Akira Tani
Also Known As: not available
Biography: Biography not available
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: Fukuoka, Japan
Birthday: September 22, 1910
Deathday: August 11, 1966
Adult: No
Gender: Male
Popularity:
Known For:
The Hidden Fortress
Overview: In feudal Japan, during a bloody war between clans, two cowardly and greedy peasants, soldiers of a defeated army, stumble upon a mysterious man who guides them to a fortress hidden in the mountains.
Genres: Drama Action Adventure
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1958-12-28
Popularity:
Mothra vs. Godzilla
Overview: Journalists Ichiro Sakai and Junko cover the wreckage of a typhoon when an enormous egg is found and claimed by greedy entrepreneurs. Mothra's fairies arrive and are aided by the journalists in a plea for its return. As their requests are denied, Godzilla arises near Nagoya and the people of Infant Island must decide if they are willing to answer Japan's own pleas for help.
Genres: Drama Action Science Fiction
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1964-04-29
Popularity:
Traveling with Breeze
Overview: 1953 Hiroshi Inagaki movie.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1953-05-07
Popularity:
Kwaidan
Overview: Taking its title from an archaic Japanese word meaning "ghost story," this anthology adapts four folk tales. A penniless samurai marries for money with tragic results. A man stranded in a blizzard is saved by Yuki the Snow Maiden, but his rescue comes at a cost. Blind musician Hoichi is forced to perform for an audience of ghosts. An author relates the story of a samurai who sees another warrior's reflection in his teacup.
Genres: Horror Fantasy Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1965-01-06
Popularity:
Drunken Angel
Overview: Doctor Sanada treats gangster Matsunaga after he is wounded in a gunfight, and discovers that he is suffering from tuberculosis. Sanada tries to convince Matsunaga to stay for treatment, which would drastically change his lifestyle. They form an uneasy friendship until Matsunaga's old boss Okada returns from prison.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1948-04-27
Popularity:
Yasugorō shusse
Overview:
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1953-04-15
Popularity:
Doburoku no Tatsu
Overview: 1962 Japanese movie
Genres: Adventure Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1962-04-29
Popularity:
The Scarlet Camellia
Overview: A young woman begins murdering all those responsible for her ailing father's condition. Because the girl is so outwardly sweet and innocent, the detective looking into the deaths does not suspect her.
Genres: Drama Crime
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1964-11-21
Popularity:
Zokuzoku Ôban: Dotô hen
Overview: Ushinosuke returns to his hometown to become a farmer. Part three (of four) of the film adaptation of Bunroku Shishi’s novel, Oban.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1957-12-17
Popularity:
Ôban
Overview: A young country boy leaves his village for Tokyo, where he begins to work as a stock trader. First part (of four) of the film adaptation of Bunroku Shishi's novel, Oban.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1957-03-05
Popularity:
Zoku Ôban: Fûun hen
Overview: Ushinosuke returns broke to his hometown, where everyone believes he's rich and successful. Part two (of four) of the film adaptation of Bunroku Shishi's novel, Oban.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1957-07-19
Popularity:
Hanayome-san wa sekai-ichi
Overview: A young Japanese-American comes from California looking for a bride, going on blind dates with three candidates from Osaka, Hiroshima and Nagoya.
Genres: Romance Comedy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1959-11-22
Popularity:
The King
Overview: The film takes place at the junction of the two eras of Meiji and Taisho. Sakata Sankichi, an uneducated zori sandal maker, becomes a professional shogi player through his genius shogi skills and lives a fanatically devoted shogi game supported by the love of his family. This is the 3rd adaptation of Hideji Hojo's famous play.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1962-11-23
Popularity:
Desperado Outpost
Overview: When Sergeant Okubo's brother is murdered at a Japanese outpost in Northern China during the Second World War, Okubo poses as a war correspondent and seeks out his brother's killer.
Genres: War Action Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1959-10-06
Popularity:
My Hobo
Overview: Story of a resourceful hobo (Kobayashi), a con woman (Takamine) who pretends to be a victim of the Nagasaki A-bomb, and two orphaned children who become a most atypical Japanese family.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1962-11-23
Popularity:
Omatsuri hanjiro
Overview: Every year, at the festival, familiar merchants such as Toraemon, a magic trick, Tokubei, a blowgun, Kaji, acrobatics, and Unsaibo, a ritual, gather toward the port town.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1953-11-23
Popularity:
Yajikita dōchū sugoroku
Overview: 1958 Japanese movie
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1958-12-07
Popularity:
Our Failures
Overview: Tells the story of Shintaro, a lawyer who quits his job to work at a camera factory, and his love adventures.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1962-09-01
Popularity:
Farewell Rabaul
Overview: A squadron of Japanese fighter pilots realise that they are never going to win the war when they understand that Japanese military tactics have little regard for life. Seeking the companionship of any woman who will have them, they spend their days indulging in every fantasy in order to escape the overwhelming fear of death looming just over the horizon.
Genres: Romance War Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1954-02-10
Popularity:
Ōwarai Jiro chō ikka: Sanshita nitei kenjū
Overview: Comedy movie
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1962-05-15
Popularity:
Shozo, a Cat and Two Women
Overview: Shozo is plagued by the needs of his ex-wife and his current one, but prefers the company of his cat.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1956-10-09
Popularity:
Pirates
Overview:
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1951-07-13
Popularity:
Yojimbo
Overview: 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.
Genres: Drama Thriller
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1961-04-25
Popularity:
The Storm
Overview: A widowed high-school teacher tries to raise his four children alone.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1956-10-24
Popularity:
Half Human
Overview: Three competing parties all race against time to track down an elusive creature known only as the Snowman.
Genres: Science Fiction Horror Adventure
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1955-08-14
Popularity:
Ikiru
Overview: Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1952-10-09
Popularity:
Seven Samurai
Overview: 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.
Genres: Action Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1954-04-26
Popularity:
I Live in Fear
Overview: Kiichi Nakajima, an elderly foundry owner, is convinced that Japan will be affected by an imminent nuclear war, and resolves to move his family to safety in Brazil. His family decides to have him ruled incompetent and Dr. Harada, a Domestic Court counselor, attempts to arbitrate.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1955-11-22
Popularity:
Throne of Blood
Overview: 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.
Genres: Drama History
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1957-01-15
Popularity:
The Human Condition I: No Greater Love
Overview: 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 newly-wed wife Michiko, but when he tries to put his ideas of more humane treatment into practice, he finds himself at odds with scheming officials, cruel foremen, and the military police.
Genres: War Drama History
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1959-01-15
Popularity:
Late Chrysanthemums
Overview: With delicate, unobtrusive strokes, Naruse evokes both the humor and bitterness of his characters’ dilemmas, in this bleak, compelling poignant portrait of a quartet of aging geishas contemplating their troubles with men and money.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1954-06-15
Popularity:
Wife
Overview: Ten years into a marriage, the wife is disappointed by the husband's lack of financial success, meaning she has to work and can't treat herself and the husband finds the wife slovenly and mean-spirited: she neither cooks not cleans particularly well and is generally disagreeable. In turn, he alternately ignores her and treats her as a servant. Neither is particularly happy, not helped by their unsatisfactory lodgers. The husband is easily seduced by an ex-colleague, a widow with a small child who needs some security, and considers leaving his wife.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1953-04-29
Popularity:
社長野郎ども
Overview:
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1960-11-05
Popularity:
The Legend of the White Serpent
Overview: Lavish Japanese-Chinese coproduction based on an ancient Chinese legend about a man who falls in love with a snake goddess in human form.
Genres: Drama Romance Fantasy Horror
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1956-06-22
Popularity:
Mr. Pu
Overview: A math teacher loses his job while falling in love with a local girl.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1953-04-15
Popularity:
The Living Koheiji
Overview: The actor Koheiji is terribly in love with the wife of his best friend, the playwright Takuro; to get her, he would even kill Takuro.
Genres: Horror
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1957-08-04
Popularity:
Marital Relations
Overview: The story of a couple, a spoiled son and a down-to-earth girl, in Osaka in the early Showa era. The film won the prestigious Blue Ribbon awards for best director, best actor (Morishige) and best actress (Awashima), and the Mainichi Concours award for best actor and best screenplay (Yasumi Toshio). It ranked second (after Naruse Mikio’s Ukigumo) on the Kinema Junpō top ten films for the year.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1955-09-13
Popularity:
Yagyu Secret Scrolls
Overview: 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.
Genres: Action Adventure
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1957-04-14
Popularity:
Samurai Saga
Overview: Edmund Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac, transplanted to Japan. A poet-warrior with an oversized nose (matched only by his great heart) loves a lady. But she sees him only as a friend, so he helps another man to woo her by giving him the poetry of his own heart.
Genres: Action Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1959-04-28
Popularity:
Daredevil in the Castle
Overview: During the raging war between the Toyotomi and Tokugawa clans, the swordsman Mohei (whose family has been completely decimated) is recruited by Toyotomi to overcome the seat of power, Osaka Castle. Mohei's daredevil skills will be put to severe tests.
Genres: History War Action
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1961-01-03
Popularity:
Whirlwind
Overview: Set at the end of the Siege of Osaka this film follows the exploits of several members of the defeated Toyotomi clan as they cope with the post battle chaos and the persecution of the Shogun's army. Five samurai decide on different fates when it becomes clear that their side is being destroyed. One wants to attack the enemy head on in a final honorable death. Another decides to commit hari-kiri but wants to find a glorious view to do it. His close friend, the "coward", just wants to run and give up the life of a samurai. The final two set their own castle on fire to garner favors from the enemy and therefore avert their own death during the massacre of all defeated soldiers as
Genres: History Action Adventure
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1964-07-26
Popularity:
The Three Treasures
Overview: The legend of the birth of Shintoism. In Fourth Century Japan, the Emperor's son Ouso expects to succeed his father on the throne, but Otomo, the Emperor's vassal, prefers Ouso's stepbrother, and conspires to have Ouso die on a dangerous mission he has contrived. But Ouso prevails in the mission and returns to his father's castle under a new name, Prince Yamato Takeru. Otomo plots to have the Prince sent into even greater danger, but Otomo is unaware that the gods have favored the Prince and the outcome is far from what any of them expected.
Genres: Fantasy Action Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1959-11-01
Popularity:
Snow Country
Overview: It's a man's world. Shimamura, an artist, comes to this snowbound town to rejuvenate himself. He connects with Komako, a geisha he met on a previous trip, and it seems like love. She's the foster daughter of a local family, almost engaged to the family's son Yukio, now dying of consumption. He's tended by his sister Yuko who's angry at Komako for abandoning her brother. Shimamura returns to Tokyo but promises he will be back soon. In anticipation of his return, Komako breaks with her patron and her family loses their home. Complications arise when Shimamura doesn't come back as promised. Then Komako discovers that he and Yuko knew each other in Tokyo. Can Komako escape destiny?
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1957-04-30
Popularity:
The Beast Shall Die
Overview: A promising post-graduate literature student is transformed into a psychotic killer following the suicide of his father and a sleazy affair by his mother with a younger man.
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1959-06-09
Popularity:
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
Overview: Keiko, whom everyone calls Mama, narrates her story: she's a hostess on the Ginza, 30, a widow. She describes life's vicious cycle: acting cheerful around drunks, dressing and living well to convey confidence, needing money for these expenses and for her demanding mother and brother, and knowing she's growing older.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1960-01-15
Popularity:
The Lone Journey
Overview: Forced on the road by yakuza obligations, a man sets out on a reckless journey to Tsumagoi. Movie posters for local cinemas were often displayed at sento (public baths) too. The handwritten text on the bottom here announces the film will play at Hassen for 3 days.
Genres: Drama Crime
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1955-08-31
Popularity:
The Hotelman's Holiday
Overview: A longtime hotel employee (Morishige) struggles to bring his old-fashioned ryokan in line with postwar Japanese business practices.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1958-07-12
Popularity:
Husband and Wife
Overview: A married couple looking for an apartment move in with the husband's co-worker, a widower. The husband becomes jealous of the widower and his wife.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1953-01-22
Popularity:
A Gang of Five
Overview: A group of five law enforcers search Edo for a missing sword.
Genres: Drama Action
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1955-01-15
Popularity:
Jirocho's New Year
Overview:
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1954-01-03
Popularity:
The Man Who Came to Port
Overview: An Ishiro Honda film.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1952-11-27
Popularity:
Lovetide
Overview: An Ishiro Honda film.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1955-01-09
Popularity:
Chûshingura
Overview: After their lord is tricked into committing ritual suicide, forty-seven samurai warriors await the chance to avenge their master and reclaim their honor.
Genres: History Drama Action
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1962-11-03
Popularity:
Saga of the Vagabonds
Overview: Lord Taro must deliver a money chest but is robbed by brigands led by Jibu. One of Jibu's men, Rokuro, steals the money from Jibu, but after meeting and befriending Taro, Rokuro decides to return the money to Taro. But Taro's unscrupulous brother Jiro falsely accuse Taro of the theft, and Taro reactively joins the outlaw band and encourages them to steal from the nobles and give to the poor.
Genres: Drama Action Adventure
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1959-08-09
Popularity:
Untamed Woman
Overview: A woman marries, gives birth to a stillborn child, and divorces, falls in love with a hotel-keeper, only to find herself subordinated to his drive for success, takes up with a tailor who cannot console himself with her strong personality.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1957-05-28
Popularity:
The Wiser Age
Overview: Drama about the lives of the five daughters and daughter-in-law of a store owner.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1962-01-14
Popularity:
The Irresponsible Fool
Overview: Picked up and raised on an island in the Seto Inland Sea, Yasukichi's only trait is his innate mischievousness. However, because his love for his hometown is exceptionally stronger than anybody's, he is trying everything he can to somehow help the inhabitants of the island which are going through a recession. He saddles himself with a debt to bring a cheap band onto the island and tries to market the underwater sightseeing ship on the island without regards for the Marine Act.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1964-04-29
Popularity:
Floating Clouds
Overview: 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.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1955-01-15
Popularity:
True Osaka Grit
Overview: Based on a novel by Kôen Hasegawa
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1965-10-24
Popularity:
Youth of Heiji Senigata
Overview:
Genres: Drama History Comedy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1953-08-19
Popularity:
Red-Light Bases
Overview: Story about a poor Japanese woman living near an American army base who resorts to prostitution.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1953-12-08
Popularity:
Blind Wolf
Overview:
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1963-09-29
Popularity:
Jakoman and Tetsu
Overview: In a village subsisting on it herring fishery, a one-eyed criminal named Jakoman terrorizes the inhabitants. One of them, the son of the head of one of the fish companies by the name of Tetsu, decides to overthrow Jakoman and his cohorts.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1949-07-11
Popularity:
Half Human: The Story of the Abominable Snowman
Overview: An American scientist tells two colleagues about the finding of an abominable snowman living in the Japanese alps, where it is worshipped by a remote tribe as a god, and how it was discovered by modern man after it raided a skiers shelter following an avalanche, killing all inside. This is an adaptation of the Japanese film "Jūjin Yuki Otoko" (1955) with added American-made footage, narration, and music.
Genres: Horror Science Fiction
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1958-12-01
Popularity:
Beast Alley
Overview: "When human beings venture too far along a trail made by wild beasts, it is said, they quite often discover themselves on a road of no return." Based on the novel of the same name by Seichô Matsumoto.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1965-09-05
Popularity:
Story of Lightning
Overview: Gensaburo Funaki and Oyuki were childhood friends, but Gensaburo misunderstood that Oyuki was hesitant to get married because he had to feed his father and younger brother. I left the town.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1951-12-30
Popularity:
Life of a Country Doctor
Overview: A skilled country doctor's talents are such that he can even perform operations as difficult and novel as removing a patient's kidney for the first time in Japan. Unfortunately for him, however, his wife's addiction to gambling is of such a magnitude that he is down to selling his underwear to make money. The image sticks and he becomes known as the 'underwear doctor.' On the other hand, his successful surgery's patient is so grateful he himself wants to become a physician.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1960-08-14
Popularity:
Garakuta
Overview: 1964 Japanese movie
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1964-08-01
Popularity:
Onatsu Detective Case: Mad Slasher
Overview: Japanese crime film
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1960-08-23
Popularity:
The Enchanting Devil
Overview: Thriller directed by Seiji Maruyama
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1959-10-25
Popularity:
The Maiden Courtesan
Overview: Period romantic drama.
Genres: Romance Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1956-01-22
Popularity: