Movies: Shōwa era 1926 89

A passionate telling of the story of Sada Abe, a woman whose affair with her master led to an obsessive and ultimately destructive sexual relationship....

In the midst of an attempt to take over his company, a powerhouse executive is hit with a huge ransom demand when his chauffeur's son is kidnapped by mistake....

It is the early 1930s and the command of the Japanese Imperial Navy determines to construct the world's biggest and most formidable battleship, Yamato. One of the admirals, Yamamoto Isoroku, disagrees. He recruits the upstart and mathematics' expert ...

The Americans are swiftly closing on Okinawa, an island just south of the Japanese mainland. The Imperial command sends top generals and several army divisions to defend it at all costs. The mission quickly degenerates as vital resources and troops a...

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 be...

Two different students—a successful but aloof academic and a rebellious but kindhearted delinquent—form a friendship through their love of jazz music....

Kiroku boards with a Roman Catholic family and falls for the daughter Michiko. He ignores his feelings, joins a gang, gets in fights and, eventually, becomes involved with the radical Kita Ikki group....

In 1974, Morikazu is 94 years old and his wife Hideko is 76 years old. They live at a house in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. The garden at their home is full of trees, plants and insects. Morikazu paints pictures of the creatures in his garden and also observes ...

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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...

Set in Tokyo in 1940, the peaceful life of the Nogami Family suddenly changes when the father, Shigeru, is arrested and accused of being a Communist. His wife Kayo works frantically from morning to night to maintain the household and bring up her two...

An ambitious businessman knocks up his mistress with fraternal twins. He keeps the boy but sends his bodyguard to dispose of the mother and the girl. Years later…...

A freestyle biopic of Ikki Kita, the ultranationalist intellectual whose ideas inspired the failed military coup in 1936....

Towards the end of WWII, the Navy gave the Kyoto University's physics lab the secret of a bomb that makes use of nuclear fission energy. While doing research to save Japan, the researchers there wonder if they should promote the development of weapon...

Hidejuro is sent to prison after killing the boss of a rival family. After being released, he discovers that his family has scattered and he is taken in by a company of quarry workers, whose boss has a strict code of non-violence. When the rival fami...

After her mother runs away from home, Tomoko is raised to be a geisha. One day Tomoko meets her mother in a red-light district in Tokyo and her life deeply gets in trouble....

Yasuo (Hiroshi Abe) grew up as an orphan. He married a woman he loved and they had a son Akira (later played by Takumi Kitamura). Yasuo's life seemed great at the time, but his life totally changed after his wife died in accident. Since that time, Ya...

Hidejiro is a wandering yakuza with a ‘karashi botan’ (Chinese lion and peony) tattoo. Owing a favor to the Soda Family, he kills the boss of the rival Sakaki Family. When the Soda attacks the Sakaki and double-crosses him, with sword in hand, Hideji...

Fierce war breaks out when Shujiro’s rival clan attempts to sabotage his lucrative construction business....

Young yakuza Shujiro Hanada goes to prison after losing his cool in a rigged gambling game and slashing a few other players. When he's released in 1927, the world has changed. His sister died in the Great Kanto Earthquake and his father is also gone....