Taiji Tonoyama

For a girl who works in a 3rd rate bar, Ayuko is full of vanity. Nomura, her patron, is besotted by her and it is their habit that they cannot ...

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

After a businessman is murdered, an investigation identifies a suspect who is then put on trial for that crime.

Murase is a bodyguard of yakuza group. Ochiai is a police officer who once was a student activist. When they meet, they are surprised how ...

Based on a novel by Tsutomu Mizukami, this haunting melodrama focuses on a young bamboo worker who takes his father’s prostitute as his wife.

The world-famous woodblock artist Hokusai (1760-1849), a widower in need of a steady income, lives with his daughter Oei in the house of his ...

Misawa Ihei (Nagato) is traveling with his wife Tae (Iwashita Shima) who abhors the practice of sword fighting for prize money. Tae is the ...

Set in the time of steam locomotives and covering a period of almost 30 years, this sensitive film tells the story of the wife of a railroad ...

On the eve of the Russo-Japanese war at the beginning of the 20th century, small-town girl Okane has married an old wealthy man to escape a life ...

The culturally isolated, nomadic Seburi people of western Japan are the subject of this tragedy about a few of the community’s members who ...

In the Sengoku period, a woman and her daughter are raped and murdered by soldiers during a time of civil war. Afterwards, a series of samurai ...

A young rock singer is not appreciated by her band, and gets a postcard from Japan saying “wish you were here”. She takes what little ...

At the time between the World Wars, Japan is involved in empire-building throughout East and Southeast Asia. After a brief career as a low-level ...

The tragic, true story about Hachikō, an Akita dog who was loyal to his master, Professor Ueno, even after Ueno’s death.

In a small village in a valley everyone who reaches the age of 70 must leave the village and go to a certain mountain top to die. If anyone ...

A thief, a murderer, and a charming lady-killer, Iwao Enokizu is on the run from the police.

In a small Japanese village at the end of the 19th century, a rickshaw driver’s wife takes on a much younger lover and the two conspire to ...

A blind traveling musician is abused and oppressed wherever she goes, even as the modern world imposes change around her.

A passionate telling of the story of Sada Abe, a woman whose affair with her master led to an obsessive and ultimately destructive sexual relationship.

Three students spend their holidays at the seaside where they are mistaken for Koreans, a minority which is looked down on in Japan. The action ...

A sex-obsessed woman, a suicidal man she meets on the street, and a gun-crazy wannabe gangster become trapped in an underground hideaway.

Seeking revenge against the guard who tormented him, a young man returns to the island where he was imprisoned in reform school. But his plans ...

A family of four are the sole inhabitants of a small island, where they struggle each day to irrigate their crops.

A lighthearted take on director Yasujiro Ozu’s perennial theme of the challenges of inter­generational relationships, Good Morning tells the ...

Nobuo is a hot-headed hoodlum fresh out of reform school who struggles to make a clean break with his tearaway past.

Doctor Sanada treats gangster Matsunaga after he is wounded in a gunfight, and discovers that he is suffering from tuberculosis. Sanada tries to ...