Sayuri Yoshinaga

Mom, Is That You?! (2023)

Akio, an HR worker, visits his transformed mother Fukue in Tokyo. Baffled by her new lively self, he encounters a friendly neighbor. Through these interactions, Akio gains new perspectives, noticing overlooked aspects of life. ...

A Morning of Farewell (2021)

Sawako worked as an emergency physician at a university hospital. Due to to a situation, she returns to her father Tatsuro's home in Ishikawa Prefecture. She then begins to work at the local Mahoroba Clinic. She works with the clinic director Toru, Nurse M ...

The Bucket List (2019)

Sachie Kitahara is a housewife and she has devoted her life to her family. Mako Goda is a wealthy woman who runs a business. They are both diagnosed with terminal illnesses and are told they only have a short time left to live. These two women from complet ...

Sakura Guardian in the North (2018)

The film follows the relationship between a mother and her son. In 1945, the mother played by Sayuri Yoshinaga fled with her two sons from the Russians to Hokkaido. In 1972, her son played by Masato Sakai returns to Japan after finding success in the U.S. ...

Nagasaki: Memories of My Son (2015)

Nobuko works in Nagasaki, Japan as a midwife. Her son died 3 years earlier from the atomic bomb. On August 9, 1948, her son appears in front of her again. Since that time, Koji appears in front of her and they reminiscence about pleasant times. These happy ...

Cape Nostalgia (2014)

Etsuko's café in her peaceful little seaside town is where everyone gathers to gossip and taste her famous brew. But the winds of change are beginning to blow. ...

Buddha 2: The Endless Journey (2014)

2500 years ago, in India, Siddhartha was born as a prince of the Shakya clan, but he gives up his position as a prince to see the world. He meets a strange boy named Assaji, who can predict the future, a monk with only one eye and Depa. Siddhartha continue ...

A Chorus of Angels (2012)

Teacher Kawashima Haru takes a position on a remote island off the coast of Hokkaido, where she takes charge of six students. However, she is later forced to leave after an accident occurs. 20 years later, Haru learns that one of her former students has co ...

Buddha: The Great Departure (2011)

Prince Siddhartha is heir to the Shakya kingdom, which is constantly at war with the more powerful Kosala kingdom. His father tries to raise as him as a warrior leader and to shield him from the miseries of the world. Meeting the young outcast girl Migaila ...

About Her Brother (2010)

Ginko's younger brother Tetsuro, a failed comedian, is the oddball of the family. Embarrassing, loud and plain inappropriate at times causes Ginko to disown him. The two reunite when she discovers Tetsuro is terminally ill. Tetsuro's impending death marks ...

Where The Legend Lives (2008)

Kohei Miyazaki (Naoto Takenaka), a former railroad worker, has become obsessed with locating the ancient country of Yamatai. His obsession sprouted from a day when he discovered ancient ceramics while repairing railroad tracks. Now completely blind, Kohei ...

Kabei: Our Mother (2008)

Set in Tokyo in 1940, the peaceful life of the Nogami Family suddenly changes when the father, Shigeru, is arrested and accused of being a Communist. His wife Kayo works frantically from morning to night to maintain the household and bring up her two daugh ...

Year One in the North (2005)

In 1868, after the fall of the Shogun-dominated Japan, the new government orders people from Awaji, near Kobe, to re-locate to the northern part of Hokkaido. These people once supported the now displaced Samurais of the older days. After two years, over 50 ...

Love of a Thousand Years - Story of Genji (2001)

Set in 900AD and tells the story of a famous female writer of the time, Murasaki Shikibu. Her story begins from the death of her husband, a Japanese noble, then moves on to her recruitment to train the Prince's young 'wives in waiting'. It is dotted throug ...

It Is a Long Walk (2000)

Screen icon Sayuri Yoshinaga stars in this historical melodrama about geishas in the southern city of Nagasaki set during the 1920s. Though she was sold to a geisha house at a young age, Aihara (Yoshinaga) has since become a master samisen player and woman ...

Diary of Early Winter Shower (1998)

Kounosuke Mibu and Tae Horikawa are unable to forget each other, even though they met and fell in love 20 years ago. They had promised each other that they would build a retreat in Shiguretei, but Ushio was hospitalized after a stroke a few days later, and ...

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. ...

Turning Point (1994)

A middle-aged journalist looking to make her big break. After working the same beat on the "women's page", Yumiko gets promoted to editorials. ...

Yearning (1993)

Set during the Meiji period (1868-1912), Kaede is the former mistress of a wealthy merchant. When he dies, she is forced out on the street and forced to give up her young daughter to the merchant's family. ...

Heavenly Sin (1992)

Elite lawyer Ryoko enlists the help of a foreign mafia in rescuing her son from a criminal who holds grudge against her. ...

Gekashitsu (1992)

In the Meiji era, Countess Kibune must undergo surgery to save her life, but she refuses to receive anesthesia because she is afraid to reveal a secret. She asks a young doctor, Takamine, to operate on her without anesthesia. ...

Until Spring Comes (1989)

Living with her son and aging father-in-law, the beautiful widow is bewildered by the passionate love of a middle-aged man who forcefully enters her heart, but she eventually opens up to him, as depicted in the beautiful images of Kamakura from fall to win ...

A Chaos of Flowers (1988)

Set in the Taisho era, Hana no ran is a story about fashionable people without impulse control. Much of the action centers on a popular woman writer, the real-life poet Akiko Yosano, and her experiences among the literati of early 20th century Japan. Becau ...

Crane (1988)

Based on the folk tales "Repayment from a crane". One snowy night a beautiful woman named Tsuru (Crane) visits poor peasant Taiju and says she will become his wife... ...

Actress (1987)

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

The Ballad of the Sea of Genkai (1986)

A young woman's life is turned upside down when her husband suddenly disappears, leaving behind numerous debts and his illegitimate child. Desperate to track down her missing husband, she travels to Kyushu in hopes of finding clues to his whereabouts and i ...

Yume-Chiyo (1985)

Yumechiyo, a geisha house madam recently diagnosed with a terminal illness, yearns to do something constructive with the little time she has left. Though her responsibility lies in taking care of her girls, she finds purpose in helping a man wrongfully acc ...

Ohan (1984)

A story of a shopkeeper and his ex-wife, lives full of tragedy. ...

Heaven Station (1984)

From a true incident that happened in 1960's Japan. This drama is contemporary in setting but medieval in its characters and emotions as it focuses on a tangled web of murder and deceit encountered by a beautiful woman, Kayo after her abusive husband is mu ...

Again (1984)

An anthology that embodies the essence of Nikkatsu action films with a stylish flair, this movie follows an aging hitman (Jō Shishido) on a quest to find a former rival he once shared the screen with. The story unfolds as he roams, creating a distinctive ...

The Makioka Sisters (1983)

This sensuously beautiful film chronicles the activities of four sisters who gather in Kyoto every year to view the cherry blossoms. It paints a vivid portrait of the pre-war lifestyle of the wealthy Makioka family from Osaka, and draws a parallel between ...

The Longest Tunnel (1982)

After a passenger ship sinks in 1954, Go Akutsu devises a life-saving project in the form of a tunnel under the Tsugaru Strait. While working on this project Akutsu becomes involved with Tae Makimura leading to his estrangement from his wife. ...

The Revolt (1980)

When a young soldier is killed while trying to prevent his younger sister, Kaoru, from being sold into a life of prostitution, his commander, Col. Miyagi, tries to honor his dying wish to rescue his sister. Upon finding Kaoru at a party working as a geisha ...

Oh, My Son! (1979)

A man whose son has been murdered pushes to create laws to financially protect victims' families. ...

Taro the Dragon Boy (1979)

Patterned after Japanese art and silk screens, Taro, The Dragon Boy is an animated feature about Japanese mythology and cultures, focusing on Taro, a young boy who has to make a voyage to a distant lake to save his mother, who has been turned into a dragon ...

August Without Emperor (1978)

Taking the Chilean coup as an example, a group of young officers plan to overthrow the Japanese government on V-J Day. They aim to abolish the post-war constitution, restore the national army and revive the traditional spirit of Japan. As the conspiracy is ...

The New Class of the Sewage Canal (1976)

First film produced by Nikkatsu Children's Films. ...

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 ...

Tora-san's Lovesick (1974)

After Torajiro's latest attempt to find a bride goes awry, he starts traveling again and runs into Utako (last seen in Tora-san's Dear Old Home), now a widow. ...

Men and War III: The Final Chapter (1973)

Final part of epic drama about war and its effects upon human beings, follows the fortunes of the Godai family through the Sino-Japanese War through the Soviet Union's sudden attack upon Japanese troops at the end of the war. ...

Tora-san's Dear Old Home (1972)

While Sakura and Hiroshi struggle to save funds to build a house, Torajiro befriends three young women on vacation during his travels. ...

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. ...

Love of Saturday (1970)

Nemoto Ritsuko is the girlfriend of Kuroki Tamotsu. Both are 22 years old. Ritsuko lives with her father, Shingo, a piano tuner and city hall clerk. Meanwhile, Tamotsu is a small club's pianist in Yokohama. Ritsuko, close to the age of marriage, is worried ...

Journey of Love (1970)

Sayuri Yoshinaga played the first appearance of the Shochiku film. Yufuko who was married from a lover who had been married for a year. However, she believes in true love without feeling the heart of her heart, she decides to visit her sister and go to Aus ...

The Ambitious (1970)

The story of Ryoma Sakamoto, considered to be the architect behind the downfall of the Tokugawa shogunate. He was considered an outlaw by his own clan, hunted by his government, and was despised by supporters of the Shogun as well as the Loyalists for desi ...

The Cleanup (1969)

A real all-star cast turns out for this modern yakuza yarn. ...

Monument to the Girl's Corps (1968)

In 1943, critical developments in the Pacific War have placed Japan at a disadvantage, although the fiery breaths of war hadn't yet reached Okinawa Normal School for women. Nothing seemed the least bit out of the ordinary, as Kazuko and her friends enjoyed ...

The Final Winner? (1968)

In a high school, two men are fighting over a beautiful female teacher who has been assigned as an English teacher. ...

Wind of Youth (1968)

A romantic Nikkatsu youth film about three female friends. ...

The Sweet Interns (1968)

The love and friendship adventures of seven internship medical students. ...

My Sweetheart (1967)

It had been a year and four months since Mitsuo was last on a movie set. Welcomed back by director Ishizaki and his film crew, Mitsuo is excited to star as the lead in "My Sweetheart". One day, half way through production, he meets his friends from a popul ...

The Black Sheep (1967)

Young female teacher Kyoko Miyake relocates to a small seaside town with her runaway little sister, but their new life is complicated by hoodlum-like Jiro Yamazaki (the black sheep of the title) who is related to the family hosting them and whom they keep ...

The Swan Elegy (1966)

One day, Reiko, who is engaged, meets a young man named Kondo, and she likes him, although she has a fiancé. On top of this, Reiko, suffering between two men, learns from her father that she is the child of her deceased mother and uncle. In this ambitious ...

The Heart of Hiroshima (1966)

One morning, Kazue is nearly knocked over by a motorbike in front of an instrument store, breaking all the records that she was carrying. The two connect instantly and begin seeing each other every day. However, Iwai, Yukio's foster parent, is concerned - ...

Watashi, chigatteiru kashira (1966)

A Windmill, Tulips and Love (1966)

Young Mariko is torn between two admirers, Natsukawa and Rikizo. ...

Cheers to the Sky (1966)

Stewardess Yuriko goes through rigorous two-month training and finishes her maiden flight safely with the help of her colleagues and instructors. ...

The Four Loves (1965)

A father gives his four daughters his substantial retirement allowance on the stipulation that they leave him alone, as he wants some freedom. Each of the daughters has a romantic interest and it's noticeable that the father, too, has someone in mind. ...

The Song of Love (1965)

Heartwarming story of an ambitious girl who becomes a concert pianist with the help of her musician father. ...

When the Flowers Bloom (1965)

Hiroko, who has a weekly magazine reporter as her lover is assigned as a public health nurse in a remote village. However, there is widespread poverty and ignorance beyond her imagination. ...

The Start of Life (1965)

A young girl in an industrial town is saving her money to enter college. But her drunken father loses his job, her mother cannot make ends meet, and then the boy she likes loses everything when his factory fails. She takes all her savings out of the bank a ...

Song of Farewell (1965)

After her mother's funeral, Yuriko, dressed in mourning clothes, sees off her lover Shintaro as he leaves in the powdery snow, and resolves to part ways with him forever. However, in Yuriko's heart... Pure love duo Yoshinaga and Hamada rigorously pursue a ...

Four Young Sisters (1964)

Three girls come to Tokyo to stay with their elder sister. Actually they are running away from home because their father has married again to a very young woman. They have many romantic adventures and one finally decides against the boy she thought she lov ...

Eddy Currents of Life (1964)

It is 1922 and Fumiko is a high school student. Her family is poor but she loves to study literature. Her father, a peddler, does not return home and Fumiko finds herself in financial trouble, not being able to pay for her schooling and her school excursio ...

Gazing at Love and Death (1964)

A young girl knows that she is going to die and in this she is supported by the devotion of the boy who loves her. They originally met at the hospital. There it transpired that the only way to save her life was to sacrifice an eye and part of her face. The ...

Homecoming (1964)

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-mi ...

Kaze to Ki to Sora to (1964)

A nanny, played by Sayuri Yoshinaga, who lives and works in a Tokyo family, causes all kinds of waves with her outspoken personality and behavior in this charming coming-of-age blockbuster. ...

The Sound of Waves (1964)

On a small island, inhabited by only fourteen hundred people, a young fisherman's son, Shinji falls in love with Hatsue, the daughter of the richest and most difficult man on the island. Despite their differences in class, they begin to meet and rumors spr ...

Welcome, My Baby (1964)

Two friends, both members of a Japanese cargo boat, return to Japan after a three-month voyage and have just 24 hours shore leave. In those hectic hours, they vie for the affections of a hotel owner's daughter but wind up with separate girl friends and att ...

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 ...

The White Peaks of Mt. Fuji (1963)

Azusa has just been discharged from the hospital and is frolicking on the beach in Jushi, finally getting her freedom. Her older sister, Kozue, looks after her. Her father Shuhei moved from Tokyo to Jushi to provide a peaceful environment for his sick daug ...

Beautiful Calendar (1963)

Yajima Sadako is a bright pawnbroker's daughter in the third year of high school. At school, there is a young and handsome teacher Takei who has just started, and a chemistry teacher Murao who she respects, and is enjoying every day. ...

Love Comes with Youth (1963)

During his idle journey on the Izu Peninsula, a university student, Kawasaki, encounters a group of traveling entertainers – including Kaoru (Sayuri Yoshinaga), one of the "odoriko". Kawasaki is taken and cannot take his eyes off her. When he is invited ...

I Have the Sun in My Back (1963)

Shigeru is a young man who works as a window cleaner. His older brother Kenzo has just returned from prison and is determined to start life anew. But a battle for leadership within his old gang causes him to be framed for murder. Shigeru sets out to uncove ...

Gone in the Rain (1963)

Ayako (Sayuri Yoshinaga) is a free-willed college girl who shares a room with Takako and Kimie. They each have a clear vision of what they want from their career and love life. Soon, their room share takes a turn, when ideals begin to clash with reality. ...

Itsudemo yume o (1963)

This is a factory area in downtown Tokyo, and Hikaru, nicknamed Pika-chan, is a nurse at the Mihara Clinic, a friend of the poor. ...

The Mud-Spattered Pure Heart (1963)

Jiro, a young yakuza, and Mami, a diplomat's daughter, are two young lovers from different worlds. Having met by accident, they soon discover a new life together. But their love is ill-fated. Mami's family will not accept her choice, while leading an hones ...

Beyond the Green Hills (1963)

Shinko Terasawa was always considered to be the odd ball of the bunch. At a time when romance was against school regulations, Shinko was the first to take a bite out of the forbidden fruit. Expelled from her former school, she finds herself in an all-girls ...

Hitoribotchi no futari daga (1962)

1962 Japanese movie ...

Fresh Leaves (1962)

Keiko is pretty and intelligent but her home life is not a happy one. Never having known a father's love, she develops a possessive attachment to Mr. Mazaki, the new mathematics teacher. ...

Asu no hanayome (1962)

1962 Japanese movie ...

The Man With Starry Eyes (1962)

1962 Japanese movie ...

The Man From the Sea (1962)

Japanese action film. ...

Red Bud and White Flower (1962)

A high school boy and girl in the midst of their youth try to get their parents to remarry. ...

A Torrent of Life (1962)

1962 Japanese movie ...

Foundry Town (1962)

Set in Kawaguchi in the early 60s, this simple story chronicles the lives of foundry families and one girl's dreams of higher education. ...

Keep Your Chin Up (1962)

Kawanishi Kyu and Tomoda Ryoji, two waifs, are inmates of a Reform School. One night, the boys succeed in a mass escape and split up. Kyu and Ryoji hear the sirens shrieking behind them and panic. Kyu pretends he has been hit by a small truck and Ryoji dem ...

Season of Farewell (1962)

A touching story of a girl who sails away from her love to keep her family together. ...

The Black Scar (1961)

A yakuza frames another yakuza who goes to jail for 5 years. When he is released he goes to seek revenge only to fall in love with the daughter of the man who framed him. ...

Kusa wo karu musume (1961)

1961 Japanese movie ...

That Guy and I (1961)

Asada Keiko and Kurokawa Saburo are two young college students. When Keiko visits Saburo's house, she meets his father Kokichi and his mother Motoko. Motoko is a famous hair dresser, who openly flaunts her lover. When Kokichi and Motoko fight, which they d ...

Lost in the Sun (1961)

Whistling in the Darkness (1961)

A 1961 crime film. ...

Quick Draw Joe (1961)

One day, a lone horseman rides into town with a wounded man strapped behind him. Joe, the Ace, had captured one of the bandits who had held up the armored payroll car headed for the dam construction site, takes the wounded man to the police and claims the ...

The Diary of a Police Officer: The Slammer Is Full (1961)

A small provincial town surrounded by mountains and fields in northeastern Japan. Here a group of eight policemen solve a series of unusual cases, ranging from extortion, to drunken fathers, to corruption and even the persecution of a man who claims to be ...

Joe of Aces: Gambling for a Living (1961)

A marine security officer stranded on the ocean in a small boat is rescued by a crew of buccaneers. ...

Hana to musume to shiroi michi (1961)

One of Sayuri Yoshinaga's first leading roles. ...

An Angel is Chasing Me (1961)

A comedy-action film depicting a kind-hearted protagonist who, feeling disillusioned with the world, asks a hitman for assistance with suicide, only to find himself embroiled in a thrilling and hilarious journey involving money and women. ...

Dai shusse monogatari (1961)

1961 Japanese movie ...

Girl in the Glass (1960)

This film depicts the pure love between a girl raised by a strict father and a young man working in a small factory to support his family. The friendship that had blossomed between them eventually grew into love. Yet the purer it was, the more it seemed d ...

Everything Goes Wrong (1960)

Everything goes wrong when Jiro tries to break up his mother's relationship with a business man. The young rebel Jiro has to deal with an environment of crime and prostitution, and the impact of its choices on personal relationships: one with his mother, o ...

The Man with a Sinister Laugh (1960)

After getting out of prison, a young yakuza tries to find out who killed his girlfriend, attempts not to get drawn back into crime, and to find his missing sister. ...

The Call of the Foghorn (1960)

A sailor is stuck in the harbor due to an engine failure in his boat, and he learns that a friend of his has died, reportedly from suicide. He begins to investigate the matter himself, and finds there may be more to the story... ...

The Gun Like Lightning (1960)

Sadao, is saved from death at the hands of Goro, a killer belonging to a rival gang by Joji just released from prison who has resolved to turn over a new leaf. He has returned, however, because of Keiko, his sweetheart, who he now finds is engaged to Nobor ...

Whistling in the Morning (1959)

Minoru delivered newspapers to earn money for high school, but when his mother came down with illness he decided to use this money for her doctor's bill and gave up going to high school. His friends heard about this, and they donated money to his mother. S ...

Sakura Guardian in the North (2018)

The film follows the relationship between a mother and her son. In 1945, the mother played by Sayuri Yoshinaga fled with her two sons from the Russians to Hokkaido. In 1972, her son played by Masato Sakai returns to Japan after finding success in the U.S. ...

Cape Nostalgia (2014)

Etsuko's café in her peaceful little seaside town is where everyone gathers to gossip and taste her famous brew. But the winds of change are beginning to blow. ...