Yoshio Inaba

忠直卿行状記

Kazuo Mori

Raizō Ichikawa, Katsuhiko Kobayashi

忍ぶ糸

Masanobu Deme

Komaki Kurihara, Gō Katō

A beautifully told story of a woman hardened by marriage to a man she doesn't love, after giving herself to another. She dedicates herself to her work, designing and creating plaited cords for kimono.

月山

Tetsutaro Murano

Jiro Kawarazaki, Chikako Yuri

Akira leaves for the Mt. Gassan foothills before winter's onset, visiting the local temple and interacting with the residents all while falling for fair Fumiko.

密約　外務省機密漏洩事件

Koji Chino

Kazuo Kitamura, Kazuko Yoshiyuki

TV film about the "Nishiyama Incident", a scandal surrounding the 1972 return of Okinawa to Japan. Produced to commemorate the 20th anniversary of TV Asahi in 1978 and released theatrically by Office Henmi in 1988.

七人の侍

Akira Kurosawa

Toshirō Mifune, Takashi Shimura

A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food.

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.

続人間革命

Toshio Masuda

Tetsurō Tamba, Michiyo Aratama

Dramatic story of one man trying to make a difference.

Throne of Blood

Akira Kurosawa

Toshirō Mifune, Isuzu Yamada

Returning to their lord's castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the spirit's prophecy comes true, Washizu's scheming wife, Asaji, presses him to speed up the rest of the spirit's prophecy by murdering his lord and usurping his place. Director Akira Kurosawa's resetting of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" in feudal Japan is one of his most acclaimed films.

野火

Kon Ichikawa

Eiji Funakoshi, Osamu Takizawa

In the closing days of WWII, a Japanese soldier afflicted with tuberculosis is abandoned by his company and left to wander the Philippine island of Leyte.

太陽は狂ってる

Toshio Masuda

Mitsuo Hamada, Sayuri Yoshinaga

Samurai Assassin

Kihachi Okamoto

Toshirō Mifune, Keiju Kobayashi

Japan, 1860. The men of the Mito clan, victims of the Ansei purge, anxiously prowl around the Sakurada Gate of Edo Castle with the intention of assassinating Naosuke Ii of Hikone, tairō of the Tokugawa shogunate and responsible for their misfortune.

私は貝になりたい

Shinobu Hashimoto

Frankie Sakai, Michiyo Aratama

On a post-war peaceful day in Japan, Toyomatsu Shimizu, a barber as well as a good father and husband, is suddenly arrested by the Prefectural Police as a war criminal and sued for murder.

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.

化石

Masaki Kobayashi

Shin Saburi, Keiko Kishi

An industrialist is diagnosed with terminal cancer. He is on a trip to Europe at the time, and a glimpse of a Japanese woman in that setting causes him to fantasize about her as the personification of his impending death. As his dialogue with his imagined mortality continues, he actually meets the living woman who is the template for his fantasy, and together they tour rural churches. Gradually he comes to some kind of peace about the diagnosis. When he returns to Japan, he is met with a series of challenges which profoundly test the lessons he has learned.

Cash Calls Hell

Hideo Gosha

Tatsuya Nakadai, Hisashi Igawa

Before leaving prison, Oida uncomfortably enters into an agreement with his cell mate: in exchange for a half-share of 30,000,000 yen, he is to assassinate three strangers given to him on a list. However, upon meeting his first potential victim, Oida has second thoughts. Yet, even as he tries to back out, the body count starts climbing. Oida must now try to alert the people on his list of their impending danger, and find out why they are being targeted in the first place.

右京之介巡察記

Yasuto Hasegawa

Hashizo Okawa, Eijirō Tōno

This is one of the most powerfully effective ninja films that dispenses with the silly magic of earlier efforts, and concentrates on an excellent story with expert fighting. Sena Denemon is the rarest of government officials, a man of integrity, sent on a mission to uncover the corruption that ran rampant during the Edo Period. Refusing bribes, and willing to put his life on the line to raise his son properly, heinfuriates the corrupt Inspectors; thus endangering his own life. Along with his two trusted vassals, he makes a brave effort to alert the Shogun to the plot which is being carried out. After the battle, his son Ichitaro joins the Chichibu ninja group in order to master fighting so he, too, can fight the forces which have brought about so much suffering.