Tanie Kitabayashi
Also Known As: Таниэ Китабаяси, 北村谷栄, 北林 谷栄
Biography: Tanie Kitabayashi (北林谷栄, Kitabayashi Tanie, May 21, 1911 – April 27, 2010) was a Japanese actress and voice actress. Born Reiko Ando in Tokyo, she began as a stage actress. Early in her career, she became well known for portraying older women. Kitabayashi was a founding member of the famed Mingei Theatre, founded in 1950. In 1960, she won best actress awards at the 10th Blue Ribbon Awards and at the Mainichi Film Awards for Kiku to Isamu. She also won the Japan Academy Prize for best actress in Rainbow Kids (1991), a film that also earned her honors from the Mainichi Film Awards and from Kinema Junpo. She died on April 27, 2010, of pneumonia at a Tokyo hospital. She was 98.
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: Tokyo, Japan
Adult: No
Birthday: May 21, 1911
Age: 113 years old
Gender: Female
Deathday: April 27, 2010
Popularity:
Known For:
Musume no boken
Overview:
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1958-11-01
Popularity:
My Neighbor Totoro
Overview: Two sisters move to the country with their father in order to be closer to their hospitalized mother, and discover the surrounding trees are inhabited by Totoros, magical spirits of the forest. When the youngest runs away from home, the older sister seeks help from the spirits to find her.
Genres: Fantasy Animation Family
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1988-04-16
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Red Bud and White Flower
Overview: A high school boy and girl in the midst of their youth try to get their parents to remarry.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1962-06-10
Popularity:
Never Give Up
Overview: Special forces officer Ajisawa leaves his paramilitary group to take care of his newly-adopted daughter, Yoriko: the sole survival of a bloodbath for which he is responsible. Years later, Ajisawa is forced to return to the scene of the tragedy for his new job as a claims adjuster where he is subsequently arrested for his suspected involvement. But the threat of jail time is the least of his worries as his former organization comes gunning for him.
Genres: Drama Action Thriller
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1978-10-07
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Jinsei Gekijo: dai ichi bu
Overview: Part one of Shin Saburi's Theater of Life adaptation.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1952-11-06
Popularity:
Rikyu
Overview: Late in the 1500s, an aging tea master teaches the way of tea to a headstrong Shogun. Through force of will and courageous fighting, Hideyoshi becomes Japan’s most powerful warlord, unifying the country.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1989-09-15
Popularity:
Jūdai no yūwaku
Overview: Film directed by Seiji Hisamatsu and starring Wakao Ayako
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1953-12-29
Popularity:
Dolls floating down the river
Overview: A touching story of pure love and tears between a boy and a girl, drawn by the innocent duo of Chieko Baisho and Shinichiro Mikami, based on "Nagashi bina", which absorbed the customs of the Tottori region.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1962-03-03
Popularity:
The Insect Woman
Overview: A woman, Tome, is born to a lower class family in Japan in 1918. The title refers to an insect, repeating its mistakes, as in an infinite circle. Imamura, with this metaphor, introduces the life of Tome, who keeps trying to change her poor life.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1963-11-16
Popularity:
Koibito
Overview:
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1951-03-10
Popularity:
Beauty and the Thief
Overview: The picture belongs to the jidai gekki (historic) genre. It is a powerful story of violence and eroticism, picturing a world at once sordid and poetic, with two central themes which intermingle to compound an admirable panel of a critical period in Japanese history: the great famine in the mid 19th Century.
Genres: Adventure Drama History
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1952-09-22
Popularity:
Farewell to Spring
Overview: Bittersweet shomin-geki drama by Keigo Kimura
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1952-03-28
Popularity:
Foundry Town
Overview: Set in Kawaguchi in the early 60s, this simple story chronicles the lives of foundry families and one girl's dreams of higher education.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1962-04-08
Popularity:
A Japanese Tragedy
Overview: At the close of the war in Japan, a widowed mother makes every possible sacrifice to bring up her ungrateful son and daughter who are unimpressed with their poor standard of living at home. They gradually reject her in search of the material comforts that working as a maid cannot provide. The mother's despair becomes interminable.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1953-06-17
Popularity:
Resurrection
Overview: When dead people starts returning to the small Japanese town of Aso, government official Kawada is dispatched to uncover the “truth”.
Genres: Fantasy Drama Mystery
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 2003-01-18
Popularity:
White Beast
Overview: The critical establishment was clearly not prepared to accept a woman's prison film featuring former prostitutes recovering from venereal diseases, unwanted pregnancies, and estranged lovers. With its cat fights, hysterical tantrums, film noir lighting, and dramatic music, White Beast is indicative of the new influences of the Hollywood psychological thriller on Naruse. Caged (John Cromwell, 1950) initiated a cycle of women's prison movies in the United States that may or may not have been shown in Japan, but the stylistics of White Beast draw on the same paranoid woman's films and film noir conventions that preceded the American cycle.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1950-06-03
Popularity:
Children of Hiroshima
Overview: Shows the devastation caused by the atomic bomb, and by use of a fictional storyline, portrays the struggle of the ordinary Japanese people in dealing with the aftermath.
Genres: Drama War
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1952-08-06
Popularity:
Conflagration
Overview: Learning of his family's collapse, acolyte Goichi, sent to study silently at the Temple of the Golden Pavilion, must endure acute psychological distress.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1958-09-22
Popularity:
The Human Bullet
Overview: A soldier has been in the Japanese military for the entirety of WWII, and in that time, his dedication to the army has never faltered. However, as the war draws to a close, his commanding officers become increasingly desperate and push their men to ever more absurd extremes. The ridiculousness of the orders from above peak when the hero of the story is assigned to drive a one-man submarine straight into the hull of an enemy battleship.
Genres: Comedy Drama War
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1968-10-22
Popularity:
Apart from Life
Overview: A film set in Nagasaki examining prejudice against atom bomb victims.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1970-01-30
Popularity:
All My Children
Overview: School teachers responsible for the lives of their students work to evacuate Allied bombings near the end of WWII.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1963-02-01
Popularity:
Only on Mondays
Overview: Yuka is a “good-time girl” from Yokohama who is persuaded by her papa to sleep with a foreign business executive so that he can close an important deal. Nakahira presents a shrewdly observed portrait of a modern, sexually assertive woman—an unsettling character for a changing but still patriarchal society.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1964-03-04
Popularity:
Letter from the Mountain
Overview: Husband and wife Michiko and Takao move from their urban existence in Tokyo to the isolated, rural farming village where Takao grew up.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 2002-10-05
Popularity:
Station
Overview: A detective goes out of his way to crack the case of a serial killer who specialises in murdering police officers.
Genres: Drama Thriller Romance
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1981-11-07
Popularity:
The Heart
Overview: In the dying months of the Meiji era, a sympathetic student befriends a married couple, but soon realizes they share a curiously strained relationship stemming from an unknown incident in their past.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1955-08-31
Popularity:
Hole in One
Overview: A female reporter is fired for writing about police corruption; to make money while hiding from the press, she posts a bounty upon herself.
Genres: Comedy Mystery
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1957-09-15
Popularity:
Blood and Sea
Overview: The Nami family lives in a quiet fishing village at the tip of the Shima Peninsula overlooking Ago Bay. The family of four consists of her grandmother, Tom, who is in her sixties, her mother, Kura, and older sister, Saki, all women. Toma, despite her advanced age, is still the best diver in the village, Nami has grown up to be an excellent diver too. However, her older sister Saki was born with a mental disorder and no one in the village wants to do business with her. Nami, on the other hand, is very popular among the boys of the village, she is healthy and beautiful. The fisherman Shosaku is crazy about Nami, and day and night he asks her on dates. However, Nami has a crush on her cousin Yuji, who works for the fishermen's union, and casually rejects Shosaku's advances.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1965-10-01
Popularity:
A Billionaire
Overview: An ethical, young tax collector new to his area encounters increasingly absurd individuals and groups coping with their post-war woes.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1954-11-22
Popularity:
River Without a Bridge Part 2
Overview: Second part to "River Without a Bridge" (1969)
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1970-04-25
Popularity:
Writhing Tongue
Overview: Masako, a five-year-old girl living, gets a scratch on her finger. After that, she suffered horrible spasms. The doctor checks on her and arrives at the conclusion that she has tetanus. Her parents have to bear the sufferings of their child. The once peaceful family has changed completely.
Genres: Drama Horror
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1980-11-22
Popularity:
Gassan
Overview: 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.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1979-10-20
Popularity:
A Woman Called En
Overview: Set at the end of the feudal period. A woman spends most of her early life in prison, incarcerated by political opponents of her father. When she is released at the age of 44, the power struggles of her clan continue to disturb her life and the man whom she loves.
Genres: Drama History
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1971-05-29
Popularity:
The Greatest Challenge of All
Overview: After an argument with his father a son leaves his home and comes back only, as an adult, many years later just to cause them problem after problem.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1967-08-05
Popularity:
The Wild Daisy
Overview: Teenage cousins Masao and Tamiko fall in love when she comes to his riverside brewery house to take care of his sickly mother. Family objections ensue as Tamiko is older than Masao, and the two cannot marry in peace.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1977-07-09
Popularity:
Bonchi
Overview: Kikuji is the scion of an Osaka merchant family whose traditional power is matrilineal. Instructed by his overbearing mother and grandmother to give them an heiress for the family business, he stands by helplessly as his wife is thrown out of the house for producing a son. Driven to a life of dissipation - his mistresses also fail to produce daughters - in the end he is just too tired to care.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1960-04-14
Popularity:
Saigo no sentō-ki
Overview: The first postwar war movie depicting the tragedy of a special force that shook the world at the end of the Pacific War, with thrill and speed
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1956-10-17
Popularity:
Asu no hanayome
Overview: 1962 Japanese movie
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1962-09-09
Popularity:
A Lonely Woman in a Lonely Land
Overview: Onna Hitori Daichi wo Yuku (A Lonely Woman in a Lonely Land, Kinuta Production, 1953) was the second feature film directed by Kamei Fumio, who is known as a master of documentary films, and followed his “Haha Nareba Onna Nareba(Become a Mother, Become a Woman)” (1952).
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1953-02-20
Popularity:
Ashita au hito
Overview: 1962 Japanese movie
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1962-09-16
Popularity:
男の哀愁
Overview:
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1951-04-13
Popularity:
The Dawn of Judo
Overview:
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1955-09-28
Popularity:
Dorei kōjō
Overview: After the death of a colleague, the workers at a factory form a labor union.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1968-01-25
Popularity:
Kobayashi Takiji
Overview: A tribute to proletarian author Takiji Kobayashi (1903-1933)
Genres: History Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1974-02-20
Popularity:
Les Miserables I: God and the Devil
Overview:
Genres: Drama History
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1950-11-03
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Les Miserables II: Banner of Love and Freedom
Overview:
Genres: Drama History
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1950-11-14
Popularity:
Wrath of Daimajin
Overview: In a mountainous region of Japan, Lord Arakawa kidnaps the men of nearby villages to use as slave labor, producing gunpowder from his sulfur pits. A band of young boys decide to rescue their enslaved fathers on their own.
Genres: Fantasy Horror Adventure
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1966-12-10
Popularity:
Journey to the North
Overview: Winter holidays at the university. Eikichi visits a city in the north of the country, the hometown of Yuko, a classmate for whom he has feelings. However, Yuko, having returned home, has just become engaged to a local young man, and the sudden appearance of Eikichi makes others worry that their good relationship will be spoiled. An epic about pure love, which tells the story of a man who leaves his beloved woman, praying for her happiness. Adapted from the novel "Kiri no Naka no Shojo" Yojiro Ishizaka.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1967-01-03
Popularity:
限りなき情熱
Overview: Is it the sin of a woman's heart that casts ripples unexpectedly among peaceful people? In the bustling streets of dazzling colors, where revelry abounds, a tale of love and chivalry blossoms into a beautiful flower of emotion.
Genres: Romance
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1951-06-01
Popularity:
Heat Wave Island
Overview: 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.
Genres: Mystery Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1969-10-29
Popularity:
Scandal
Overview: A celebrity photograph sparks a court case as a tabloid magazine spins a scandalous yarn over a painter and a famous singer.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1950-04-26
Popularity:
Pure Land, Poisoned Sea
Overview: In this program based on the book of the same name by Ishimure Michiko, Kitabayashi Tanie plays “Goze,” a blind wandering performer who drifts around the stricken region of Minamata in the wake of methylmercury contamination.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1970-11-14
Popularity:
Mysterious Thirteen Nights: Chapter 3 - The Mysterious Haunted Mansion
Overview: Third film of "Mysterious Thirteen Nights" series.
Genres: Horror
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1971-07-18
Popularity:
The Sun's Burial
Overview: In Osaka's slum, youths without futures engage in pilfering, assault and robbery, prostitution, and the buying and selling of identity cards and of blood. Alliances constantly shift. Tatsu and Takeshi, friends since boyhood, reluctantly join Shin's gang. Shin's an upstart and moves his gang often to avoid the local kingpin. Hanoko is a young woman with ambitions: first she's in the blood business with her father, then she joins forces with Shin. She soon breaks off that partnership, even though she's taken the sensitive Takeshi under her wing. Double crosses multiply. Those with the closest bonds become each others' murderers.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1960-08-09
Popularity:
River Without a Bridge
Overview:
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1969-02-01
Popularity:
White Snake Enchantment
Overview: Uta married a priest who saved her when she tried to commit suicide at a waterfall. The love triangle between a lustful priest, his second wife and his son Masao.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1983-11-12
Popularity:
Buddha
Overview: An Indian prince leaves his world of comfort and riches behind to wander and meditate for six years in search of spiritual enlightenment. Siddartha (Cojoin Hong) turns his back on the old religion when people are starving needlessly and holy rituals include human sacrifices. During his meditations, he is tempted by erotic dancing women, demons, and the evil machinations of his criminal cousin. Devastate to attain the spiritual perfection and become the Buddha. He travels to convert followers by his kindness and wisdom, gaining a multitude of believers when he stops an elephant from crushing a local priest. Buddha of course goes on to become one of the great religious leaders of the world.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1961-10-31
Popularity:
The Sands of Kurobe
Overview: Kitagawa is an engineer charged with construction of a gigantic tunnel through the Japan Alps for the transportation of equipment in the building of the massive Kurobe Dam. The tunnel crosses an earthquake fault and Kitagawa is beleaguered not only by cave-ins and flooding, but by strife between management and the workers's union. Adding to Kitagawa's stress is the knowledge that as his attention is pulled inexorably toward the tunnel construction, his youngest daughter is dying from leukemia.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1968-03-01
Popularity:
The Golden Bat Shows Up
Overview: A comedy featuring The Golden Bat
Genres: Comedy Fantasy Action Horror
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1972-05-13
Popularity:
The Burmese Harp
Overview: In the War's closing days, when a conscience-driven Japanese soldier fails to get his countrymen to surrender to overwhelming force, he adopts the lifestyle of a Buddhist monk.
Genres: Drama War
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1985-07-20
Popularity:
Rainbow Kids
Overview: A wealthy matriarch is kidnapped by a gang of three. She is insulted by the amount of money they propose to demand as ransom, and a strange interchange of roles takes place.
Genres: Drama Comedy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1991-01-15
Popularity:
The Possessed
Overview: Oshima, a rich girl married Shinzo, and her cousin girl Sawa has been jealous of Oshima deeply. Sawa cursed Oshima so Shinzo could not hold her and do anything at all. Shinzo hated Oshima, and he made love with Sawa.
Genres: Horror
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1976-10-16
Popularity:
How Sorrowful
Overview: The story of a novelist whose wife is confined in a mental hospital. His love for her drives him to write about her, though he runs into trouble when her parents accuse him of cashing in on her misfortune.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1956-09-07
Popularity:
Haha no nai ko to ko no nai haha to
Overview: Japanese film.
Genres: Family Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1952-11-04
Popularity:
Our Town
Overview: In 1906, after finishing a tough migrant job in the Philippines, Takichi has returned to Japan. He starts to work as a rickshaw driver, but his lover had died of an illness, leaving a baby girl, Hatsue. Hatsue grows up beautifully and falls in love with Shintaro. But Takichi objects to their relationship...
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1956-08-28
Popularity:
A Hole of My Own Making
Overview: Nobuko is a widow who lives with her stepchild Tamiko and her brother Junjiro. The family's gatekeeper, Komatsu, is attracted to Tamiko, but she is encouraged to marry a doctor and he is afraid to tell her his feelings.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1955-09-28
Popularity:
The Little Hero
Overview: A five year old boy leaves his mother and grandparents to see his father who has gone to work in Osaka.
Genres: Family
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1970-09-23
Popularity:
The Motherless
Overview: Japanese drama film.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1955-12-04
Popularity:
The Long Death
Overview: On January 26, 1948, a robbery of the Teigin bank took place in Tokyo - the criminal poisoned the bank employees and fled the scene with a large amount of money. In parallel with the investigation conducted by the Japanese police, journalists are also trying to find the culprit. Based on a true incident.
Genres: Mystery Drama Crime
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1964-04-12
Popularity:
Before Dawn
Overview:
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1953-10-13
Popularity:
Tale of Japanese Burglars
Overview: Gisuke Hayashida is an illegal dentist during the day and a burglar by night. One night during a burglary he witnesses a train derailment. Some communists are found guilty of causing the incident, but he knows it wasn't them. He can save innocent people but for that he must confess his own crime.
Genres: Crime Comedy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1965-05-01
Popularity:
Beyond the Green Hills
Overview: Shinko Terasawa was always considered to be the odd ball of the bunch. At a time when romance was against school regulations, Shinko was the first to take a bite out of the forbidden fruit. Expelled from her former school, she finds herself in an all-girls school in Jokamachi, where rumors fly. One day, Shinko delivers an anonymous love letter addressed to her English teacher, Ms. Shimazaki. Convinced that the students are playing a prank, Ms. Shimazaki is adamant about getting to the bottom of this "problem”.
Genres: Romance Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1963-01-03
Popularity:
Stakeout
Overview: Two detectives begin a stakeout based on the slim chance of catching a murderer whom they suspect will try to reunite with an old flame.
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1958-01-15
Popularity:
Odd Obsession
Overview: A middle-aged husband of a younger woman finds her youth intimidating to the point that he cannot become aroused. His solution involves the introduction of his daughter's lover to his wife.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1959-06-23
Popularity:
Call from Darkness
Overview: Keiko Inagawa (Asami Kobayashi) pays a visit to neurologist Aizawa about her fiancé Tatsuo Tamura (Kaoru Kobayashi). A mysterious case involving the disappearance of Tatsuo’s three brothers, one after the other, is yet to be resolved and now Tatsuo, seized with the idea that he too may disappear, has had a nervous breakdown. Aizawa suggests that Tatsuo recount his dreams as a means of solving the mystery, since human beings have an instinct that foretells the near future in the form of a dream. Keiko and Tatsuo eventually discover that the three disappearances have a strange connection…
Genres: Thriller Drama Mystery
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1981-09-26
Popularity:
The Human Wall
Overview: Drama which shows the struggle of Fumiko, a female teacher, at work and at home.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1959-10-18
Popularity:
A Windmill, Tulips and Love
Overview: Young Mariko is torn between two admirers, Natsukawa and Rikizo.
Genres: Romance
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1966-06-25
Popularity:
Love: Starting on a Journey
Overview: A girl suffering from an incurable disease get in a coma, while her boyfriend visit her to the hospital, she visits the beyond.
Genres: Fantasy Mystery Romance
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1985-01-26
Popularity:
Enraptured
Overview: A promising dancer asks her professor to write a libretto for a Nō play. He then introduces her to a student of classical literature, but also a classical theatre student in the hope that the latter will marry Senya..
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1961-04-18
Popularity:
The Maid's Kid
Overview: In order to pay back Mrs. Kajiki for her good deed in the past, Hatsu moves from her village in Akita to Tokyo to start working as a maid for her family. She grows close to their youngest son Katsumi, experiencing things that will change her view on life.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1955-06-28
Popularity:
Kiku and Isamu: Two Siblings Born in Japan
Overview: Kiku and her brother Isamu are social outcasts, children of a prostitute mother and black GI father, in postwar Japan.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1959-03-29
Popularity:
A Story from Echigo
Overview: A sake factory worker on holiday returns to his home town, where he rapes the wife of one of his co-workers in the forest. The other man returns home to find his wife changed and suspects that she has been unfaithful.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1964-05-09
Popularity:
The Wolves
Overview: A group of five rookie insurance salespersons, driven to desperation by the impossibility of their work in Japan's failing postwar economy, form a plan to rob a cash delivery truck in order to provide for their families.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1955-07-03
Popularity:
Patience Has An End
Overview: Young coal miner Takeda leaves Kyushu in search of a better job in Tokyo, only to fall into the lucrative yet dangerous life of a yakuza.
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1971-06-25
Popularity:
Bad Girl
Overview: Wakae is a 15 year old girl who lived under the same roof with her alcoholic father and stepmom. Her mother had died years ago. She spends her nights at a rundown bar, sharing drinks and cigarettes with the lowlife drunks. She has nowhere to turn and no one to talk to, until she is reunited with her childhood friend, Saburo, who brings warmth to her heart.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1963-03-16
Popularity:
Amagi Pass
Overview: Japan in the 1940s. A high school boy went into a magic encounter with Ozuka Hana, a geisha (pub-girl) when he traveled through Amagi Pass. A mysterious murder took place afterwards, an Ozuka was held responsible. 40 years later, the boy, who became a printing shop owner, was visited by a retired policeman who came from Amagi Pass. The truth then started to reveal itself.
Genres: Crime Fantasy Thriller
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1983-02-19
Popularity:
The Street Without Sun
Overview:
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1954-06-24
Popularity:
Our Teacher
Overview: Japanese film.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1983-08-24
Popularity:
Muntinlupa no yo wa fukete
Overview:
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1952-10-09
Popularity:
Welcome, My Baby
Overview: Two friends, both members of a Japanese cargo boat, return to Japan after a three-month voyage and have just 24 hours shore leave. In those hectic hours, they vie for the affections of a hotel owner's daughter but wind up with separate girl friends and attempt to bring together the parents of a baby who have separated.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1964-02-23
Popularity:
The Final Winner?
Overview: In a high school, two men are fighting over a beautiful female teacher who has been assigned as an English teacher.
Genres: Romance
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1968-08-28
Popularity:
Suspicion
Overview: A car going at 25 mph plunges into the sea at Shinko Harbour, Toyama prefecture. Inside is the local business magnate Fukutaro Shirakawa, who perishes. Riding alongside him and surviving unhurt is his second wife, Kumako. It soon comes to light that Kumako’s husband was insured for 300 million yen and she is arrested on suspicion of murdering her husband for the insurance money. The newspapers denounce her as an evil woman, while the public is in no doubt about Kumako’s crime. Ritsuko Sahara is chosen as her defence attorney but the pair clash over almost everything...
Genres: Crime Drama Mystery
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1982-09-11
Popularity:
Blind Devotion
Overview: Late romance by acclaimed filmmaker Kinugasa Teinosuke.
Genres: Romance Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1961-03-08
Popularity:
Terror in the Streets
Overview: Yuri Ebara is inexplicably laid off, abandoned by her closest friend, and is suddenly asked to move out of her apartment. As she nears rock bottom, she begins to suspect someone is out to drive her insane, or worse.
Genres: Horror Mystery
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1970-07-04
Popularity:
The Sea of Eden
Overview: Nanjo, a new teacher at a girls' high school, unwittingly becomes the object of gossip when he buys underwear for Shimizu and spends his vacation with a female teacher. It turns out that Nanjo and Shimizu have fallen in love.
Genres: Romance Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1976-04-24
Popularity:
Haze of Love
Overview: Rumiko Arai, a 20-year-old girl working in a sawmill, meets a driver, Sekiguchi, and they begin a relationship with the promise of marriage. But Rumiko's grandmother tells her that they are both cursed by an ancient evil.
Genres: Fantasy Mystery Drama Romance Horror
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1985-01-03
Popularity:
Darkness at Noon
Overview: Police beat a murder confession out of four innocent men who are then sentenced to death. Based on a true story.
Genres: Crime
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1956-03-26
Popularity:
The Shadow of Fear
Overview: In the backstreets of Ginza, the boss of a hairdressing salon is found dead, killed by strangulation. The detective on the case soon hears rumors about the murder.
Genres: Thriller Drama Crime
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1956-09-11
Popularity:
Twilight of the Cockroaches
Overview: The cockroaches of Saito's apartment live in peace with their human host, who gives them lots of space to breed and plenty of leftovers to munch on. In the midst of these high living times, Naomi and Ichiro plan to get married and start a family. But when a hard-bitten stranger roach named Hans appears with news of war with the humans across the lawn, it foretells disruption-not only of Naomi and Ichiro's relationship, but of the hive's entire way of life.
Genres: Fantasy Drama Science Fiction Romance Family Animation
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1987-11-21
Popularity:
Love is Lost
Overview: Based on the novel by Torahiko Tamiya.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1956-02-05
Popularity:
Chance Meeting
Overview: Aya successfully stages a fashion show in Osaka and in the train on her way home to Tokyo accidentally treads on a man's foot. The man whose name is Rentaro is not amused. Just afterwards she notices that he is reading a magazine which carries her picture which he crushes and throws under his seat. One of her customers in Tokyo is a pretty girl named Kana for whom she had designed a dress which at first seems quite satisfactory. But a few days later Kana brings it back. It seems her brother thinks it terrible. But when Kana brings the dress back she meets Aya's brother, Takeshi, with whom she becomes friendly and Takeshi gives her a new dress which he smuggles out of his sister's office. When Aya finds Kana's discarded dress and misses one belonging to another customer she goes to see Kana's brother, and to her surprise finds him to be the fellow whose foot she'd stepped upon in the train...
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1958-01-15
Popularity:
The Start of Life
Overview: A young girl in an industrial town is saving her money to enter college. But her drunken father loses his job, her mother cannot make ends meet, and then the boy she likes loses everything when his factory fails. She takes all her savings out of the bank and offers them to him to make a new start. He refuses at first but eventually agrees and so she goes back to school to tell her teacher that she has decided not to continue college, that she is young and strong, and can make her own way in life.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1965-04-29
Popularity:
But the Flesh is Weak
Overview: A woman who grew up in a prestigious household, begins to have an affair outside the marriage.
Genres: Drama Family
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1957-10-29
Popularity:
Oh, My Comrade!
Overview: Fukuzo, Kato and Matsuko, Kato's wife, are operating the "Kurenai Sightseeing Service" in Tokyo. Fukuzo and Kato were comrades during the war. One day Fukuzo guides Harumi, an old woman, to the Yasukuni Shrine where the souls of fallen soldiers are enshrined. Finding she has no place to go, Fukuzo carries her to his shack by the sea.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1970-09-19
Popularity:
Marriageable Age
Overview: Yoshimura's 48th film is the contemporary story of a well-to-do family showing the frailties and failings of the class, the egotism, and the complete lack of consideration under polite and superficially perfect manners.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1961-01-14
Popularity:
The Burmese Harp
Overview: In Burma during the closing days of WWII, a Japanese soldier separated from his unit disguises himself as a Buddhist monk to escape imprisonment as a POW.
Genres: Drama War
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1956-01-21
Popularity:
Nippon no obaachan
Overview: Two obaachans become fast friends listening to music in front of a record store. They both boast about their loving sons but in reality, one had just escaped a retirement home and the other was looking for an escape from her son and daughter-in-law. With nowhere to go, the two wander around, befriending a cosmetics salesman and a kind waitress who give them beer. This biting social satire starring two memorable grandmothers, scripted by Yôko Mizuki, picked up on Japan’s aging population problem far ahead of its time.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1962-01-03
Popularity:
Intentions of Murder
Overview: The neglected common-law wife of a Japanese librarian is repeatedly harassed by a young man with a heart condition who seduces her with the prospect of a better life.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1964-06-28
Popularity:
The Bitch
Overview: The fall of an accountant enthralled by the sexual charms of a cabaret dancer.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1951-08-10
Popularity:
A Chain of Islands
Overview: When a US army sergeant is found drowned in Tokyo Bay, an investigation is launched to determine how and why he lost his life. The investigation uncovers a black market scheme involving counterfeit money, murder, and conspiracy.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1965-05-26
Popularity:
Summer Storm
Overview: A woman falls in love with her sister's fiancé.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1956-10-01
Popularity:
Learn from Experience, Part Two
Overview: Part 2 of a 2-part romance (first part - Kafuku zempen) based on a story by noted author Kikuchi Kan. In the second half, we discover that Toyomi is pregnant -- and while Shintaro and Yurie are on their extended honeymoon, she bears his child, a girl named Kiyoko. She is supported in adversity by Michiko -- and gets considerable moral support from not only her own mother but also from Shintaro's mother and siblings. Even more surprisingly, Yurie strikes up a friendship of sorts with her. When Yurie learns that the child is Shintaro's, she convinces Toyomi that it would be best to let Shintaro (and her) raise Kiyoko, so Toyomi can get on with making a proper life for herself. Tearfully, Toyomi agrees. Sometime later, Michiko goes to visit Toyomi -- and sees her at work, as a kindergarten teacher.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1937-12-18
Popularity:
The Young and Bad
Overview: Not too long ago, Soichiro was considered one of the most powerful men in business. But his business had failed, his granddaughter had committed suicide. There was nothing in his life anymore that he could look forward to. Sochiro was ready to put an to it end to all. As he drives down the Usui Pass, headed toward his summer house in Karuizawa, a girl in red heels, wearing nothing else but a coat jumps in front of the car.
Genres: Thriller Action
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1962-09-09
Popularity:
Ningen Gari
Overview: A detective sets out on a manhunt to catch a murderer before the crime's statue of limitations runs out.
Genres: Crime
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1962-01-23
Popularity:
Nomugi Pass
Overview: The story of the silk industry and the young girls who worked as silk spinners in the early 1900s in Japan. The silk mills were located in Okaya which lies just beyond the Nomugi Pass. The women and girls worked in a hot, humid atmosphere without rest, and endured those conditions and sexual harassment to earn money for their poor families. Across the ocean, it was the great depression in America.
Genres: Drama History
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1979-06-30
Popularity:
Gazing at Love and Death
Overview: A young girl knows that she is going to die and in this she is supported by the devotion of the boy who loves her. They originally met at the hospital. There it transpired that the only way to save her life was to sacrifice an eye and part of her face. The operation seems a success. Later, however, her other eye becomes affected. She feels she must let the boy go, and yet she depends so much upon his devotion.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1964-09-19
Popularity:
Proof of the Man
Overview: When an American is murdered in a Japanese inn, Tokyo police detective Munesue follows the trail of the killer to New York. There he is joined by a New York City detective named Shuftan and together they sort out the crime.
Genres: Drama Crime Mystery
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1977-10-08
Popularity:
Miniature
Overview: Ginko, a poor cobbler's daughter, becomes a geisha to support her family. She passes from one geisha house to the next, trying to find love and hope in the process. No matter how hard she tries, she just can't escape her sad fate.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1953-04-01
Popularity:
Shiawase wa doko ni
Overview:
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1956-07-19
Popularity:
The Third Will
Overview: A story about a wealthy family and the greed and selfishness of three daughters and relatives, after the passing of their old father
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1963-03-31
Popularity:
Thousand Cranes
Overview: The entangled relations between the son of a seductive tea-ceremony teacher and the women in his father's life. Based on the novel by Kawabata Yasunari.
Genres: Romance Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1969-04-19
Popularity:
Children of Izu
Overview:
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1962-11-21
Popularity:
Musume-tachi wa kaze ni mukatte
Overview:
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1972-06-12
Popularity:
My Voiceless Friends
Overview: A man who survived the war carries the will of his comrades in arms, walking across the country visiting the bereaved families.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1972-04-29
Popularity:
The Three Undelivered Letters
Overview: A young Japanese-American man arrives at his grandmother's old hometown in Yamaguchi, begins to stay at her family's elite but dysfunctional household, and gets entangled in a sinister plot of murder.
Genres: Drama Mystery
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1979-10-06
Popularity:
Tora-san's Song of Love
Overview: Tora-san returns to his family home to learn that his brother-in-law cannot go to Mitsuo's (Tora-san's nephew) athletic event. Tora-san volunteers to take his place, but gets into an argument with his brother-in-law's boss and returns to the road. He meets a young woman in Niigata who, unbeknownst to him, is a popular enka singer.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1983-08-06
Popularity:
Become a Mother, Become a Woman
Overview:
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1952-01-17
Popularity:
Song of Love
Overview: The life in a small village in Shikoku and the love story between two young people.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1967-04-29
Popularity:
Yokubo
Overview:
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1953-05-13
Popularity:
Tomoshibi
Overview: Students in a small rural school love their poor but unconventional teacher Mr. Matsukuma, although he is misunderstood by most of the villagers and is forced to leave. After his departure there is great depression, but there is a chance to rekindle the lantern of the title and the values Matsukuma represented ...
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1954-06-22
Popularity:
Policeman's Diary, Part 2
Overview: From runaway brides to a typhoon, the continued adventures of Ushikata police station.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1955-11-16
Popularity:
A Good Man, A Good Day
Overview: The university professor Ozeki Hitoshi (Ryu Chishu) is regarded as an eccentric by people in his surroundings. When his daughter Tokiko is asked to marry a colleague, she and her mother are overjoyed, but Hitoshi is not satisfied with the situation.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1961-08-13
Popularity:
Price of Life
Overview: Comedy of a phony doctor.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1971-07-24
Popularity:
Jigoku no hatoba
Overview: A battle for a large sum of money unfolds on the docks near a steel mill in a foggy atmosphere. Manzo, an engineer on the verge of retirement, witnesses two men shooting each other and collapsing on the quay while his assistant Shinsuke is away.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1956-03-04
Popularity:
Actress
Overview: Based on Kakuko Mori's autobiography, about her life and retirement from acting due to her increasing blindness.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1956-11-27
Popularity:
Dangerous Women
Overview: Shuhei, a mystery writer, is invited to a dinner party at a country house. The guests include Tanase and his wife Noriko. Next day, Tanase is shot and Noriko with a gun stands near him. Tanase calls one of the guest's name and dies.
Genres: Mystery Thriller
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1985-01-01
Popularity:
The Valley Between Love and Death
Overview: A great ambition to portray with sharp satire and humor the course of modern anxiety and love that is about to be driven to despair.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1954-09-21
Popularity:
Ghost Story of Youth
Overview: A melodrama of the ups and downs of youth, based on Bunroku Shishi’s popular novel. Chiharu, a ballerina, and Shinichi, a thorough rationalist and childhood friend. A woman named Tomi Funakoshi appears in front of the two, who are thinking of getting married someday.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1955-04-19
Popularity:
Jinsei Gekijo: dai ni bu
Overview: Part two of Shin Saburi's Theater of Life adaptation.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1953-02-19
Popularity:
Shokei zen'ya
Overview: 1961 Japanese movie
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1961-02-18
Popularity:
Sexy Sign Suki Suki Suki
Overview: Yamazaki Ryotaro is an Olympics' athlete and an asset. He accepts two jobs and responsibilities that are thrust upon him. One involves a a painting and an advertising poster. The other is about coaching the hockey team. Simultaneously, however, he is head over heels for three gals, one is a hairdresser, one is a fashion model and of course the third is part of the cheering squad for the hockey team.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1960-01-03
Popularity: