Kinuyo Tanaka

Kinuyo Tanaka, a Woman We Talk About (2022)

This documentary composed of numerous testimonies and archives, filmed in Japan highlights the extraordinary career of the actress-director Kinuyo Tanaka and her singular ambition to impose a female point of view on cinema, reflecting her own vision of the ...

The Travels of Kinuyo Tanaka (2009)

Compilation of film footage documenting Japanese film star Kinuyo Tanaka's goodwill tour of the U.S. in 1949. ...

Lullaby of the Earth (1976)

The story of an orphan girl, brought up in naive, rustic innocence by an elderly relative, who is suddenly exposed to the brutality, greed and deceptiveness of the outside world when her grandmother dies. ...

Cape of the North (1976)

A Swiss nun falls in love with a Japanese engineer. ...

Let's Go, Grandma! (1975)

Let's Go, Grandma! plays like an exuberant, goofy update to Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story. Kinuyo Tanaka plays the titular Grandma, who, after selling her Hokkaido property, is apparently flush with cash but newly homeless. Her grown children take turns hosti ...

Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director (1975)

In 39 interviews with actors and actresses, writers, producers and staff members, interspersed with film excerpts and stills, Shindō recounts the life and career of his friend and mentor Mizoguchi. ...

Sandakan No. 8 (1974)

A young journalist interviews an elderly woman about being forced into prostitution in Borneo at a brothel called Sandakan No. 8. ...

Sanbaba (1974)

A story about being scared of getting old. ...

Tora-san's Dream-Come-True (1972)

When Tora-san returns to visit his family, he is surprised to find an arrogant professor occupying his room. The professor and Tora-san become rivals for the affection of Chiyo. ...

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 ...

Kono sora no aru kagiri (1964)

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. ...

Bright Sea (1963)

On the day of college graduation, Mieko (Sayuri Yoshinaga) stood on stage as the valedictorian for the Department of English. During her university years she made sure that she would always come out on top, and she did. With a victorious graduation behind ...

Alone Across the Pacific (1963)

Kenichi Horie is determined to challenge his family, the law and the nature crossing the Pacific to America in a small sailboat. Despite his careful planning, many unforeseen events will test his determination. ...

A Legend or Was It? (1963)

A Tokyo family escaping the war relocates to a Hokkaido village; their daughter is set to marry the local leader's son, but her siblings disapprove. ...

Double Wedding (1963)

Mama, I Need You! (1962)

After finishing the course of junior high school, Kazuo comes up to Tokyo, leaving his mother alone in the unproductive northern district. He finds a job in a small laundry in downtown Tokyo and works hard till late at night. At a nearby restaurant a broth ...

The Fencing Master (1962)

The Fencing Master tells the story of a man trying to survive as the only world he knows is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Danpei Ichikawa lives for swordfighting – he was once a renowned kabuki swordfight choreographer, and as the Chairman of the New ...

A Wanderer's Notebook (1962)

Based on the life and career of novelist Fumiko Hayashi, she bitterly struggles for literary recognition in the first half of the 20th-century – her affairs with feckless men, the jobs she took to survive (peddler, waitress, bar maid), and her arduous, o ...

Eternity of Love (1961)

A Hiromichi Horikawa movie ...

Her Brother (1960)

Set in 1926 when Japanese tradition was much stronger, this drama looks at the inner workings of a small family, especially the relationship between a sister and brother. ...

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 ...

Chikamatsu's Love in Osaka (1959)

Chubei, the adopted son of an Osaka courier, falls desperately in love with the courtesan Umegawa. To prevent a wealthy client from purchasing her, he steals money from his employer to buy her freedom himself. Now hunted criminals, the lovers flee toward Y ...

Hahakogusa (1959)

Based on the Nobu Koito story ...

The Eternal Rainbow (1958)

Two men at an ironworks encounter roadblocks: the first does not have the grades to get a job, while the other finds himself falling for a co-worker. ...

Equinox Flower (1958)

Wataru's outwardly liberal views on marriage are severely tested when his daughter declares her love for a coworker and is adamant to live her own way, instead of agreeing to an arranged marriage. Outwitted by his female relatives, Hirayama stubbornly refu ...

The Ballad of Narayama (1958)

In a remote village where food is scarce, elders who reach the age of 70 are carried by their children to the top of a nearby mountain to die in solitude. Orin, a vibrant 69-year-old grandmother, has accepted her fate — but struggles to prepare the rest ...

Sorrow Is Only for Women (1958)

The beauty of the Japanese family system is portrayed through the women who greet a woman who went to America thirty years ago to visit her grave. ...

On This Earth (1957)

Ichiro's family used to be a large landowner, but now he is living in poverty with his mother. His mother works hard to get her son through school. Under such circumstances, Ichiro meets Wakako, the daughter of a wealthy man, and they fall in love with eac ...

Geisha in the Old City (1957)

Directed by Hiroshi Inagaki, the drama, set in the brothels of Shimabara in post-war Kyoto, is a moving look at the lives of women of tenacity and resilience. ...

Stepbrothers (1957)

In a military family, an illegitimate son is brutalized by his brothers. A patriarchal, feudalistic household where dissent is forbidden is used to reveal the whole imperialist system that afflicted Japan between 1921 and 1946. ...

Yellow Crow (1957)

Ichiro Yoshida, the father of the boy Kiyoshi, who has been repatriated from China, returns home after a ten-year separation. The father, who has been estranged from his son for many years, pays no attention to the boy, often punishes him unfairly, and giv ...

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 ...

The Storm (1956)

A widowed high-school teacher tries to raise his four children alone. ...

Women in Prison (1956)

The woman prison has a cast all with a story of their own and with no dull or routine day. There is an employee who is divorced after her husband had an affair. She loves the jailed criminals and almost sees them as family. One day at a workshop someone fa ...

How Sorrowful (1956)

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. ...

Confession (1956)

Forever a Woman (1955)

Fumiko, mother of two and wife to an unfaithful man, shares her family life with her budding vocation as a poet. The beginning of her successful literary career coincides with her divorce and her breast cancer diagnosis. In her final stages, Fumiko meets a ...

Tsukiyo no kasa (1955)

Housewives from four neighboring households casually gather at an old well at Kaneko's house in a residential area on the outskirts of Tokyo. If two people come together, they will talk about selling kimonos, if three people come together, they will discus ...

Shōnen shikeishū (1955)

House of Many Pleasures (1955)

Yoshida Denkichi does loses sight of his wife Chiyoko and daughter Toyoko during the war, and is taken in by a familiar woman, Oshige, and becomes the owner of "Fujimura" in the town of Hato. Eiko is a timid woman who hates Terada, a watchmaker who is obse ...

The Moon Has Risen (1955)

Mokichi Asai is a widowed father living in Nara with three daughters—Chizuru, Ayako, and Setsuko. The youngest, Setsuko, plays matchmaker for her older sisters, leading to humorous and awkward romantic entanglements. ...

The Woman in the Rumor (1954)

After living a traumatic experience in Tokyo, Yukiko returns to Kyoto, where Hatsuko, her mother, runs a brothel, which upsets Yukiko very much. ...

Five Sisters (1954)

The story of five sisters. ...

Sansho the Bailiff (1954)

In 11th-century feudal Japan, following the exile of an idealistic governor, his wife and children are separated by slave traders; the children, Zushio and Anju, are sold into brutal servitude under the cruel bailiff Sansho. ...

Love Letter (1953)

Five years after the end of the Second World War, Reikichi, a repatriated veteran, translates love letters for Japanese women to American GIs, while searching for his lost love, Michiko. ...

An Heir's Place (1953)

This film stars Tanaka Kinuyo as the mother of the heir to the Hosho name, a famous lineage of Noh actors. The heir, Hosho Yagoro, is played by Hasegawa Kuzuo who went on to become familiar among Ichikawa Kon fans as Yukinojo in An Actor's Revenge, which w ...

Ugetsu (1953)

In 16th century Japan, peasants Genjuro and Tobei sell their earthenware pots to a group of soldiers in a nearby village, in defiance of a local sage's warning against seeking to profit from warfare. Genjuro's pursuit of both riches and the mysterious Lady ...

Where Chimneys Are Seen (1953)

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. ...

Sincere Heart (1953)

A young student falls for an invalid girl whom he can only see from afar. ...

Mother (1952)

A teenaged girl witnesses her widowed mother's attempt to sustain her family. ...

The Ataka Family (1952)

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 w ...

The Life of Oharu (1952)

During the Edo Period, a noblewoman's banishment for her love affair with a lowly page signals the beginning of her inexorable fall. ...

Sisters of Nishijin (1952)

A family of Kyoto textile workers struggles after tragedy. ...

Story of Lightning (1951)

Gensaburo Funaki and Oyuki were childhood friends, but Gensaburo misunderstood that Oyuki was hesitant to get married because he had to feed his father and younger brother. I left the town. ...

The Lady of Musashino (1951)

In post-war Japan, Michiko, a disillusioned young woman trapped in a loveless marriage, confides in her younger cousin, Tsutomo, and the two become close, but decide not to consummate their affair. He instead becomes involved with the flirtatious Tomiko, w ...

Miss Oyu (1951)

Shinnosuke is introduced to Shizu as a prospective marriage partner, but he falls in love with her widowed sister Oyu. Convention forbids Oyu to marry because she has to raise her son as the head of her husband's family. Oyu convinces Shinnosuke and Shizu ...

Ginza Cosmetics (1951)

A few days in the life of a quiet geisha, single mother of a smart young boy, in the lively Tokyo quarter of Ginza. A woman devoted to others' needs, she'll end by taking part herself in one of the many disguises of Ginza. ...

The Inner Palace Conspiracy (1951)

A period mystery in which an unconventional priest exposes the truth behind the bizarre death of a maid in the shogun's harem. Kinuyo Tanaka stylishly plays a constantly intoxicated geisha in this all-star entertainment film. ...

The Munekata Sisters (1950)

Setsuko is in an unhappy marriage to Mimura, an unemployed, alcoholic engineer. She had always been in love with Hiroshi but both failed to propose when Hiroshi left for France a few years ago. But now he's back and Mariko tries to reunite them, although s ...

Wedding Ring (1950)

A jewelry store president begins to fall for the doctor treating her husband's illness. ...

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. ...

Flame of My Love (1949)

In 1880s Japan, women's struggle for equality rages on. Eiko Hirayama leaves Okayama for Tokyo, where she helps the fledgling Liberal Party and falls in love with its leader Kentaro Omoi, just as the party is being disbanded by the government. ...

A Hen in the Wind (1948)

Tokiko patiently awaits her husband's return from WWII when her four-year old son falls ill. She takes him to the doctor but has no means of paying, so she resorts to prostitution. A month later, her husband returns to find his desperate wife, who tells hi ...

Women of the Night (1948)

In early post-war Osaka, three women—war widow Fusako, her Korean expat sister Natsuko, and Kumiko, Fusako's sister-in-law—descend into prostitution, all for their individual reasons. ...

Phoenix (1947)

A Japanese war widow recalls her love affair with her deceased husband. ...

The Love of the Actress Sumako (1947)

Stage director Shimamura, who is bringing western theatre to Japan, falls in love with outspoken actress Sumako Matsui, and leaves his family to be with her, while trying to keep his Art Theatre solvent. ...

Marriage (1947)

In postwar Japan a young woman is unable to marry her sweetheart because her family's in difficult circumstances and needs her income to keep afloat. ...

Utamaro and His Five Women (1946)

Utamaro, a great artist, lives to create portraits of beautiful women, and the Tokyo brothels provide his models. A world of passion swirls around him, as the women vie for lovers, and, occasionally, his art gets him into trouble. ...

Victory of Women (1946)

Representing a destitute mother in an infanticide trial, a female lawyer attempts to convince a conservative prosecutor of the benefits of Japan's democratized post-war legal system. ...

A Tale of Archery at the Sanjusangendo (1945)

Young, timid bowmaster Kazuma seeks to beat the archery record set by Hoshino Kanzaemon, a mysterious figure who, it is rumoured, drove the previous champion—Kazuma's father—to suicide. Possessed of much raw talent, Kazuma is very much a coward, holing ...

Victory Song (1945)

An anthology of thirteen patriotic stories about Japanese citizens contributing to the war effort. ...

Miyamoto Musashi (1944)

Shinobu and her brother Genichiro plead with famous swordsman Musashi Miyamoto to teach them to avenge their father's death. The perpetrators of their father's demise see the siblings practicing, and so enlist the help of another revered swordsman, Kojiro ...

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 Man Who Has Returned (1944)

Air Raid of the Enemy Plane (1943)

Japanese war movie. ...

Kaisen no Zenya (1943)

Kempeitai fights American spies in Japan ...

A Certain Woman (1942)

Pretty Oshige is deceived by her first love. After this, she lives a hard lifestyle, working at a number of jobs. Her only pleasure is her nephew, who eventually becomes a merchant marine. When Oshige meets her old love ten years later, she is able to forg ...

Record of a Woman Doctor (1941)

A group of female doctors travel to a remote village during their summer holiday to offer free medical care to villagers. There they must battle prejudice and superstition as much as disease. ...

Ornamental Hairpin (1941)

A Japanese mountain inn patron's foot is cut by an ornamental hairpin accidentally left behind by a former patron, leading to much curiosity among the other patrons regarding her identity. ...

Flower (1941)

Most of the students studying Ikebana with Kozoe Iemoto are daughters of rich Tokyo families. Kozoe meets and grows close to a doctor who proposes marriage but whose mother harbours ill feeling towards her because of an incident in the mountains where a ch ...

Let's Go in Good Spirits (1941)

In the movies of those times, you can see young boys in the company scene often. Those boys were called kyuji (給仕), which means "waiter" literally. They are doing odd jobs in the company including serving tea, ushering visitors, buying tobacco, etc. O ...

Okinu and Banto (1940)

A story of a store that makes Tabi socks. ...

Osaka Woman (1940)

When wealthy Ochika marries desolute Danpei, she devotes herself completely to him and takes over her business, to the point of sowing dissensions within the Jōruri troupe in which her husband plays. ...

Seisen aiba fu: Akatsuki ni inoru (1940)

Kinuyo's First Love (1940)

Kinuyo is a daughter of rice cracker shop in downtown. She fell in love with her sister's boyfriend. It is a story whose theme is warm human relationships in a town of customs and manners. ...

Weeds with flowers (1939)

Weed with Flowers ...

Zoku aizen katsura (1939)

1939 Japanese movie ...

Spring Thunder (1939)

Eiko is an innocent young lady born into a wealthy family with nothing to offer. She was good at singing, and lived her life playing around with her cronies, organizing music concerts and so on. However, things change when her father's business fails and s ...

Okayo's Preparedness (1939)

A young student of traditional dance falls in love with a handsome young man who visits the dance school in order to take photographs. ...

The Tree of Love (1938)

A young doctor, Kozo Tsumura, falls for young nurse Katsue Takaishi. But she's got a secret: she's a widow with a son. Kozo and Katsue decide to run away to Kyoto, but her child suddenly became sick and she just missed the train and Kozo. She makes it to K ...

Mother and Child (1938)

The movie follows a young woman (Kinuyo Tanaka), a daughter of a high-ranking businessman and his neglected mistress, as she struggles to ease her mother's loneliness, while also having an affair with her father's subordinate. ...

Banchō sarayashiki (1937)

short film about Banchō Sarayashiki. ...

A Man's Recompense: Part 2 (1937)

Sabu Toshinobu is an archaeologist who has taken a liking to Kinuyo Tanaka, the daughter of an archaeologist at an inn in Izu, where he is visiting to conduct an excavation. Sabun gets along well with his childhood friend Michiko Kuwano, but his mother (Fu ...

A Man's Recompense: Part 1 (1937)

Sabu Toshinobu is an archaeologist who has taken a liking to Kinuyo Tanaka, the daughter of an archaeologist at an inn in Izu, where he is visiting to conduct an excavation. Sabun gets along well with his childhood friend Michiko Kuwano, but his mother (Fu ...

Lady Doctor Kinuyo (1937)

Kinuyo is a daughter of doctor of Chinese medicine, and Yasuo is a son of surgeon. Their families always fight like cat and dog. This relationship is ancestral. Although Kinuyo and Yasuo love each other, they have different thoughts toward treatments. ...

Song of the Flower Basket (1937)

Three men fall in love with the same young girl who works in a tonkatsu restaurant in the Shitamachi district of Tokyo. ...

The New Road: Ryota (1936)

The eldest daughter of a noble family is in love with an aviator while being courted by a fellow aristocrat she thinks is a dullard. Told from the perspective of Ryota. In this second part, we learn that Akemi is pregnant... ...

The New Road: Akemi (1936)

The eldest daughter of a noble family is in love with an aviator while being courted by a fellow aristocrat she thinks is a dullard. This part is told from the perspective of Akemi. ...

Men vs. Women (1936)

A musical film made for the inauguration of Shochiku's Ofuna Studio, with an all-star cast of the era. ...

Burden of Life (1935)

A middle-aged father has just married off his third daughter, but still has his nine year old son to raise whom he resents as he was unwanted. ...

Okoto and Sasuke (1935)

A period piece about the love of a wealthy blind woman, a teacher of koto and shamisen, and her devoted manservant. Based on a novella by Tanizaki Junichiro. ...

An Innocent Maid (1935)

In a back alley of the Shitamachi district of Tokyo, Kihachi bears witness to a series of romantic complications involving the inhabitants of the neighborhood. Considered to be a lost film. ...

My Elder Brother (1934)

Jyuta, an honest owner of a taxi company, has a younger half-brother who is involved in the yakuza world and doesn't get along well with his mother. ...

That Night's Woman (1934)

That Night's Woman ...

Osayo Koi Sugata (1934)

The poor novelist Yamamoto is writing his novel, determined and with a headband around his head. With him, the novelist who is always in trouble paying his bills, is the girl Saya who becomes the model for his novel. Saya however is in love with a young dr ...

The Genealogy of Women (1934)

A melodrama by noted auteur and father of director Yoshitaro Nomura, Hotei Nomura. This is apparently the first adaptation of Izumi Kyoka's The Romance of Yushima. ...

Sôbô (1933)

Directed by Mikio Naruse. It is presumed to be lost. ...

Dragnet Girl (1933)

A gangster tries to find redemption with the inadvertent help of an innocent shop girl and his jealous girlfriend will do anything to keep him. ...

Woman of Tokyo (1933)

Ryoichi and Chikako, brother and sister, live together. Chikako toils during the day and, at night, prostitutes herself to fund his college tuition. ...

The Dancing Girl of Izu (1933)

"The Dancing Girl of Izu" tells of the story between a young male student who is touring the Izu Peninsula and a family of traveling dancers he meets there, including their youngest girl. The student finds the naïve girl attractive even though he eventual ...

The Bride Talks in Her Sleep (1933)

This pair of gentle yet witty and inventive comedies from the director of The Neighbour's Wife and Mine typify both the formal experimentation of early Japanese sound cinema and the social milieux that Shochiku tended to depict. 'Virtually plotless, and fe ...

The Loyal 47 Ronin (1932)

This 1932 adaptation is the earliest sound version of the ever-popular and much-filmed Chushingura story of the loyal 47 retainers who avenged their feudal lord after he was obliged to commit hara-kiri due to the machinations of a villainous courtier. As t ...

Where Now Are the Dreams of Youth? (1932)

When a young man inherits his father's lucrative business, he cheats the system to set up three of his college friends with jobs. ...

ABC Lifeline (1931)

Japanese silent film directed by Yasujirô Shimazu, originally released as a two-part movie on December 11, 1931. ...

The Neighbour's Wife and Mine (1931)

A playwright moves to a rural neighborhood to avoid the distractions of the city, but he discovers there are plenty of ways to get sidetracked in his new home, too. ...

Love, Be with Humanity: Part 1 (1931)

The three-hour Ai yo jinrui to tomo ni are / Love, Be with Humanity (1931) starts as a satire of alienation in the world of money, develops into a lumberland epic with a forest fire on Sakhalin Island, turns into a tragedy of King Lear dimensions, and mana ...

Love, Be with Humanity: Part 2 (1931)

The three-hour Ai yo jinrui to tomo ni are / Love, Be with Humanity (1931) starts as a satire of alienation in the world of money, develops into a lumberland epic with a forest fire on Sakhalin Island, turns into a tragedy of King Lear dimensions, and mana ...

Love Under the Crucifix (1962)

A tea master and his daughter Ogin are both Christians in feudal Japan. Ogin falls in love with a married feudal prince who shares her faith. When the Shogun bans Christianity, the situation worsens. ...

Girls of the Night (1961)

In the wake of the 1956 Prostitution Prevention Law, a young woman recently released from one of Japan's new rehabilitation centers struggles to build a new life. ...

The Wandering Princess (1960)

Pu Zhe, younger brother of the Emperor of Manchukuo, marries Ryuko, daughter of an aristocratic family. To the surprise of all, a deep love between Pu Zhe and Ryuko develops and is put to the test when Japan loses the war. ...

Forever a Woman (1955)

Fumiko, mother of two and wife to an unfaithful man, shares her family life with her budding vocation as a poet. The beginning of her successful literary career coincides with her divorce and her breast cancer diagnosis. In her final stages, Fumiko meets a ...

The Moon Has Risen (1955)

Mokichi Asai is a widowed father living in Nara with three daughters—Chizuru, Ayako, and Setsuko. The youngest, Setsuko, plays matchmaker for her older sisters, leading to humorous and awkward romantic entanglements. ...

Love Letter (1953)

Five years after the end of the Second World War, Reikichi, a repatriated veteran, translates love letters for Japanese women to American GIs, while searching for his lost love, Michiko. ...

Brother and Sister (1953)

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-tempe ...