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Story of a young man as an individual and as a family man told through his childhood ambition to follow his father into the military to losing his life in combat in China. Based on a true story of the Sino-Japanese war involving Japanese war hero Kojirō Nishizumi.Read More »
Practically a template for post-war Ozu — by Ozu’s (slightly) senior colleague at Shochiku. Shimazu’s millieu here (reasonably well off middle class) and domestic dilemmas presented are closer to late Ozu than pre-war Ozu is. Shin Saburi is a salaryman married to Kuniko Miyake (an Ozu mainstay from the 40s through the 60s), with a younger sister (Michiko Kuwano). Saburi has job problems — and has to worry about marriage prospects of his sister (who is a westernized office girl). Whenever the family runs into problems, they turn to family friend Chishu Ryu (playing a part very like that he plays in Ozu’s Early Spring). The solution to the family’s woes, however, betrays its era — a move to Japanese-occupied Manchuria as colonists.Read More »
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The inventor of a ground-breaking glue, Sanada, becomes thanks to his discovery a high executive in his company. Because of this promotion, his world is changing completely : his wife behaves like never before, considering she’s now rich and has the right to do whatever she wants, even having an affair.Read More »
Manpyou Daisuke is one of the country’s most powerful financiers. He asserts absolute control over his family as he has worked to expands his house’s influence through less than honest means. However, he has always harboured doubts over his eldest son Teppei’s parentage. One day Teppei makes a disastrous business mistake…
An epic-length film adapted from the novel of the same name.Read More »
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After his benefactor Shima falls ill, Hibiki (Shin Saburi) sets out to rebuild the hospital that Shima had run. In the complicated relationships that swirl around the hospital, Gin (Mitsuko Mito), a nurse who works as Hibiki’s confidant, gradually develops a romantic interest in him. Meanwhile, Shima’s daughter Keiko (Mieko Takamine) and her fiancé Sasajima (Shin Tokudaiji) rebel against Hibiki’s dogmatic behaviour…Read More »
Synopsis
“When the young lawyer Yano hears that Takako the daughter of his former teacher has become an orphan he is ready to help her. Takako becomes part of his household to teach his children and spreads love and warmth among the family. Soon both of them develop romantic feelings for each other…”Read More »
Followed by Shindo: kohen Ryota no maki, available here:
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.Read More »
This drama is adapted from a Japanese television mini-series. In the story, an industrialist learns of a medical condition which will greatly shorten his life. He is on a trip to Europe at the time, and a glimpse of a Japanese woman in that setting causes him to fantasize about her as the personification of his impending death. As his dialogue with his imagined mortality continues, he actually meets the living woman who is the template for his fantasy, and together they tour rural churches. Gradually he comes to some kind of peace about the diagnosis. When he returns to Japan, he is met with a series of challenges which profoundly test the lessons he has learned.Read More »
On a post-war peaceful day in Japan, Toyomatsu Shimizu, a barber as well as a good father and husband, is suddenly arrested by the Prefectural Police as a war criminal and sued for murder. According to the accusation by GHQ, Toyomatsu “attemped to kill a US prisoner”, which was nothing but an order by his superior and failed after all with hurting the prisoner by weak Toyomatsu. Also, Toyomatsu was driven to corner at the trial by the fact that he fed the US prisoner some burdock roots to nourish him. Toyomatsu believes nothing but being not guilty, but he is sentenced to death by hanging. Prior to the execution, Toyomatsu writes a long farewell letter to his family, the wife and the only son: “If I ever incarnate, I hate to be a human being any more…. Oh yes, I would like to be…a shellfish living on the rock-bottom of the sea.”Read More »