Hisashi Igawa

The Pass: Last Days of the Samurai (2022)

In the turbulent last days of the Edo period, Kawai Tsugunosuke, a Japanese samurai serving the Makino clan of Nagaoka, dreamt of independence from the restraints of vassalship. Despite his progressive views and his desire for his estate to remain neutral ...

Midnight Diner 2 (2016)

The Master's late-night diner welcomes a woman troubled by funeral fans, an elderly scam victim, and a noodle delivery man struggling with love. ...

Foujita (2015)

A biopic of seminal 20th century artist Leonard Foujita, a contemporary of Picasso and Modigliani, who was famous for mixing up European and Japanese styles. ...

Have a Song on Your Lips (2015)

A young piano prodigy, Yuri Kashiwagi, returns to her hometown after several years and joins a middle school to mentor the choir group. ...

A Samurai Chronicle (2014)

A retired samurai must redeem himself for a crime that he committed earlier in his life. ...

Climbing to Spring (2014)

Toru grew up in alpine countryside around Mount Tate. As a child, he resented the yearly trek up the mountain with his father to prepare their mountain hut for the summer season of climbers. When Toru grows up, he leaves his hometown and enters the working ...

Villain (2010)

Shimizu Yuichi is a shy and lonely day laborer looking for love. He aimlessly spends time corresponding with girls via telephone dating services and going on random encounters with girls looking for spending cash. His world is shattered one day when he is ...

The Summit: A Chronicle Of Stones to Serenity (2009)

In 1907, a group of men climb an unconquered peak in the last unmapped region of Japan. ...

Beauty (2008)

Set in a small Nagano village in the 1930s, the film follows Hanji, a young boy captivated by a local kabuki performance. Inspired by Yukio, Hanji learns kabuki with Utako. As they grow, they become skilled actors, performing in a final kabuki before World ...

Kitokito! (2007)

Coming of age story about a boy and his mother. ...

TANNKA (2006)

Kaori, a professional thirty-something caught between her passion for an older married man and the indulgence of an energetic, but less-fulfilling, youthful suitor. ...

Star Reformer (2006)

Satoshi Nomura, a top-level bureaucrat of a prefecture government, has passion for his career. One day, he is hired by the fixed-term personnel exchange training between public and private businesses. This personnel exchange training is part of some big pr ...

The Professor and His Beloved Equation (2006)

This is the story between single mother housekeeper and mathematics professor,who has a brain damage. ...

Yamato (2005)

Directed by Junya Sato and based on a book by Jun Henmi, "Yamato" has a framing story set in the present day and uses flashbacks to tell the story of the crew of the World War II Japanese battleship Yamato. The film was never released in the United States, ...

Christmas in August (2005)

A Japanese remake of the South Korean film of the same name. ...

For the coming day (2005)

Miyo Hanayama works as a home care nurse, supporting the home care of patients who are close to death. Shigeaki Noguchi complains that his wife has stopped talking to him since he collapsed once. Noriko Imaizumi refuses to undergo surgery because her busi ...

Half a Confession (2004)

Half a Confession introduces itself as a thriller and abruptly changes gears, transforming into a tale of morality with deeper insights into its characters than we had anticipated. It begins when Soichiro Kaji (Terao), a retired detective, walks into polic ...

Farewell, Kuro (2003)

Based on a true story set in Matsumoto city, Nagano, during 1960s. A stray dog wanders into a high school's grounds. The dog, named Kuro, stays at the school and becomes a special friend to everyone. ...

Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create: 'Dodes'ka-den' (2002)

Documentary made by Toho for the Masterworks reissue of all of its Kurosawa films. This one focuses on "Dodes'ka-den" (1970). ...

Letter from the Mountain (2002)

Husband and wife Michiko and Takao move from their urban existence in Tokyo to the isolated, rural farming village where Takao grew up. ...

Hotoke (2001)

Rai pedals his bike and trailer about town, collecting old iron and sowing flower seeds. Because his face never seems to show emotion, everybody calls him Hotoke - meaning Buddha. His elder brother Shiba, however, is tough as nails and works the black mark ...

The Firefly (2001)

Shūji Yamaoka was a suicide pilot during the war who somehow survived Japan's surrender. After decades of working as a fisherman in Kumamoto, a provincial seaside city in southern Kyushu, Yamaoka remains reluctant to discuss his wartime experiences with a ...

After the Rain (2000)

A group of travelers is stranded in a small country inn when the river floods during heavy rains. As the bad weather continues, tensions rise amongst the trapped travelers. ...

Bullet Ballet (1998)

After his girlfriend commits suicide, a man becomes embroiled in gang warfare attempting to obtain a gun in hopes to kill himself. ...

Friendship (1998)

Fourteen-year old student Ayumi has leukemia and starts losing hair. She becomes depressed but receives overwhelming support from her classmates when they all shave their heads for her. ...

Sada (1998)

The film follows the life of Sada Abe, who became a celebrity in 1936 after strangling her lover and slicing off his penis. ...

The 8-Tomb Village (1996)

A band of samurai warriors places a curse on a family fortune thus frustrating the heir 4 centuries later. ...

Tom Cat Holmes' Deduction (1996)

A detective film by Nobuhiko Ōbayashi. Made for TV. ...

Lost in Time (1996)

A story of friendship between two women, Yae and Kiyoko. Their friendship is tested when artist Yae, who suffers from fatal illness, develops special feelings towards her best friend Kiyoko's boyfriend Kosuke. ...

Goodbye for Tomorrow (1995)

People from all walks of life all receive mysterious messages from loved ones who were killed 3 months earlier in a shipwreck. They are instructed to go to a small island in the Inland Sea that evening. ...

Asian Blue: Ukishima-maru Incident (1995)

Asian Blue focuses on Koreans brought to Japan to work in forced-labor brigades during World War II ...

Last Friends (1995)

Following the lives of three college rugby players drafted to serve in the military during WWII. Though they believe their service will help to benefit their loved ones back home, they are unprepared for the hardships of war. Through their shared trials an ...

Deep River (1995)

A group of Japanese tourists try to forget their pasts and find themselves in India. ...

Fusa (1995)

Period piece about a samurai who marries a mysterious beautiful young woman who claims to have lost her memory. ...

47 Ronin (1994)

Kon Ichikawa's retelling of the classic true story of Samurai honor. When a young clan lord is forced to commit seppuku (ritual suicide), his loyal followers (now Ronin, masterless Samurai) dedicate their lives to avenging his death. ...

Koya Choken-bou oboegaki (1993)

Madadayo (1993)

In postwar Tokyo, beloved writer-professor Hyakken Uchida retires and is buoyed through hardship by the fierce devotion of his former students, who honor him each year with a raucous "Not yet!" birthday toast. Told in warm, gently comic vignettes, Kurosawa ...

Bring Me the Head of Shichiemon! (1993)

During the Sengoku period, an army relentlessly lays siege to a castle, but they will need the head of the opposing lord to declare victory. ...

The Oil-Hell Murder (1992)

The indolent son of an oil vendor becomes a regular customer of a prostitute, racks up a mountain of debt, and is disowned by his parents. ...

Luminous Moss (1992)

A headmaster and a novelist, looking for inspiration, regard a strange natural phenomenon before sharing stories of their own. ...

Basara: The Princess Goh (1992)

Furuta Oribe is ordered to become tea master under Toyotomi Hideyoshi after his teacher Sen no Rikyū, the former tea master, was ordered to commit suicide. Princess Goh, daughter of the lord but adopted by Hideyoshi, is outraged when Rikyū's severed head ...

Nakibokuro (1991)

Junko Mizuta, who is returning from juvenile training school, is a former motorcycle gang. Even though he now works, he still goes to his father Junji's yakitori restaurant from time to time. One day, Junichi's uncle, who was returning home from school, ca ...

Harikomi (1991)

When a team of detectives lose the trail of a murderer, they decide to keep an eye on the suspect's ex-lover, who is trapped in an abusive marriage. ...

Rhapsody in August (1991)

An elderly Nagasaki hibakusha spends a summer caring for her four grandchildren, whose curiosity about the 1945 bombing stirs buried memories and moral questions. When an American nephew from Hawaii visits, the family confronts grief, guilt, and the possib ...

War and Youth (1991)

An auto repairman's daughter questions him about what happened to her aunt during the war, but the father remains reticent. Finally the man opens up, and the girl is able to piece together her aunt's tragic story. ...

Kamigata Kugaizoshi (1991)

"Do Not Fall" - Set during Japan's Meiji period, three sisters are abused and exploited by their harsh father, including a daughter who plays the three-corded shamisen for pilgrims visiting the sacred chapel of Ise. ...

Boiling Point (1990)

Masaki, a baseball player and gas-station attendant, gets into trouble with the local Yakuza and goes to Okinawa to get a gun to defend himself. There he meets Uehara, a tough gangster, who is in serious debt to the yakuza and planning revenge. ...

Dreams (1990)

Eight visually rich vignettes drawn from Kurosawa's own dreams—fox weddings and vanished orchards, a soldier's ghosts, a walk through Van Gogh's canvases, nuclear nightmares, and a water-mill utopia—meditate on childhood, art, mortality, and humanity's ...

Rikyu (1989)

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. ...

Yun’s Town (1989)

A Japanese boy in love with a girl of Korean origin must battle the prejudices of those around him in order to sustain the relationship. ...

Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis (1988)

A demonic reincarnation of a Japanese general from the 10th century appears in the early 20th century Tokyo with a mission to destroy the blooming city. ...

Hachiko (1987)

The tragic, true story about Hachikō, an Akita dog who was loyal to his master, Professor Ueno, even after Ueno's death. ...

The Story of Jiro (1987)

Adaptation of the classic masterpiece about the relationship between parents and their children. ...

Actress (1987)

Story of famed Japanese actress Kinuyo Tanaka, with an emphasis on her working relationship with director Kenji Mizoguchi. ...

The Hall of the Crying Deer (1986)

Black Board (1986)

Takeshi Yasui, a junior high school student is found dead in a river. The police investigate it as a murder related to bullying. The dead boy turns out to have been murdered by two of his schoolmates, who he had been bullying. ...

Lost in the Wilderness (1986)

The life and travels of adventurer Naomi Uemura, who disappeared in Alaska in 1984. A member of the first Japanese expedition to reach the summit of Mt Everest in 1970, Uemura also accomplished several "firsts". He was the first man to reach the North Pole ...

House on Fire (1986)

In the 50s, the complicated life of a popular writer who must share his life with his family, his numerous mistresses and his work ...

Tampopo (1985)

In this humorous paean to the joys of food, a pair of truck drivers happen onto a decrepit roadside shop selling ramen noodles. The widowed owner, Tampopo, begs them to help her turn her establishment into a paragon of the "art of noodle-soup making". Inte ...

Ran (1985)

Shakespeare's King Lear is reimagined as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan where an aging warlord divides his kingdom between his three sons. ...

The Cold-Hearted Sea (1984)

A film adaptation of the novel of the same title written by Hiroshi Hatayama (畑山博). ...

Hole in the Pants (1984)

A boy transfers into a new high school in the big city. He gets bullied, but meets a pretty girl. He tries to win her heart, but rivals abound. Debut video release from Pantsu no ana, a subsection of "BOMB" magazine. ...

Konnichiwa Hânesu (1983)

A female college student who aims to become a pianist meets a boy who raises a guide dog. ...

Eternal Monument (1982)

A remake of the 1953 film of the same name. ...

Willful Murder (1981)

The president of the Japanese National Railways is found dead during a period in which train service is plagued by numerous layoffs, strikes and shutdowns. The government says that the president was murdered; the police claim it was a suicide. A quizzical ...

Fifth Movement (1981)

When a broadcasting company takes away its financial support from a symphony orchestra, some of the members refuse to admit defeat. The first violinist returns to his home and manages to get the orchestra back together for a grandiose performance, saved at ...

An Ocean to Cross (1980)

Set in Japan's Tenpyou era (729-749 CE), four young monks are sent to China to study Buddhism and bring a high priest back to Japan with them. The film tells the tale of the four monks' youth and the life and times of the high priest Ganjin. ...

Demon Pond (1979)

When a lone traveler stumbles upon a remote, drought-stricken village, he finds himself engulfed in a whirlpool of myth, mystery, and magic: in a nearby pond reside spirits who hold the fate of the town's inhabitants, including lovers Akira and Yuri, in th ...

Gassan (1979)

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. ...

Glowing Autumn (1978)

A very beautiful Japanese woman is in love with Persian carpets. She is being chased by lecherous Saburi Shin and a handsome young photographer. Lecherous Saburi Shin knows what she wants, and is able to produce it for her. ...

Double Suicide of Sonezaki (1978)

Suicide has long been used as a form of social protest in Japan. In this film, set in 1703, samurai culture is being transformed by the emergence of a new merchant class. Elements of the social contract are beginning to unravel, and some unscrupulous peopl ...

Village of Eight Gravestones (1977)

The heir to a family fortune discovers that a curse has been placed on it, put there centuries before by a band of samurai warriors. ...

The Love and Adventures of Kuroki Taro (1977)

Taro Kuroki, 42, is a stuntman with a samurai's heart. He loves adventures, plays pranks with the police, tries to cure a cat lady by reversing her trauma, and finally, rescues his niece who is about to be lured into prostitution. ...

The Far Road (1977)

Set in the time of steam locomotives and covering a period of almost 30 years, this sensitive film tells the story of the wife of a railroad worker in the northern part of Japan. The ferocious local class restrictions work to keep her husband in his place, ...

The Corporation (1976)

Tadashi Iki returns to Japan from a Soviet gulag 11 years after being captured during the invasion of Manchuria. He is offered a position in the expansive Kinki Corporation, but rival corporations are competing for a government contract to produce fighter ...

The Village (1975)

This appears to be a labor of love. Its about a village which is given the opportunity to put on a musical. They would have to pay the overhead and, being that they are farmers and always busy and not rich, question the wisdom and feasibility of such an id ...

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 ...

Main Line to Terror (1975)

Akiyama is an intern, disgusted with the noise pollution caused by the bullet trains and the heart attacks that noise has been causing in older hospital patients, plots to disrupt and, in ten days, destroy a unit of the operation. He warns the Japan Nation ...

Song of the Devil (1975)

Bakyo is a talented but unsuccessful rakugo artist. The very successful Rokyu wants to take Bakyo under his wings, but Bakyo refuses, claiming that Rokyu's rakugo is compromised by the elements of kabuki. But Bakyo changes his mind and determines to learn ...

The Gate of Youth (1975)

Mainly the story of Shinsuke and his stepmother, ranging from Shinsuke's infanthood to his mid-teens. Coal workers and the mines dominate nearly every aspect of the life of the characters. Shinsuke's father dies while bravely using dynamite to rescue a gro ...

The Woman Who Took the Local Paper (1973)

Based on the original mystery novel by Seicho Matsumoto. Novelist Ryuji Sugimoto is publishing his serial in a local newspaper when a woman from Tokyo subscribes, saying she's interested in his work—only to abruptly cancel weeks later. Suspicious, he re ...

The Class of the Sewage Canal (1972)

The struggle of a young man and boys who try to create the environment where they can speak their minds freely. ...

Home from the Sea (1972)

On a beautiful island in Seto Inner Sea, Seichi and Minko make their living by transporting rocks to construction sites by boat. They cherish the deepest affection for this piece of land they call home, and the simple life they lead. But rapid industrial g ...

The Long Darkness (1972)

The relationship between Tetsuro, a university student from a disgraced, burdened family, and Shino, a waitress supporting her impoverished relatives. The couple decides to marry despite the significant emotional and social hardships each faces, viewing th ...

Summer Soldiers (1972)

During the Vietnam War, an American G.I. deserts his base in Japan and escapes to Tokyo with the help of his Japanese bar hostess girlfriend. In the capital he gets involved with an anti-war organization while dodging the military police. ...

The Wolves (1971)

After going to prison for killing the boss of the Kanno gang, Seji Iwahashi gets released early -- only to find that his former gang has merged with the Kannos. But with bitter resentments lingering on both sides, how long will it be before the bloodshed b ...

Kataashi no ēsu (1971)

The Cliff of Time (1971)

A film adaptation of the second play from "The Man Who Turned Into A Stick" by Kōbō Abe himself. ...

Men and War II: Land of Love and Sorrow (1971)

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. ...

Dodes'ka-den (1970)

On a Tokyo dump's shantytown edge, interwoven vignettes follow residents scraping by: a boy who "drives" an imaginary trolley, a homeless father and son designing a dream house, a young woman brutalized at home, drunks, schemers, and saints of small kindne ...

Where Spring Comes Late (1970)

The story is set in 1970 during the time of the first EXPO in Japan. The film's main figure is a miner who suddenly becomes unemployed because the mine he worked in was shut down. He decides to resettle with his whole family to Hokkaido in northern Japan a ...

Tora-san's Runaway (1970)

After an encounter with a dying yakuza's son and at his sister Sakura's urging, Torajiro attempts to change his vagrant lifestyle and become an honest worker with a steady job. ...

Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)

In the summer of 1941, the United States and Japan seem on the brink of war after constant embargos and failed diplomacy come to no end. "Tora! Tora! Tora!", named after the code words used by the lead Japanese pilot to indicate they had surprised the Amer ...

Goyokin (1969)

A guilt-haunted samurai warrior attempts to stop a massacre taking place. ...

Young People (1968)

"Young People" is a story about the lives of four brothers and a sister, Sato. After the death of his parents, the older brother, Taro, who works in construction, decides to replace them. The second brother, Jiro, is a truck driver. The third, Saburo, is a ...

It's Tough Being a Man (Television Drama DVD Edit Edition) (1968)

This is the DVD version of the TV show, which consists of a single video that plays the first and last episodes of the tv show bridged by an edit recapping the major events of the lost middle episodes. ...

Japan's Longest Day (1967)

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 ...

Organized Violence (1967)

A war breaks out on the streets between rivaling Yakuza clans. ...

A Thousand Suspects (1966)

Suspense film based on Ryuji Hori's non-fiction book about the kidnapping and murder of 4-year-old Yoshinobu Murakoshi in 1963. ...

Zatoichi's Pilgrimage (1966)

Zatoichi's trek through 88 temples to atone for his violent past is interrupted as he stumbles into a village terrorized by a violent yakuza boss. ...

The Face of Another (1966)

A businessman with a disfigured face obtains a lifelike mask from his new doctor, but the mask starts altering his personality and causing him to question his identity. ...

Wild Geese (1966)

Otama, daughter of a poor candy vendor, becomes the mistress of a man whom she believes to be a widower and owner of a prosperous dry goods store. The man is in fact married with children, and is a despised loan shark who takes money from the poor without ...

Cash Calls Hell (1966)

Before leaving prison, Oida uncomfortably enters into an agreement with his cell mate: in exchange for a half-share of 30,000,000 yen, he is to assassinate three strangers given to him on a list. However, upon meeting his first potential victim, Oida has s ...

A Trap (1965)

When her only relative, her elder brother is accused of robbing and murdering an old woman loan-shark, pretty, young Kiriko travels from her home in Kyushu to Tokyo to get Japan's top lawyer to defend her brother. Unfortunately her naive idealism is shatte ...

Homicide (1964)

This film tells about the murder of Lieutenant Colonel Aikawa, the head of the Bureau of Military Affairs, about the beginning of the incident 2.26 and the execution of young officers. ...

Three Outlaw Samurai (1964)

Shiba, a wandering ronin, encounters a band of peasants who have kidnapped the daughter of their dictatorial magistrate, in hopes of coercing from him a reduction in taxes. Shiba takes up their fight, joined by two renegades from the magistrate's guard, Sa ...

The Desperate (1964)

A noir drama depicting the downfall of a veteran detective who hates evil and falls into its depths. Ace detective Sugai pursues Chiyo, the mistress of a man who was arrested for extortion, and takes advantage of her weakness. However, as his colleague Tok ...

Fight of the Gamblers (1963)

Ryuji Oshima, a gambler, kills Saiga in self-defense, and considering himself unfit to lead men, secludes himself in a temple to atone for his misdeeds. At home, when his mother, the boss of a construction gang, bids for and gets the job of building the To ...

Zoku ôsho (1963)

Adaptation of novel. ...

Pressure of Guilt (1963)

A seasoned prosecutor uncovers the perfect crime committed by a young lawyer. ...

Police Precinct: Backing Investigation (1963)

A man confessed to killing a woman in a labyrinth 2 years ago. The detectives must now conduct a "backing investigation" to determine whether his confession is true, because the law states that a confession alone is not enough to make the case. The 20nd wo ...

Harakiri (1962)

Down-on-his-luck veteran Tsugumo Hanshirō enters the courtyard of the prosperous House of Iyi. Unemployed, and with no family, he hopes to find a place to commit seppuku—and a worthy second to deliver the coup de grâce in his suicide ritual. The senior ...

Pitfall (1962)

A man wanders into a seemingly deserted town with his young son in search of work. But after a bit of bad luck, he joins the town's population of lost souls. ...

This Madding Crowd (1962)

Lord Mito: Struggle of Suke and Kaku (1961)

The story of two young men whose ambition is to become the personal bodyguards to the Shogun's uncle, Lord Mito Komon. Portrayed by a pair of up and coming stars, Sasaki Sukesaburo (Matsukata), the son of a widower and Atsumi Kakunoshin (Kitaoji), whose mo ...

Big Shots Die at Dawn (1961)

Grown up son arrives home to learn his father, the newly elected mayor, has been assassinated. So he journeys down a path to find the assassin and gets involved with two opposing yakuza gangs. ...

The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity (1959)

Kaji, sent to the Japanese army labeled Red, witnesses cruelties in the army and revolts against the abusive treatment against a fellow recruit. He also sees his friend Shinjô defecting to the Russian border, and he ends in the front to fight a lost battl ...

Jose Torres (1959)

A documentary about the eponymous Puerto Rican boxer ...

The Story of Pure Love (1957)

Junai Monogatari AKA Story of Pure Love is about two poor youths, Mitsuko and Kando, rebelling against society in various ways, who are desperately trying to be together despite tortuous circumstances. The film depicts their lives as thieves, menial labore ...

The Living Koheiji (1957)

The actor Koheiji is terribly in love with the wife of his best friend, the playwright Takuro; to get her, he would even kill Takuro. ...