Movies: Akio Isono

After handing in a report on the treatment of Chinese colonial labor, Kaji is offered the post of labor chief at a large mining operation in Manchuria, which also grants him exemption from military service. He accepts, and moves to Manchuria with his...

A rural village elder plans an event on the return of a farmer's daughter from the city, unaware that she has become a Westernized burlesque artist....

A pair of blind masseurs, an enigmatic city woman, a lonely man and his ill-behaved nephew—The Masseurs and a Woman is made up of crisscrossing miniature studies of love and family at a remote resort in the mountains. With delicate and surprising hum...

An aging geisha, whose angry teenage son is ashamed of her profession, works alongside a young geisha, resentful of her family for forcing her into a life of ignominy....

A sad and troubled man finds a new job five years after the end of WWII, where he writes love letters for other people....

Ignoring the protests of his working-class mother, a young man becomes wrapped up in the world of delinquents and yakuza....

A talent scout moves sharply, dead-set on signing a promising athlete to the baseball team the Toyko Flowers....

Mikio Naruse’s final silent film is a gloriously rich portrait of a waitress, Sugiko, whose life, despite a host of male admirers and even some intrigued movie talent scouts, ends up taking a suffocatingly domestic turn after a wealthy businessman ac...

Shochiku melodrama about the loves of the humble people living in the poor tenament called the Ryuheiso....

Mariko studies at a missionary school in Shinshu. She drops out of school and joins her father on a circus tour when she discovers that her father, Ryutaro, whom she always thought was an agricultural and forestry engineer, was a circus clown. Over t...

One week into newlywed Teiko Uhara's marriage, her husband, Kenichi, leaves on a short business trip and never returns. Teiko travels across Japan to search for him, and along the way discovers some surprising facts about her husband's past. With onl...

1962 Japanese movie...

A period piece about the love of a wealthy blind woman, a teacher of koto and shamisen, and her devoted manservant. Based on a novella by Tanizaki Junichiro....

Watanabe Kazuma and Kawai Matagorō from the Bizen Okayama Ikeda clan were close friends, but they inevitably became enemies after Matagorō killed Kazuma's younger brother, Gentayū, and fled. Seeking assistance, Kazuma asked his brother-in-law, Araki ...

33-year-old poor writer Ogata was able to endure his miserable life cheerfully thanks to Yoshie, a 19-year-old innocent young wife. After graduating from a girls' school in Hokuriku, she immediately moved to Tokyo to meet and marry Ogata. After neatl...

Strip dancer Carmen falls in love with Hajime, who is engaged to the daughter of a right-wing politician....

Akitaro Orizuru, who set out on a journey to avenge his father's death in the darkness, returned to Itako, his hometown, where the Ayame Festival was approaching, for the first time in five years. His late father's brother, Sutezo, who took off his w...

Machiko and Haruki’s drama continues. Two meet again in Hokkaido only to be separated again....

Keitaro is a law student and Yaeko is a high school girl. They are neighbors, and their friendship is starting to develop into something more romantic. Then, Yaeko's sister Kyouko has a breakup with her husband and returns home. Kyouko is clearly int...

Pre-war Asakusa was a riotous district of cabarets, dance-halls and brothels - a striking backdrop for Shimazu's story of innocence and experience. Pretty, young Reiko is the new dancer in an infamous theatre troupe, and her fellow performers try to ...