Haruko Sugimura

The Written Face (1995)

In Japanese theater, women's roles are traditionally played by men. The man playing the woman's role, the Onnagata, does not imitate the woman, as in the West, but tries to capture her significance. He need not stick close to his model, but draws far more ...

A Last Note (1995)

A retired actress whose husband has recently died visits her summer home. ...

The Strange Tale of Oyuki (1992)

A story of Japanese writer Kafu Nagai (1879-1959), a man about sixty with a huge reputation of seducer who falls madly in love for a young geisha named Oyuki. Meticulous and smartly dressed, Nagai patiently wrote in his diary his thoughts during many years ...

Sakura-tai Chiru (1988)

A documentary about the lives of actors in the Sakura-tai theatrical troupe, which had arrived in the island of Hiroshima to begin preparations for the staging of a play just before the atomic bombing. ...

I Lived, But... (1983)

An extremely lovely tribute to Ozu, on the 20th anniversary of his death. It uses a combination of footage from vintage films and new material (both interviews and Ozu-related locations) shot by Ozu's long-time camera-man (who came out of retirement to wor ...

The Fossil (1975)

An industrialist is diagnosed with terminal cancer. He is abroad in Europe at the time, and a glimpse of a Japanese woman in that setting causes him to imagine her as the personification of his impending fate. As his dialogue with his imagined mortality co ...

Akumyo: Notorious Dragon (1974)

About small-time gangster Asakichi's chaotic life in the 1930s. His gambling addiction means that he must not continue working in the family business. Instead he supports himself by arranging cockfights. He becomes ex-geisha Okinu's patron and lover, and f ...

The Petrified Forest (1973)

Follows a young med student's relationships with two women: a dangerous affair with a childhood friend and his mother's struggle to rebuild their estranged relationship. ...

Onna no hanamichi (1971)

A film commemorating the 25th anniversary of Hibari Misora's performing career. Written by Matsutaro Kawaguchi for Hibari Misora to celebrate her 25th anniversary. The film tells the story of a fisherman's daughter from Izumo who rises from poverty to Kyot ...

Only Child (1969)

Slave Factory (1968)

After the death of a colleague, the workers at a factory form a labor union. ...

The Wife of Seishu Hanaoka (1967)

The disturbing story of a physician who conducted the first operation with general anaesthetic, and the women in his life who are both so determined to win his love that they volunteer as subjects for his experiments ...

The Daphne (1966)

Four sisters are all named after flowers. While the two youngest are married, the eldest two remain single, much to the annoyance of their long-suffering mother. The mother and her brother try various schemes to find husbands for them. ...

Rokujō yukiyama tsumugi (1965)

Young widow Ine is suffering under the harsh treatment of her mother in law. As a former Geisha, Ine had struggled to be accepted into the well-established Rokujo family from the beginning. With the support of Jiro, a young man Ine's late husband had saved ...

Red Beard (1965)

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 Bear ...

With Beauty and Sorrow (1965)

When the man who seduced the famous painter Otoko as a teenager--and then wrote a bestselling novel about it--reappears in her life, her pupil--and lesbian lover--hatches a plot to destroy the man and his family. ...

Kwaidan (1965)

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 ...

Samurai Assassin (1965)

Japan, 1860. The men of the Mito clan, victims of the Ansei purge, anxiously prowl around the Sakurada Gate of Edo Castle with the intention of assassinating Naosuke Ii of Hikone, tairō of the Tokugawa shogunate and responsible for their misfortune. ...

Night Scandal (1964)

Japanese Toei Production directed by Yûsuke Watanabe. ...

The Scent of Incense (1964)

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

Mother (1963)

A divorced woman enters a marriage arranged by her mother in exchange for money to save the life of her seriously ill son. ...

Jidanya (1963)

Every day a car accident happens in the city. The involved parties are prey to the settlement agents (jidanya), mediators between the parts and the insurance companies to avoid time-consuming legal actions that could come when no settlement is reached (wh ...

The Navy (1963)

A tale of two best friends in the WWII era Japan. Takao is a young man enthusiastic about joining the navy to fight for his country. He convinces his best friend Shinji to join him. As it turns out, however, Takao's poor health prevents him from entering t ...

Youth After School (1963)

"Youth After School" takes Tokyo and Kyoto as the stage, and tells the story of a family that develops around the daughter's marriage. The play was broadcast on NHK TV in 1963, but the program recording technology was not mature at that time, and relevant ...

An Autumn Afternoon (1962)

Widower Shuhei Hirayama's caretaker is his 24-year-old daughter, Michiko. Gradually, he comes to realize that Michiko should not be obliged to look after him for the rest of his life, so he arranges a marriage for her. ...

Jun'ai monogatari kusa no mi (1962)

1962 Japanese movie ...

The Broken Commandment (1962)

Ushimatsu's father told him never to reveal his lower-caste heritage; years later, he now contemplates confiding in an activist fighting against such discrimination. ...

Musume to watashi (1962)

Till Tomorrow Is (1962)

Natsuko's daughter Saori is born blind in 1941, just before her father is drafted. Despite an attempted surgery and years of struggle, her condition proves permanent. Growing up, she faces stigma and danger but eventually finds hope and love with a fellow ...

The Wiser Age (1962)

Drama about the lives of the five daughters and daughter-in-law of a store owner. ...

Their Legacy (1962)

Heitaro, who had served his firm loyally for 30 years, reaches the retirement age. He has four unmarried daughters and decides to split his retirement allowance he has received from his firm into 500,000 yen for each daughter as a wedding dowry. He conside ...

The Rokumeikan (1961)

TV drama based off the play of the same name by Yukio Mishima. ...

The Conspirator (1961)

Young lord Saburo Nobuyasu struggles to find comfort in life. His arranged marriage to Tokuhime, daughter of one-time family enemy Oda Nobunaga, provides little happiness. His manipulative mother adds further complications through her constant interference ...

Buddha (1961)

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 includ ...

The End of Summer (1961)

The family of an older man who runs a small sake brewery become concerned with his finances and his health after they discover him visiting an old mistress from his youth. ...

The Gambler's Code (1961)

One of Japan's most popular stories is the tale of Kutsukake Tokijiro, a traveling gambler who finds that he must take care of the wife and child of a yakuza he had been forced by the code of the gamblers to fight man to man. In a brilliant performance fro ...

Deep River Melody (1960)

A poignant story about a young couple, Setsu and Chozo, who are torn apart to save Setsu's father's restaurant. ...

The Woman Who Touched Legs (1960)

Detective Katahachi meets a young and beautiful pickpocket and doesn't arrest her because she was not in the act. Instead, he listens to the story about her parents who killed himself and died for overwork to feel sorry about her. ...

Daughters, Wives and a Mother (1960)

Sanae is left a widow after her prestigious husband dies, but holds the proceeds of a million yen insurance policy. Being childless, her former in-laws have no objection to her return to her own family. ...

Runway to Hell (1960)

When Kaneko Ichinosuke aims to avenge his father who was wrongly accused of embezzlement, the samurai Kochiyama Soshun agrees to assist. ...

Goodbye to Glory (1960)

A story of an ardent young man who laid down his life for his country. ...

Floating Weeds (1959)

A theater troupe master's visit with his old flame unintentionally sets off a chain of unexpected events with devastating consequences. ...

The Three Treasures (1959)

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 con ...

Beauty the Enemy (1959)

In a rural district of Tokyo, the owner of a farm is abandoned by his two daughters who are attracted to the life of the big city. ...

The Rokumeikan (1959)

TV drama based off the play of the same name by Yukio Mishima. ...

Good Morning (1959)

A lighthearted take on director Yasujiro Ozu's perennial theme of the challenges of inter­generational relationships, Good Morning tells the story of two young boys who stop speaking in protest after their parents refuse to buy a television set. Ozu weave ...

The Spell of the Hidden Gold (1958)

Historical drama about a sleepy-eyed ronin. ...

Summer Clouds (1958)

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 ...

Hadaka no Machi (1957)

Tokyo Twilight (1957)

Two sisters find out the existence of their long-lost mother, but the younger cannot accept the fact that she was abandoned as a child. ...

The Crowded Train (1957)

Tamio Moroi, a young university graduate, works at a large brewery where he is taught to do nothing but look busy. When his father goes insane, he is told to send money for medical research into the condition. This prompts him to pay his father a visit, le ...

Flowing (1956)

Otsuta is running the geisha house Tsuta in Tokyo. Her business is heavily in debt. Her daughter Katsuyo doesn't see any future in her mother's trade in the late days of Geisha. But Otsuta will not give up. This film portraits the day time life of geisha w ...

Early Spring (1956)

A young salaryman and his wife struggle within the confines of their passionless relationship while he embarks on an extramarital affair. ...

Samurai of the Great Earth (1956)

A film adaptation of Rikuo Honjo's novel "Ishikari River". ...

She Was Like a Wild Chrysanthemum (1955)

On the way back to his childhood home, a septuagenarian man recalls his childhood and adolescence, in particular his love for a young woman. ...

The Romance of Yushima (1955)

Hayase, a schoolteacher, assists Sakai in editing a German-Japanese dictionary. Hayase owes much to Sakai, as Sakai raised him for 13 years after Hayase lost his parents in a war. Hayase has been secretly married to Otsuta, a former geisha, and has been un ...

Princess Yang Kwei-fei (1955)

In 8th-century China, the Emperor grieves the death of his wife. The Yang family wants to provide the Emperor with a consort so that they may consolidate their court influence. General An Lushan finds a distant relative working in their kitchen, whom they ...

Policeman's Diary (1955)

Lending money, job hunting for civilians and babysitting. All these things are usually not listed on a policeman's job description. But for the officers of this local police station, it's part of their daily routine. One day, patrolman Yoshii (Hisaya Moris ...

Life of Geisha (1955)

The tragedy of the geiko girl Ume and the men who try to pursue her. ...

The Story of Shunkin (1954)

Based on the novel by Junichiro Tanizaki. Story of the beautiful blind daughter of a wealthy businessman who falls in love with a servant. ...

Late Chrysanthemums (1954)

What is the life of a Geisha like once her beauty has faded and she has retired? Kin has saved, and become a wealthy money-lender, spending her days coldly collecting debts. Even her best friends, fellow Geisha Tomi, Nobu, and Tamae, are now indebted to he ...

The Glorious Days (1954)

The Glorious Days ...

An Inlet of Muddy Water (1953)

A Japanese woman writes down three stories she has witnessed or heard of in her diary, each about the difficult situation a young woman finds herself in. ...

Tokyo Story (1953)

The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their ag ...

Sunflower Girl (1953)

Young Setsuko Fujino begins a new job at Tokyo Chemical Company. She likes her boss, Ippei Hitachi, and enjoys serving him tea, despite the fact that her fellow workers think the women employees should not have to act in such a servile manner. When the wom ...

Reminiscence (1953)

Kazuo Miyagawa's prizewinning black-and-white cinematography draws out the moral shadings of Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata's 1952 novel Thousand Cranes, a quietly devastating story of a young man, orphaned during the war, who stumbles into a passionate ...

Forbidden Path (1952)

MAZAKI Shintaro is a teacher at a mission school, in a relationship with the English teacher Sumi HASHIMOTO. Young, single and handsome MAZAKI is popular among the women, One day, after reading somethiing unusual in the essay of a third... ...

Kin no tamago: Golden Girl (1952)

Once an average and seemingly ordinary Tokyo girl, she suddenly finds herself as a TV star owing to her discovery by a casting company, which noticed photographs that her cousin had sent. When another actress falls ill she is given the role instead. Her fi ...

The Wind Blows Twice (1952)

Kanae, who broke up with her husband and moved to her uncle's house, met two men when her father, a university professor, collapsed. Michihara, a wealthy man and Miyashita, a youth scholar. Kanae is attracted to Miyashita, but ... ...

Beauty of Life (1951)

Inochi uruwashi ...

Repast (1951)

In post-WWII Osaka, a middle-aged woman is forced to examine her dreary life and marriage when her husband's young and flirtatious cousin arrives for a brief stay to escape an arranged marriage. ...

Fireworks Over the Sea (1951)

A fishing union depends on two brothers to make up the losses caused by the dishonest captains they replaced. ...

Early Summer (1951)

In postwar Tokyo, Noriko lives with her extended family. Although she enjoys her career and her social life, her more traditional family worries about her single marital status at the advanced age of 28. 40-year-old business associate Takako proposes, Nori ...

Freedom School (1951)

Minamimura, who had always wanted to be free, suddenly quits his job. His hardworking wife is surprised and angry, and throws him out of the house. Confused by his sudden freedom, Iosuke ends up living as a vagrant under a bridge. His wife, Komako, also fi ...

The Rainbow-Colored Flower (1950)

Ebihara is a budding novelist entangled in a complicated web of relationships with three women from three different generations: Kazue, a coquettish teenage war orphan who tries to offer herself for money but is instead taken in by Ebihara, Koyabu, a middl ...

Listen to the Voices of the Sea (1950)

This film is strongly anti-war film. The film is based on the collection of writings by Japanese student soldiers who died during World War II. The film is located to Burma. It shows the everyday problems of soldiers in contrast of their ideas and the cyni ...

Till We Meet Again (1950)

Saburo and Keiko fall in love with each other but the tide of war separates them. ...

Four Seasons of Women (1950)

Woman melodrama by Shiro Toyoda ...

Late Spring (1949)

Noriko is perfectly happy living at home with her widowed father, Shukichi, and has no plans to marry -- that is, until her aunt Masa convinces Shukichi that unless he marries off his 27-year-old daughter soon, she will likely remain alone for the rest of ...

Yotsuya Ghost Story Part 2 (1949)

Part 2 starts where the first film ended, with Iemon disposing of the bodies of his wife and Kohei, marrying upward, and being blackmailed by the evil Naosuke. ...

Yotsuya Ghost Story Part 1 (1949)

Iemon Tamiya is an impoverished masterless samurai who craves a better life, which he cannot have because of his marriage to Oiwa, who is completely devoted to her husband. ...

G-Men of Japan (1948)

The investigative unit of the Metropolitan Police Department organized a special investigative team to uncover a series of frequent gang robberies and car gangs... This is the first film in the Nippon G-Men series, of which four more films were later rele ...

Great X (1948)

A 1948 Japanese film. ...

Temptation (1948)

A young lawyer falls in love with the daughter of his former professor, whom he's hired to tutor his children. ...

Children Hand in Hand (1948)

A small-town boy with a learning disability attempts to fit in with his classmates. ...

Three-Fingered Detective (1947)

Being acquainted with the bride's uncle, a famed private detective is invited to a wedding ceremony. The groom's family is moneyed and owns large tracts of land. The bride is a former teacher and was rumoured to have had an affair, which explains why the g ...

Spring Awakens (1947)

Slice of life film centered on a couple of years in the life of a rural high school girl. ...

No Regrets for Our Youth (1946)

After her anti-fascist professor father is dismissed, Yukie navigates love, political repression, and wartime upheaval—ultimately forging her own path in pre- and post-WWII Japan. ...

A Descendant of Urashima Taro (1946)

Reputedly based on Frank Capra's 1939 film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, A Descendant of Tarô Urashima is about a repatriated soldier who becomes populist politician in the Japanese Happiness Party. ...

Morning for the Osone Family (1946)

A Japanese family weathers much hardship after their military uncle comes to live with them during WWII. ...

Umi o yobu koe (1945)

1945 Japanese movie ...

Kanchō umi no bara (1945)

1945 Japanese movie ...

Umi no tora (1945)

1945 Japanese movie ...

Army (1944)

Though plagued by ill health all his life, a young Japanese man is obligated to fulfill his family's longstanding military tradition. ...

The Day England Falls (1942)

Strategy for Hong Kong: The day when Britain collapses ...

The Tale of Jiro (1941)

Story of Jiro ...

A Diary of Our Love (1941)

Drama about a young nurse who falls in love with a disabled soldier, and based a true story. ...

White Heron (1941)

OSHINO, the beautiful daughter of restaurant owners, is in love with SHIRASAGI the painter. But there is another young man, the son of a moneylender family, who is desperately in love with Oshino... ...

Ōhinata-mura (1940)

The year is 1936. Ōhinata-mura was a very poor village between deep valleys. Soncho, the village head is trying to collect the village taxes from the villagers but he knows full well that no one can afford to pay the village tax which has been unpaid for ...

Spring on Leper's Island (1940)

A female doctor's story of her life in an isolated leper colony. ...

Wedding Day (1940)

Twenty-year-old Yoshiko (Setsuko Hara) and her younger sister Asako (Yōko Yaguchi) struggle to accept changes in their home during the preparations of their widowed father's wedding to his chosen bride, Maki Tsuneko (Sadako Sawamura), who's anxious about ...

Nightingale (1938)

An episodic film about life in and around a rural police station and the people it serves. ...

The Lights of Asakusa (1937)

Pre-war Asakusa was a riotous district of cabarets, dance-halls and brothels - a striking backdrop for Shimazu's story of innocence and experience. Pretty, young Reiko is the new dancer in an infamous theatre troupe, and her fellow performers try to protec ...

Namiko (1932)

An early Japanese sound film, notable for being the only Japanese film ever to use the Western Electric Sound System. Contrary to most Western sources that give sole directing credit to Eizo Tanaka, it was actually co-directed by six different directors, T ...