film directed by Kajirō Yamamoto

Japanese historical film. Considered Lost.

In old Edo, Kakunojo (Chiezo), a dandy about town, falls in love with Oichi (Isuzu Yamada), whose merchant family is much beyond Kakunojo's status. He nevertheless pursues her until her initial disgust breaks down into fondness, then romantic feelings, inducing her to abandon her fiance on their wedding day.

A film dealing with the comings and goings of individuals in the immediate postwar period.

After mastering swordsmanship at the dojo of Chiba Shusaku, and unable to serve a clan due to his illness, Hirate Miki becomes a ronin who winds up as bodyguard to Shigezo of Sasagawa leading up to an epic battle.

The story of five sisters.

Set against the backdrop of an imperial victory in the civil war leading up to the Meiji Restoration, Fallen Blossoms tells the story of the sorrows of women in a geisha house in Kyoto by recounting the relationships of its inhabitants. Alexander Jacoby & Johan Nordström wrote: Ishida’s original and brilliant film tells history as ‘her story’. Against the backdrop of a victory for the imperial forces in the civil war leading up to the Meiji Restoration, Ishida recounts the relationships among the inhabitants of a Kyoto geisha house, producing what has been described by Noël Burch as “one of the most remarkable community portraits ever filmed”. The film is set completely inside the house, with only female characters ever seen on screen. For Burch, “the exclusion from the scene of men, patrons or soldiers, is a meaningful corollary of the exclusion of Japanese women from the history of the country”. Ishida narrates his story using an imaginative cinematic style in which shots are almost never repeated. The narrative, Burch notes, evokes Chekhov, but he judges its “combination of a restricted, unified setting and continual renewal of the imagery” to be unparalleled in conventional narrative cinema.

A Fond Face from the Past is also set in a rural community, specifically a village outside Kameoka, near Kyoto. In some ways this short, thirty-six-minute film is Naruse's most moving negotiation of the militarist restrictions of the time, perhaps because it is also his most direct engagement with the culture of war. When a newsreel comes to Kameoka featuring a local man named Yoichi, it causes some excitement in the community and, of course, in Yoichi's own family. First of all his mother makes the newsreel (Nippon News, no. 14), which begins with the same marching music that opens his own film, followed by a curious baby judging context in Los Angeles featuring two hundred Japanese babies. Released in January 1941, almost a year before the pacific war begins, this “found footage” is indicative of Japanese imperialist ambitions beyond Asia long before Pearl Harbor.

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.

A sad and troubled man finds a new job five years after the end of WWII, where he writes love letters for other people.

A young woman tries to raise money to open her own coffee shop. She arranges a loan when her rigid family won't help and then her husband becomes jealous of the loan officer.

A man gets rid of a cheap pot without knowing it contains a map to a treasure. As word spreads, many join in hunting it.

The story of Sanshiro, a strong stubborn youth, who travels into the city in order to learn Jujutsu. However, upon his arrival he discovers a new form of self-defence: Judo. The main character is based on Shiro Saigo, a legendary judoka.