Isao Tamagawa
Also Known As: not available
Biography: Biography not available
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan
Adult: No
Birthday: January 11, 1922
Age: 103 years old
Gender: Male
Deathday: January 01, 2004
Popularity:
Known For:
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:
Homecoming
Overview: Moriya Tomoko, a young girl working for a publishing company, is told by a woman art dealer that her real father did not die, as everyone believes, during the revolution in Cuba, but is now living in Japan. Tomoko's mother has remarried a strict, narrow-minded university professor, whose only worry is protecting his family name from the slightest blemish.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1964-08-14
Popularity:
Tokyo Drifter
Overview: After yakuza boss Kurata dissolves his own criminal empire, a rival kingpin offers a position to Kurata's top operative, Tetsuya "Phoenix Tetsu" Hondo. When the fiercely loyal Tetsu declines, Otsuka taps unstoppable Tatsuzo the "Viper", a ruthless gun-for-hire, to assassinate him. As the Viper trails his target through the countryside, the agile Phoenix Tetsu grows concerned that one of his former associates has betrayed him.
Genres: Thriller Crime Action
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1966-04-10
Popularity:
Branded to Kill
Overview: After botching his latest assignment, a third-ranked Japanese hit man becomes the target of another assassin.
Genres: Thriller Crime Action
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1967-06-15
Popularity:
Zigeunerweisen
Overview: A surreal period film following a university professor and his eerie nomad friend as they go through loose romantic triangles and face death in peculiar ways.
Genres: Mystery Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1980-04-01
Popularity:
Mount Hakkoda
Overview: Two infantry regiments of the Imperial Japanese Army—210 men overall—tackled Mt. Hakkoda in the winter of 1902 to prepare for war with Russia.
Genres: Drama History
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1977-06-04
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:
A Tale of Youth at Hirosaki High School
Overview: A semi-autobiographical film about a young man from Tokyo who moves to Hirosaki in the early Shōwa era. A straight-to-video production made for the Hirosaki Senior High School Alumni Association that also incorporates footage from contemporary Hirosaki, and features cameos by regular Suzuki performers like Tamagawa Isao and Nogawa Yumiko.
Genres: Drama Comedy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1992-01-01
Popularity:
The Militarists
Overview:
Genres: Drama War
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1970-09-11
Popularity:
Men and War II: Land of Love and Sorrow
Overview: Second part of an epic drama of war and its effects upon human beings, follows the fortunes of the Godai family from 1935 through Japan's invasion of China. Based on the novels by Jumpei Gomikawa, who also penned The Human Condition.
Genres: Drama War History
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1971-06-12
Popularity:
若い川の流れ
Overview: The story follows Misako Kitaoka, a junior college graduate and Nitto Lease sales department employee, as she grows through work, love, and friendship. For the sake of the company's managing director and his wife, Misako recommends her colleague Tensuke Sone to Fusako, the managing director's daughter and best friend. Fusako and Sone meet at the executive director's Karuizawa villa, but for some reason Kensuke becomes angry when he learns that Misako is the one who recommended him...
Genres: Comedy Family Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1968-10-14
Popularity:
Safari 5000
Overview: A Japanese racing driver for Nissan named Godai (Yujiro Ishihara) have a rivalry with a French driver named Pierre (Jean-Claude Drouot). Godai is enlisted to race in an annual endurance race, The East African Safari Rally. Peripheral to this is the story concerning Godai's former lover Yuko (Ruriko Asaoka), a fashion designer, and her friend Anna (Emmanuel Riva), who happens to be Pierre's wife.
Genres: Action Adventure
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1969-07-19
Popularity:
Seishun no Sabaki
Overview: University karate club member Kikuo is actually the son of a yakuza boss. However, he disliked his father's business and never spoke about his family at school. One day, his father, Tatsuzo, becomes the guardian of the Yamanaka-gumi.
Genres: Action Crime
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1965-04-14
Popularity:
Fighting Elegy
Overview: 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.
Genres: Comedy Drama Action
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1966-11-09
Popularity:
The Flower and the Angry Waves
Overview: A young yakuza in love with the girl who's to marry his clan oyabun, kidnaps the girl before fleeing with her. In Tokyo, he hides under the identity of a worker while the young woman becomes a waitress in a restaurant.
Genres: Action Crime Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1964-02-08
Popularity:
Profit from Killing
Overview: The bustling Ikebukuro area was under the control of the Hanamura Kogyo yakuza gang, and there was no end to the violence. The tramp Bin Tsuzuki returns to his hometown after being released from Abashiri prison, and he is noticed when he saves a student from gangsters from the Hanamura gang. But this was only the beginning of a bloody struggle...
Genres: Crime Action
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1964-11-11
Popularity:
Outlaw: Heartless
Overview: Goro Fujikawa (Tetsuya Watari) was indebted to Mitsugimoto. Sawada, a low rank yakuza with a gambling problem owed Mitsugimoto three million yen. This equation can only lead to one answer. Mitsugimoto needs to pay and Goro's coming to collect.
Genres: Crime Action Thriller
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1968-08-01
Popularity:
Cobra 2
Overview: Japanese crime film.
Genres: Crime
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1976-06-26
Popularity:
Story of a Prostitute
Overview: Volunteering as a "comfort woman" on the Manchurian front, where she is expected to service hundreds of soldiers, Harumi is commandeered by the brutal Lieutenant Narita but falls for the sensitive Mikami, Narita's direct subordinate. Seijun Suzuki's Story of a Prostitute is a tragic love story as well as a rule-bending take on a popular Taijiro Tamura novel, challenging military and fraternal codes of honor, as seen through Harumi's eyes.
Genres: Drama Romance War
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1965-02-27
Popularity:
To Your Majesty, The Emperor
Overview: A conscript from a poor background writes the Emperor asking if he can stay in the army when his service is up.
Genres: Comedy War
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1963-04-28
Popularity:
Nezumi Kozō kaitō den
Overview: Japanese comedy film.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1984-12-28
Popularity:
Tokyo Bay
Overview: An investigation into a drug smuggler who is assassinated in front of an insurance building sets two detectives, Sumikawa and Akine, into a sprawling investigation through Tokyo's underworld.
Genres: Mystery Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1962-05-27
Popularity:
Black Jack: The Visitor in the Eye
Overview: Komori Chiaki is a budding tennis student. However, one day while training, her coach hits a ball into her eye on accident. At the hospital, the news that she will never regain the sight in her eye leaves her heartbroken. As a last resort, she undergoes a costly surgery from the mysterious doctor known as Black Jack, where after a successful operation, a mysterious figure starts to emerge in her vision, and only she can see it.
Genres: Science Fiction Mystery
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1977-11-26
Popularity:
Graveyard of Honor
Overview: A self-destructive man becomes a powerful member of the yakuza but quickly loses his self-control. Based on the true story of Rikio Ishikawa.
Genres: Crime Action
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1975-02-15
Popularity:
Pale Flower
Overview: A gangster gets released from prison and has to cope with the recent shifts of power between the gangs, while taking care of a thrill-seeking young woman, who got in bad company while gambling.
Genres: Crime Romance
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1964-03-01
Popularity:
Shadow Hunters
Overview: Set during the declining years of the Tokugawa shogunate, Shadow Hunters details the questionably noble exploits of three ronin who act as "Shadow Hunters". These three ronin are not your normal ornery ruffians who are looking for a drink, a broad and someone to jab a sword into, but are in fact former samurai who, rather than follow their destroyed fiefs and murdered masters into death via seppuku, have dedicated their combined sword prowess to stopping the government from raping its daimyos for valuable resources.
Genres: Action Adventure Crime
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1972-06-10
Popularity:
Hazardous Graduation
Overview: Sex games by students at a junior high school are exposed by the principal and teachers, but the tables are turned in favor of the students.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1970-12-15
Popularity:
Penitentiary Brothers
Overview: Authentic action drama of modern gangsters.
Genres: Crime
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1969-07-26
Popularity:
Sweet Revenge
Overview: Masao is falsely accused and jailed for the murder of a loanshark to whom he owed a lot of money. His sister Kiriko makes the long trip to Tokyo, specifically to accost Otsuka, Japan's top criminal defence lawyer, and plead with him to take her brother's case. They live in Kitakyushu which, though a city, she contends that the local lawyers are not up to the job. Otsuka contemptuously brushes her off. A year passes. Masao has suicided in jail, his appeal having failed due to the lack of interest and competence of the local defence lawyer. Kiriko returns to Tokyo, planning revenge on Otsuka for refusing the case and causing her brother's death.
Genres: Mystery
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1977-12-17
Popularity:
House of Terrors
Overview: A hunchbacked caretaker presides over a forlorn mansion inhabited by the ghosts of his previous masters. An unbelieving trio (a doctor, his assistant and his niece) fail to heed the caretaker's warnings and are slaughtered horribly by the jealous occupants.
Genres: Horror
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1965-08-01
Popularity:
The Rough One
Overview: A tale of wannabe yakuza youths. When not cooking up scams with his buddies, Zenkichi develops a crush on Taro's disgusted sister, Miki. But soon the young hoods run afoul of their underworld idols when they rob the wrong gang, led by brutal boss Konno. When Zenkichi's pals start to bite the dust, he hooks up with a more traditional yakuza, Tetsugoro, to retaliate.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1969-06-13
Popularity:
Tale of Army Brutality
Overview: Director Jun'ya Satô's debut film focuses on the inhuman training of recruits, the brutal drill system that reigned in the Japanese army during World War II, where in the first two years of training, ordinary people were turned into inhuman killers. For his first film, the director was awarded the Blue Ribbon Awards in the Debutant of the Year nomination.
Genres: Drama War
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1963-06-14
Popularity:
Cross-Currents
Overview: A ryokan maid is on trial for pushing a familiar guest off a cliff to his death. An eager attorney offers to take the case to gain notoriety.
Genres: Drama Crime
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1972-09-09
Popularity:
The Stars and I Decided...
Overview: The brother of an up-and-coming kendoka is mysteriously murdered while working on a new model of motorboat.
Genres: Drama Action
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1965-08-14
Popularity:
Take Me Away!
Overview: Kyoko met Tetsu during her trip to San Francisco. Soon they fell in love but getting married was not in his mind. They were to meet again back in Tokyo but Tetsu didn't turn up. She went to look for him in San Francisco but all she found was him with his new girlfriend. Kyoko went back to Tokyo and eventually married a big corporate CEO.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1978-07-22
Popularity:
The Flower and the Sword
Overview: A dangerous mobster threatens the life of a businessman's mother in this thriller. As Ryuji oversees the building of a bridge in Japan, a powerful gangster plans to stop the project. By any means necessary.
Genres: Crime
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1964-11-11
Popularity:
Port Arthur
Overview: Depicts the bloody siege of the fortress of Port Arthur, one of the most strongly fortified positions in the world, during the Russo-Japanese War of (1904 - 1905). In the story dominated the character Lt Takeshi Kogyo (Teruhiko Aoi), teachers, and a reserve officer who became commander of the platoon and later company. At the same time monitors the conduct of the army commander general Nogi (Tatsuya Nakadai), which was commissioned of the emperor Matsuhito (Toshirô Mifune) to the conquest of the fort.
Genres: War Drama History
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1980-08-02
Popularity:
The Fall of Teenager
Overview: High school student Keiko struggles with the pressures of college entrance examinations and a chaotic home life, ultimately succumbing to alcohol, marijuana, gang members and rape.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1979-02-24
Popularity:
Gate of Flesh
Overview: In the shady black markets and bombed-out hovels of post–World War II Tokyo, a tough band of prostitutes eke out a dog-eat-dog existence, maintaining tenuous friendships and a semblance of order in a world of chaos. But when a renegade ex-soldier stumbles into their midst, lusts and loyalties clash, with tragic results. With Gate of Flesh, visionary director Seijun Suzuki delivers a whirlwind of social critique and pulp drama, shot through with brilliant colors and raw emotions.
Genres: Drama Crime
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1964-05-31
Popularity:
Kagero-za
Overview: A 1920s playwright meets a beautiful woman who may be the ghost of his patron's deceased wife.
Genres: Romance Drama Mystery
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1981-08-21
Popularity:
Utamaro's World
Overview: Utamaro was an artist who lived in Edo (which was later to become modern-day Tokyo) in the late 18th century. This film, which has a complex and wide-ranging storyline, recreates the world of that time, as it appeared in Utamaro's paintings.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1977-02-20
Popularity:
Zero Fighter
Overview:
Genres: War
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1966-07-13
Popularity:
Twice on a Certain Night
Overview: Poor social conditions badly affect the relationship between a married couple, when the husband, who is desperately searching for work, fails to notice the terrible sacrifices made by his wife when she accepts a job at a local inn.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1956-06-08
Popularity:
The Street Without Sun
Overview:
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1954-06-24
Popularity:
A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness
Overview: A rookie golfer must cope with the stress of fame after a marketing executive transforms her into a sports celebrity.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1977-05-21
Popularity:
Kokoro no sanmyaku
Overview: A film dealing with the trials and tribulations of a primary school before and after the Pacific War, set in Fukashima Prefecture.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1966-02-02
Popularity:
Japan's Longest Day
Overview: Following the detonation of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese military and the government clash over the demand from the Allies for unconditional surrender. Minister of the Army Anami leads the military officers who propose to fight on, even to the death of every Japanese citizen. Emperor Hirohito, however, joins with his ministers in asking the unthinkable, the peaceful surrender of Japan. When the military plots a coup to overthrow the Emperor's civilian government, Anami must face the choice between his desires and loyalty to his Emperor.
Genres: Drama History War
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1967-08-03
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:
Gambling is My Destiny
Overview: Shadowed and alone. Today, a melancholy guitar sobs in a wandering seaside town.... To make amends, he hides his identity and saves his girlfriend's sister from certain death. Filmed on location on the scenic Manazuru Peninsula, the action is set amidst rugged rocky terrain and raging waves!
Genres: Action Crime
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1965-04-04
Popularity:
The Summit of Mt. Fuji
Overview: The Japanese government decides to install a radar on the top of Mt. Fuji, in order to detect typhoons as far as 800 km south of the Japanese archipelago, but the task will not be easy.
Genres: Drama Adventure
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1970-02-28
Popularity:
Blood Shed
Overview: Ginjiro was born to a family of nobility, though he yearned for freedom. To earn this freedom, he affiliates himself with the worst of the worst. Swearing his allegiance to the notorious Kuroiwa crime syndicate, the yakuza family known for its thirst for blood, Ginjiro equips for battle. When a rival family raids their gambling parlor, he slashes a masked henchman. Unbeknown to him, his victim was no henchman.
Genres: Action Crime
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1966-04-10
Popularity: