Jūzō Itami
1933 - 1997
Tampopo
Juzo Itami
Tsutomu Yamazaki, Nobuko Miyamoto
In this humorous paean to the joys of food, a pair of truck drivers happen onto a decrepit roadside shop selling ramen noodles. The widowed owner, Tampopo, begs them to help her turn her establishment into a paragon of the "art of noodle-soup making". Interspersed are satirical vignettes about the importance of food to different aspects of human life.
Tampopo
かげろう
Kaneto Shindō
Nobuko Otowa, Juzo Itami
Otowa is a former Seto Inland Sea island farmer who has moved to the mainland in order to find work, but instead ends up dead. The film begins with the discovery of her corpse, which leads to an investigation that uncovers the narcotics, prostitution, and murder in which many poor farmers had found themselves trapped after World War II.
Heat Wave Island
A Taxing Woman
Juzo Itami
Nobuko Miyamoto, Tsutomu Yamazaki
Intrepid tax investigator Ryoko Itakura sets her sights on the mysterious and philandering Hideki Gondo, a suspected millionaire and proprietor of a thriving chain of seedy hourly hotels, who has for years succeeded at hiding the true extent of his assets from the Japanese authorities. Itakura and Gondo soon find themselves engaged in a complicated, satirical battle of wits.
A Taxing Woman
Minbo: the Gentle Art of Japanese Extortion
Juzo Itami
Nobuko Miyamoto, Yasuo Daichi
An upscale Japanese hotel hires Mahiru Inoue, a lawyer adept at dealing with the Yakuza, to help them rid their hotel of the local gangsters so they can get a contract for a meeting of important foreign officials.
Minbo: the Gentle Art of Japanese Extortion
Supermarket Woman
Juzo Itami
Nobuko Miyamoto, Masahiko Tsugawa
Failing supermarket manager Goro hires the energetic Hanako, his old classmate, to help him compete with a new, rival business in town. Soon, Hanako's ideas and energy completely revitalize the store – but not without ruffling some feathers and sparking some romance along the way.
Supermarket Woman
草迷宮
Shūji Terayama
Hiroshi Mikami, Takeshi Wakamatsu
Akira is haunted by a "bouncing ball" song that he remembers his mother singing when he was a small child, and now on the verge of a sexually active adulthood, he wants to find the origins of the song. The young man ostensibly wanders into a time-warp in which aspects from his childhood and adulthood mix together. In this never-never land he comes across a beautiful woman/witch who is lost inside the labyrinth of her mansion, just as the young man is lost in the labyrinth of time — and on some levels, perhaps the labyrinth of his subconscious.
Grass Labyrinth
The Makioka Sisters
Kon Ichikawa
Keiko Kishi, Yoshiko Sakuma
This sensuously beautiful film chronicles the activities of four sisters who gather in Kyoto every year to view the cherry blossoms. It paints a vivid portrait of the pre-war lifestyle of the wealthy Makioka family from Osaka, and draws a parallel between their activities and the seasonal variations in Japan.
The Makioka Sisters
マルタイの女
Juzo Itami
Nobuko Miyamoto, Masahiko Nishimura
Biwako is a vain, middle-aged actress who witnesses a brutal murder. Realizing that the very public life of the woman makes their sole witness vulnerable to the killers, the police assign two officers to safeguard her until the trial. In the interim, the lives of Biwako and everyone around her are changed in unexpected ways.
Woman in Witness Protection
The Family Game
Yoshimitsu Morita
Yūsaku Matsuda, Juzo Itami
A sendup of the stereotypical Japanese family: dad is a salaryman jerk, unable to relate to anyone; mom is a hopeless housewife; the older son is a moderate academic success; but the younger son is a rebellious goof-off for whom a tutor must be hired. The tutor, played by the prototypical bad boy actor Matsuda Yusaku, proceeds to blow the entire family apart.
The Family Game
