokuemon to hire him as a personal bodyguard, then artfully sets in motion a full-scale gang war between the two ambitious and unscrupulous men.

こだまは呼んでいる

Ishirō Honda

Ryō Ikebe, Izumi Yukimura

An Ishiro Honda film.

Wakai ki

Ishirō Honda

Kyōko Aoyama, Shinji Yamada

A young girl moves to Tokyo and endures the rivalries between other high school girls of varying cultural and economic backgrounds.

A Wanderer's Notebook

Mikio Naruse

Hideko Takamine, Akira Takarada

Considered one of the finest late Naruses and a model of film biography, A Wanderer’s Notebook features remarkable performances by Hideko Takamine – Phillip Lopate calls it “probably her greatest performance” – and Kinuyo Tanaka as mother and daughter living from hand to mouth in Twenties Tokyo. Based on the life and career of Fumiko Hayashi, the novelist whose work Naruse adapted to the screen several times, A Wanderer’s Notebook traces her bitter struggle for literary recognition in the first half of the twentieth century – her affairs with feckless men, the jobs she took to survive (peddler, waitress, bar maid), and her arduous, often humiliating attempts to get published in a male-dominated culture.

浮雲

Mikio Naruse

Hideko Takamine, Masayuki Mori

A married Japanese forester during WWII is sent to Indochina to manage forests. He meets a young Japanese typist and promises to leave his wife. He doesn't and after the war, she turns up and the affair resumes.

Fort Graveyard

Kihachi Okamoto

Toshirō Mifune, Makoto Satō

Charged with insubordination for punching a superior, Sergeant Kosugi is shipped to China in the last desperate days of the Second World War. His commander, Captain Sakuma, is vicious and dictatorial. Sakuma places Kosugi in charge of training for combat what once was the military band. Kosugi must somehow prepare his inept soldiers for the rigors of combat.

All About Marriage

Kihachi Okamoto

Izumi Yukimura, Michiyo Aratama

Ultra-perky model likes single freedom but feels ryosai kenbo ("good wife, wise mother") pressure, exemplified by her bored-to-tears sister.

The Thin Line

Mikio Naruse

Keiju Kobayashi, Michiyo Aratama

Tashiro coincidentally meets his best friend Sugimoto in a bar very close to the apartment in which Sugimoto’s wayward wife is found dead. Although Tashiro is not a suspect in the police investigation, he is racked with guilt and confesses to his wife, Masako. In an effort to further relieve his tortured sense of guilt, he then confesses to Sugimoto. Neither his wife nor his friend can believe that he could have been involved.

妻の心

Mikio Naruse

Hideko Takamine, Toshirō Mifune

Kiyoko (Takamine Hideko) and her husband want to open a coffee shop. She becomes increasingly close to the bank clerk (Mifune Toshiro) she's asked for a loan.

安五郎出世

Eisuke Takizawa

Hisaya Morishige, Keiko Awaji

Tokyo no hito sayonara

Ishirō Honda

Chiyoko Shimakura, Shinji Yamada

Yagyû bugeichô

Hiroshi Inagaki

Toshirō Mifune, Koji Tsuruta

In the Tokugawa Era, the clan of Lord Yagyu has hidden away three scrolls containing clan secrets which, if revealed, would cause revolution and disaster for the clan. The information is divided among the three scrolls, all of which must be possessed for the secrets to be understood. When Princess Yuhime steals the scrolls, Tasaburo, a samurai with magical powers, and his brother Senshiro are sent to retrieve them.

大怪獣バラン

Ishirō Honda

Kôzô Nomura, Ayumi Sonoda

When a rare species of butterfly is found in a mysterious valley in Japan, a pair of entomologists go to investigate and find more. They discover Varan, a giant monster, Who decided to leave the valley and head straight for Tokyo.