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Setsuko Hara

Setsuko Hara

Setsuko Hara (June 17, 1920 – September 5, 2015) was a Japanese actress who appeared in six of Yasujirō Ozu's films, most notably as Noriko in the 'Noriko Trilogy': Late Spring (1949), Early Summer (1951) and Tokyo Story (1953). Her other films for Ozu were Tokyo Twilight (1957), Late Autumn (1960) and finally The End of Summer in 1961.

She was born  Masae Aida in Yokohama, Kanagawa prefecture. She came to prominence as an actress at an early age, in the 1937 German-Japanese co-production Die Tochter des Samurai (Daughter of the Samurai), known in Japan as Atarashiki Tsuchi (The New Earth), directed by Arnold Fanck and Mansaku Itami.

She also starred in films by Akira Kurosawa, Mikio Naruse and other prominent directors.

She was called "the Eternal Virgin" in Japan and is a symbol of the golden era of Japanese cinema of the 1950s, although she is mostly unknown in the US. She suddenly quit acting in 1963 (the same year as Ozu's death), and had since led a secluded life in Kamakura, refusing all interviews and photographs. Her last major role was Riku, wife of Ōishi Yoshio, in the 1962 film, Chushingura. She was the inspiration for the protagonist of the 2001 movie Millennium Actress.

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Movies Starring Setsuko Hara (74)

Noriko Setsuko (2023)

The film reconstructs the life of Noriko by selecting scenes from Oz Yasujiro's films featuring actor Hara Setsuko. ...

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Chûshingura (1962)

After their lord is tricked into committing ritual suicide, forty-seven samurai warriors await the chance to avenge their master and reclaim their honor. ...

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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. ...

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The Wayside Pebble (1960)

In Meiji era Japan a sixth grade boy is smart, likable and confident and owing to his academic success liked by his teacher. Things are not going well at home, however, where his father does not work leaving the mother to toil . With the boy's family havin ...

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Late Autumn (1960)

A woman and her daughter are each forced to contend with an increasing pressure to marry, particularly from three men who knew her late husband. ...

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Life of a Country Doctor (1960)

A skilled country doctor's talents are such that he can even perform operations as difficult and novel as removing a patient's kidney for the first time in Japan. Unfortunately for him, however, his wife's addiction to gambling is of such a magnitude that ...

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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. ...

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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 ...

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Oban kanketsu hen (1958)

Ushinosuke returns to Tokyo with new ambitions. Fourth and final part of the film adaptation of Bunroku Shishi's novel, Oban. ...

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Holiday in Tokyo (1958)

May Kawaguchi is a famous Japanese fashion designer. Returning to Tokyo from her home in New York, she travels incognito with a tour group, in hopes of having a quiet vacation without being noticed. But she is spotted and the press has a field-day with the ...

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Woman Unveiled (1958)

A childless lawyer and his wife take in the quiet daughter of an imprisoned client, whose presence eventually creates romantic tension with the husband. The household dynamic is further disrupted by the arrival of a bold friend from Osaka and the wife's ch ...

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Zokuzoku Ôban: Dotô hen (1957)

Ushinosuke returns to his hometown to become a farmer. Part three (of four) of the film adaptation of Bunroku Shishi's novel, Oban. ...

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Zoku Ôban: Fûun hen (1957)

Ushinosuke returns broke to his hometown, where everyone believes he's rich and successful. Part two (of four) of the film adaptation of Bunroku Shishi's novel, Oban. ...

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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. ...

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Ôban (1957)

A young country boy leaves his village for Tokyo, where he begins to work as a stock trader. First part (of four) of the film adaptation of Bunroku Shishi's novel, Oban. ...

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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 ...

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Settlement of Love (1956)

Living in a house that has lost its man to the war a year earlier are the widow and her child. Four of the dead man's friends gather to have an anniversary wake. Some time following the ceremony one of the attendees marries the widow. Soon another friend o ...

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Sudden Rain (1956)

Fumiko and Ryōtarō Namiki's marriage has gone stale, with both constantly arguing over what to do on a day off, or about her cutting out recipes from the newspaper before he finishes reading it. Their animosities are witnessed by Fumiko's niece Ayako, wh ...

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Nobuko Rides on a Cloud (1955)

A little girl who falls into a lake and is saved by a god who then takes her up to the clouds and shows her what the world was like before she was born and what the world would be like if she where never born. While in the clouds she meets her grandparents ...

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Sound of the Mountain (1954)

An ingratiating bride develops warm ties to her father-in-law while her cold husband blithely slights her for another woman. ...

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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 ...

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White Fish (1953)

A family comprised of a man, woman and their only son is torn apart when the father, who is a doctor with his own clinic, is to go off to war. Soon the wife and the son are left without an update of his status and whether he is alive or not. With the clini ...

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Tokyo Sweetheart (1952)

Following the Second World War, the lives of various people in a poverty-stricken area of Tokyo are entertwined. Pachinko parlor girls, shoeshine boys, a maker of costume jewelry, and a streetcorner artist all struggle to make their livings and to find hap ...

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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 ...

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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 ... ...

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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. ...

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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 ...

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The Idiot (1951)

A gentle, war-shattered ex-soldier, Kinji Kameda, arrives in wintry Hokkaidō and is pulled into a volatile tangle of love and pity between the disgraced Taeko Nasu, the proud Ayako, and his possessive friend Akama. Kameda's saintly compassion exposes ever ...

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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 ...

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Shirayuki sensei to kodomo tachi (1950)

The film centers a compassionate teacher (Setsuko Hara) who teaches at a Tokyo grade school where students curse and gamble. The school has a pond on-premises that she's in charge of and cares for. The pond holds a number of carp, but someone is snatching ...

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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 ...

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The Blue Mountains: Part II (1949)

Continuation of The Blue Mountains: Part I. Released a week later. ...

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The Blue Mountains: Part I (1949)

Teacher Yukiko finds herself in opposition to conservative faculty and villagers after defending a student for being in a relationship with a young man from Tokyo. ...

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Here's to the Young Lady (1949)

A matchmaker looks to unite a young woman from a wealthy Tokyo family with the humble owner of an auto garage. ...

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Kōfuku no genkai (1948)

The eldest daughter of the Takamatsu family, Atsuko, a widow, returns home due to not getting along with her late husband's family. On the other hand, the youngest daughter, Yukiko, is in love with a teacher older than her, much to her father's chagrin. Al ...

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A Woman in the Typhoon Area (1948)

Four unlucky pirates head to a weather tracking station set on a remote island with the intention of holding the weather trackers as hostages and assaulting their next incoming supply ship; but at the station they are told that a serious typhoon is on the ...

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Temptation (1948)

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

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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 ...

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The Ball at the Anjo House (1947)

After Japan's defeat in the war, the Anjo family lose their peerage and wealth. Since their mansion is due to pass into the hands of a creditor, the family holds one last ball before leaving. ...

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The Age of Beginnings (1947)

A newly hired daily newspaper writer covering the society beat receives an assignment to cover Tokyo at night by walking and observing it. He gets into the right frame of mind by dressing the part as a vagrant with not a penny to his name. He gets into tro ...

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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. ...

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Three Women of the North (1945)

The story of an airport and its air traffic control crew in a remote and northern Japanese town. Three of the air traffic controllers are female with one of them working with her dead fiancé's sister. The engaged man had gone to war and never returned. ...

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Until Victory Day (1945)

An Invention laboratory is working on the creation of a performance 'bomb' in the shape of a rocket that could be delivered to the front in order to entertain and amuse the national troops. Inside this rocket would be tiny performers. Once launched from th ...

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The Cruel Sea (1944)

It is 1921 and a town has a newspaper which prints urgent bulletins as required. The Washington-based CITES treaty, in which Japan participates, puts a limit on the number of warships any country can possess. As a result, Japan has to decommission a ship t ...

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Searing Wind (1943)

Set in wartime at the Yawata Steel Works in Tobata, Yawata, and Kokura cities in Fukuoka Prefecture, the film depicts people taking on the evil blast furnaces that prevent increased production. The film was shot on location at the actual Yawata Steel Works ...

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Toward the Decisive Battle in the Sky (1943)

Young men endure challenging flight training in the Yokaren, a program feeding new pilots into the Army and Navy. By the time of the filming, the pressure of the war had led the government to shorten the training and expand the age range of the recruits. ...

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Suicide Troops of the Watchtower (1943)

Stalwart soldiers of the Japanese Empire – Japanese and Korean alike – stand in defense of a military outpost threatened by "bandits. ...

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The Opium War (1943)

The Opium War is a 1943 black-and-white Japanese film directed by Masahiro Makino. "Ahen senso" in Japan refers to the First Opium War. The story of the film concerns this war. ...

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The War at Sea from Hawaii to Malaya (1942)

Japanese Navy air cadets train for the attacks on Pearl Harbor and the HMS Prince of Wales. ...

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Green Earth (1942)

Set in Qingdao, China, a Japanese company locates an office there and begins work and cooperation with a local Chinese company for business. Many Japanese engineers also move to China, with their families, for the company in order to construct a canal. The ...

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Currents of Youth (1942)

It was supposed to be about a love story, but it was and was not. An aircraft mechanic working for the government is matched by his boss with the latter man's daughter (Setsuko Hara) who is both beautiful and aggressive. Yet, he picks a woman who is less a ...

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Sky of Hope (1942)

What is marriage? Young couple in match-making wanted to know before they decide. They visited married couples of sisters and brothers. Love comedy in 1942. ...

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Story of Leadership (1941)

In this semi-documentary, an older locomotive driver is tasked with training younger ones and is currently training two in particular. The old man is finding the task overwhelming as it is hard work with practical lessons and classroom components. His wife ...

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The Snake Princess (1940)

When Sentarô's father is killed by a drunken samurai, Sentarô avenges him. His deed puts him on the run and leaves his sister behind. While running from both the authorities and the assassins, Sentarô meets with the beautiful travelling-actress Oshima w ...

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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 ...

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Toyuki (1940)

Shot mostly in Tokyo, this comedy depicts two Chinese tourists who have travelled from their country to Japan in order to experience the latter country. ...

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Women in Tokyo (1939)

This is the story of a woman who enters the world of sales. She works at a company in Ginza as a typist. She determines that she needs money for her family and herself and asks her co-worker, who is a salesman, for guidance on sales. Armed with the informa ...

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Shanghai Landing Party (1939)

This film attempts to reconstruct the tension of the Battle of Shanghai through an episode in an understated way, introducting its story in a documentary mode. In the film story, Japan's marine regiment protects Japanese residents and Chinese refugees-wome ...

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Beautiful Departure (1939)

A rich bourgeoisie family has little care in the world and knows no other lifestyle. It is only the family's second daughter who has an insecure bone in her body and ponders a day when the good times might end. Then one day the family-owned company goes ba ...

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Winter Inn (1938)

A film that begins with wit and comedy when a husband tries to hide and mask his drinking, which his Jesus freak and very Christian wife dislikes, by gargling and other methods, turns somber when the man loses his job after being fired. He attempts to keep ...

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Pastoral Symphony (1938)

A priest in Hokkaido adopts a blind orphan girl, and as she grows up he finds himself falling in love with her. ...

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The Giant (1938)

Japanese adaptation of LES MISERABLES. The last film of director Itami took inspiration from Les Miserables. Transpiring during the Southwestern War of 1877 in Japan, which was the last civil war in the country, a criminal escapes prison only to be found ...

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The Woman Aiming for the Shogun (1937)

A man attacks the shogun, but does not succeed in his assassination attempt. He flees to the mountains and hides in a shed. There he finds an old man and a girl. The latter is the daughter of Shogun's former wife and also has revenge on her mind. The forme ...

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Mother's Melody (1937)

The prewar film Haha no kyoku (Mother's Melody, 1937) is known for its place in Japanese film history as one of the top three melodramas as well as for its authorship: Yamamoto Satsuo is an auteur not usually associated with filming melodramas. Yamamoto ma ...

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The Daughter of the Samurai (1937)

Teruo gets caught up in a conflict between tradition and modernism after returning to Japan from Germany after having spent a number of years there studying. Now, he is supposed to marry Mitsuko, the daughter of his adoptive father, to whom Teruo has long ...

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The Crown of Life (1936)

Two brothers run a factory canning crabs. The elder brother Kotaro is righteous and insists on honesty. The younger brother is fixated on money. They are polar opposites. When a boat sails out looking for crab and does not return one day the brothers begin ...

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Priest of Darkness (1936)

A boy steals a knife from an old samurai, unaware of its value, setting off a strange chain of events. ...

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Throwing the Soul Away (1935)

The film centres around junior high school students. They are members of the school's baseball team. They are very good. Izawa's father asks him to stop playing prior to an important game. Hayasaki health deteriorates at this time and he becomes absent. Th ...

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