Noriko Honma
Also Known As: not available
Biography: Noriko Honma (本間文子 Honma Noriko, born 29 November 1911 - 12 April 2009) is a Japanese actress whose film work occurred primarily during the 1950s. She was born in Hokkaido. She worked in many of Akira Kurosawa's films, first appearing in Kurosawa's Rashomon as the Miko, also in Ikiru, The Seven Samurai, Akahige, and Dreams.
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: Yubari, Hokkaido, Japan
Adult: No
Birthday: November 29, 1911
Age: 113 years old
Gender: Female
Deathday: April 12, 2009
Popularity:
Known For:
Rashomon
Overview: Brimming with action while incisively examining the nature of truth, "Rashomon" is perhaps the finest film ever to investigate the philosophy of justice. Through an ingenious use of camera and flashbacks, Kurosawa reveals the complexities of human nature as four people recount different versions of the story of a man's murder and the rape of his wife.
Genres: Crime Drama Mystery
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1950-08-26
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Rhapsody in August
Overview: The story centers on an elderly hibakusha, whose husband was one of 80,000 human beings killed in the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki, caring for her four grandchildren over the summer. She learns of a long-lost brother, Suzujiro, living in Hawaii who wants her to visit him before he dies.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1991-05-25
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Stray Dog
Overview: A bad day gets worse for young detective Murakami when a pickpocket steals his gun on a hot, crowded bus. Desperate to right the wrong, he goes undercover, scavenging Tokyo’s sweltering streets for the stray dog whose desperation has led him to a life of crime. With each step, cop and criminal’s lives become more intertwined and the investigation becomes an examination of Murakami’s own dark side.
Genres: Crime Drama Thriller Mystery
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1949-10-17
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G.I. Samurai
Overview: A squadron of Japanese Self-Defense Force soldiers find themselves transported through time to their country's warring states era, when rival samurai clans were battling to become the supreme Shogun.
Genres: Action Science Fiction War
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1979-09-17
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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
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Kiriko no unmei
Overview: 1962 Japanese movie
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1962-05-27
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Battle of the Japan Sea
Overview: Japan and Russia clash in what comes to be known as the Russo-Japanese War. An attempt by the Japanese fleet and army to take Port Arthur fails, and a Russian fleet bears down on the Sea of Japan. Admiral Heihachiro Togo sends his fleet to confront the Russians, with results which stun both nations. Meanwhile, Major Genjiro Akashi makes secret negotiations with the Bolshevik revolutionaries in Russia, negotiations that have repercussions far beyond the conflict at hand.
Genres: War History Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1969-08-01
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The Homely Sister
Overview: In the 19th century Edo period, sisters Oshizu and Otaka have sacrificed their personal happiness to work and care for their ailing father. Otaka falls in love, but can’t accept a marriage proposal since her older sister needs to marry first. When Oshizu learns of this decision, she takes matters in her own hands.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1967-10-28
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The Blue Pearl
Overview: The Blue Pearl depicts the interplay between a young man from Tokyo and two ama (pearl divers; literally “women of the sea”) in a superstitious coastal town. Though raised within the same tradition-bound crucible, the two women – Noe and Riu – are portrayed as diametric opposites; the former meek but affectionate, the latter strong-willed but jaded by a tryst with metropolitan life.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1951-08-03
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Gekkyū dorobō
Overview: 1962 Japanese movie
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1962-12-08
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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
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Red Beard
Overview: Aspiring to an easy job as personal physician to a wealthy family, Noboru Yasumoto is disappointed when his first post after medical school takes him to a small country clinic under the gruff doctor Red Beard. Yasumoto rebels in numerous ways, but Red Beard proves a wise and patient teacher. He gradually introduces his student to the unglamorous side of the profession, ultimately assigning him to care for a prostitute rescued from a local brothel.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1965-04-03
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Ebirah, Horror of the Deep
Overview: Searching for his brother, Ryota stows away on a boat belonging to a criminal alongside two other teenagers. The group shipwrecks on Letchi island and discover the Infant Island natives have been enslaved by a terrorist organization controlling a crustacean monster. Finding a sleeping Godzilla, they decide to awaken him to defeat the terrorists and liberate the natives.
Genres: Science Fiction Action Fantasy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1966-12-17
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Varan the Unbelievable
Overview: In an effort to find an economic means of purifying salt water, a joint U.S.-Japanese military command is set up on an isolated Japanese island where an unusual salt water lake is situated. However, their purifying experiments arouse the prehistoric monster Obaki from hibernation at the lake's bottom, and it proceeds to attack Japan. Although made by a U.S. independent film company, this film was based on a Japanese Toho monster film of 1958, "Daikaiju Varan", from which all of the monster effects scenes and a few incidental dramatic shots were edited into it.
Genres: Horror Science Fiction
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1962-12-07
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Madadayo
Overview: Based on the life of Hyakken Uchida, a Japanese author and academic. The film opens with Uchida resigning his job as a German professor at the onset of WWII. The story is told mostly in vignettes as he is cared for by former students in his old age.
Genres: Drama Comedy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1993-04-17
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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
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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
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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
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Mother
Overview: A teenaged girl witnesses her widowed mother's attempt to sustain her family.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1952-06-12
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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
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Summer Clouds
Overview: A war widow with a young boy manages a farm with her bossy mother-in-law. When a reporter comes to interview her, the two begin an affair. He turns out to be married and won't leave his wife. Her older brother tries to marry off his children and hang on to/ extend his farm through an advantageous marriage in the face of threatened land confiscation and the desire of his children to get comfortable urban jobs instead of the backbreaking work in the paddy fields under parental control.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1958-09-02
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Brother and Sister
Overview: The eldest daughter of a rural family Mon returns home from Tokyo pregnant after an affair with a college student Kobata, which causes a scandal that will threaten the marriage prospects of the younger sister San, in her cash-strapped family. The ill-tempered eldest brother Inokichi decides to take on the role of disciplinarian, with harrowing results.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1953-08-19
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A Wife's Heart
Overview: Kiyoko (Takamine Hideko) and her husband want to open a coffee shop. She becomes increasingly close to the bank clerk (Mifune Toshiro) she's asked for a loan.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1956-05-03
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The Whole Family Works
Overview: Father of nine children cannot find a job. Despite their aspirations, the children are encouraged by both parents to hold down menial jobs and contribute to the family expenses.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1939-03-11
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Where Chimneys Are Seen
Overview: Where Chimneys Are Seen focuses primarily on the interconnected lives of two couples in a lower-middle-class neighborhood in Senju, a poor industrial section of Tokyo.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1953-03-05
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Composition Class
Overview: Based on an autobiographical story by Toyota Masako.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1938-08-21
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The Ataka Family
Overview: Soichi Ataka is the eldest son of Ataka family. Although mentally challenged, he's a person with a gentle heart. Soichi's wife, Kuniko is devoted to her husband and together the couple runs the family farm. Their happy family life comes to an abrupt halt when Soichi's half-brother, Joji returns with his wife Masako after failing in a business.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1952-05-15
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Oh, Bomb!
Overview: During the mayoral election, two ex-prisoners decide to replace the lucky pen of an annoying candidate with a mini-bomb.
Genres: Music Comedy Action Crime
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1964-04-18
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The Ditch
Overview: Postwar Tokyo. Pin and Toku live in the squatter area of Kappanuma. Pin and Toku are avid gamblers. They take in Tsuru, a slightly demented woman who has run away from a geisha house.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1954-07-27
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Nightshade Flower
Overview: Japanese "kayo" film based on the song "Ieraishan" by Yoshiko Yamaguchi.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1951-01-13
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The Big Boss
Overview: Ryuta and Mineo Komatsu are brothers, both yakuza (gangsters). Mineo, although complicit in crime, even murder, wants out of the gangster life, hoping to become a successful singer instead. Ryuta loves his brother, but Mineo's possible defection presents problems for the gang, and Ryuta realizes he must kill his brother if he wants to survive.
Genres: Crime
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1959-01-15
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Street of Violence
Overview: An attempt is made to suppress a journalist's investigation of collusion between a rural police chief and the local gangster bosses.
Genres: Drama Crime
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1950-02-26
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Varan
Overview: When a rare species of butterfly is found in a mysterious valley in Japan, a pair of entomologists go to investigate and find more. They discover Varan, a giant monster, who decides to leave the valley and head straight for Tokyo.
Genres: Science Fiction Horror
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1958-10-14
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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
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Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island
Overview: A humble and simple Takezo abandons his life as a knight errant. He's sought as a teacher and vassal by Shogun, Japan's most powerful clan leader. He's also challenged to fight by the supremely confident and skillful Sasaki Kojiro. Takezo agrees to fight Kojiro in a year's time but rejects Shogun's patronage, choosing instead to live on the edge of a village, raising vegetables. He's followed there by Otsu and later by Akemi, both in love with him. The year ends as Takezo assists the villagers against a band of brigands. He seeks Otsu's forgiveness and accepts her love, then sets off across the water to Ganryu Island for his final contest.
Genres: Action Adventure Drama Romance History
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1956-01-03
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Snow-Flake
Overview:
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1950-05-17
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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
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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
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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
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Last of the Wild Ones
Overview: A legendary gangster raises himself out of a small town and gathers followers on his rise to power.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1954-06-08
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Adolescence Part II
Overview: A story of unhappy youths and the perils of lack of sex education.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1953-07-01
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People of Tokyo, Goodbye
Overview:
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1956-06-28
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A Rainbow Plays in My Heart: Part 2
Overview: An Ishiro Honda film. The second part of A Rainbow Plays in My Heart released the same day as the first film.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1957-07-09
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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
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All About Marriage
Overview: Ultra-perky model likes single freedom but feels ryosai kenbo ("good wife, wise mother") pressure, exemplified by her bored-to-tears sister.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1958-05-26
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A Rainbow Plays in My Heart: Part 1
Overview: An Ishiro Honda film. The first part of A Rainbow Plays in My Heart released the same day as the second film.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1957-07-09
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Their Father's Wife
Overview:
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1953-05-27
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Dreams
Overview: A collection of magical tales based upon the actual dreams of director Akira Kurosawa.
Genres: Fantasy Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1990-05-11
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Girls in the Orchard
Overview: Girls in the Orchard (1953) is about tension between the life of a family in a rural area with all the traditions (continuing family business, taking care of the land)-- and the modernity and lure of a life in the city.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1953-09-15
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The Surf
Overview: Lonely youth Shinji meets Hatsue, a pretty pearl diver, on the beach and the two fall in love. But Shinji has a rival for Hatsue's affections, Yasuo.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1954-10-20
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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
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Someday I'll Know
Overview: A modern love story involving different affairs.
Genres: Drama TV Movie
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1959-09-08
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Elephant from "Zoo Story"
Overview: The fifth film in the Toho Diamond series, following "The Hateful Thing." Based on the true story of "Zoo Story" by author Fukuda Saburo. During the Tokyo air raids of World War II, Zen-san, an elephant keeper at Ueno Zoo, is faced with the heartbreaking task of euthanizing Tonki, a beloved elephant, due to food shortages and wartime pressures. Unable to carry out the order, Zen-san secretly feeds Tonki, but the elephant is ultimately shot by the military police. The film poignantly captures Zen-san’s despair and the devastation of war, as he reflects on his powerlessness amid the chaos.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1957-04-09
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