Keiju KobayashiFilmography

A Taxing Woman

Actors: Nobuko Miyamoto, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Masahiko Tsugawa, Hideo Murata, Shuji Otake

Synopsis: The taxing woman of the title is Nobuko Miyamoto (the wife of director Juzo Itami), who works for the Japanese version of the IRS. She is also "taxing" in her insistence upon upholding the letter of the law and doggedly tracking down tax cheats. Her current quarry is millionaire Tsutomu Yamazaki Read More

Himatsuri

Actors: Kiwako Taichi, Ryota Nakamoto, Norihei Miki, Rikiya Yasuoka

Synopsis: Himatsuri is based on a real life tragedy, in which a Japanese man inexplicably slaughtered his family and then killed himself. Kinya Kitaoji plays the thoroughly self-centered "protagonist," who does what he pleases no matter who he hurts. No one dares question Kitaoji due to his blasting-cap Read More

Godzilla 1985: The Legend is Reborn

Synopsis: Nearly ten years after his last screen appearance (in 1975's Terror of Mecha-Godzilla), the Tokyo Terror stomps again -- albeit awkwardly -- in Toho Studios' highly-publicized bid to reestablish the Green Guy's popularity in Japan and overseas. More a remake of the 1956 classic Godzilla: King of the Monsters Read More

Chichi To Ko

Actors: Keiju Kobayashi, Junko Mihara, Mieko Harada, Junko Miyashita

Synopsis: The tensions that develop when someone must conceal a truth from a dear friend or relative is the focus of this drama about a Japanese father and son. The father, Takeichi (Keiju Kobayashi) is too ashamed to tell his son Takashi (Keichi Nakai) that his own father ran a crematorium. Young Takashi Read More

Rengo Kantai

Actors: Keiju Kobayashi, Eitaro Ozawa, Tetsuro Tamba

Synopsis: Set during World War II, the inhuman side of combat is again emphasized in this film that deals with navy officers and their decisions concerning the "great fleet" that they must manage. In order to put the human drama of separation and death in full relief, that drama is played against scenes of Read More

Imperial Navy

Sri Lanka no Ai to Wakare

Actors: Komaki Kurihara, Hideko Takamine, Kinya Kitaoji

Tidal Wave

Synopsis: This is a badly re-edited and "Americanized" version of a popular Japanese disaster movie, The Submersion of Japan (1973). The trouble begins when scientists learn that Japan's islands are sinking and must be evacuated within two years. The story chronicles the ways in which various people react Read More

Prophecies of Nostradamus

Synopsis: In this Japanese sci-fi film based on the prophesies of the French seer Nostradamus, the story begins in 1999, the year the prophet predicted the world would end. The future world is horribly polluted, and one scientist is assigned to deal with the giant blood-sucking slugs that have been spawned Read More

Nippon Chinbotsu

Okinawa Kessen

Actors: Keiju Kobayashi, Tetsuro Tamba, Tatsuya Nakadai, Yuzo Kayama, Mayumi Ozora

Synopsis: Samurai Assassin and Japan's Longest Day director Kihachi Okamoto offers a vivid dramatization of the bloodiest battle ever fought in the Pacific Theater with this combat film produced to portray the Japanese perspective on this landmark confrontation. The year is 1944, and when Allied forces Read More

Band of Assassins

Synopsis: The Japanese title of Band of Assassins was Shinsengumi, which pinpointed the assassins in question. The Shinshen was a covert military organization in the employ of the 19th-century Japanese aristocracy. To protect their decadent employers, the Shinshen regularly ventured out to kill political Read More

Our Silent Love

Synopsis: In this Japanese love story, a young man, the son of deaf-mute parents, is given a job by a factory owner who thinks he would make a good match for his daughter who is also a deaf-mute. The girl is already in love with a similarly afflicted man, but her father objects as he does not want her Read More

The Emperor and a General

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, So Yamamura, Chishu Ryu, Seiji Miyaguchi, Rokko Toura

Synopsis: This star-studded and relatively lavishly produced fact-based war drama, set in 1945 Japan during WW II, chronicles the attempts of Japan's War Minister, (played by Toshiro Mifune), to prevent Emperor Hirohito from publicly broadcasting the declaration of surrender. The War Minister rallies those Read More

The Thin Line

Synopsis: In this dark Japanese drama, a young married man accidentally kills his lover during a passionate moment. Compounding matters is the fact that the woman was his best friend's wife. Eventually his conscience forces him to confess, but before he can, his own wife, worried about saving face in their Read More

We Will Remember

Actors: Hisaya Morishige, Keiju Kobayashi, Daisuke Kato, Kon Omura

Synopsis: In this Japanese WW II drama, several inductable youths decide to avoid combat by playing in an army band. Unfortunately, following basic training, the musicians end up sent to China to help the flagging morale of troops stationed there. There they are brutally attacked by the Chinese and sent to Read More

The Daphne

Actors: Machiko Kyo, Haruko Sugimura, Reiko Dan, Yuriko Hoshi

Synopsis: The Daphne refers to Hariko Sugimura, a widow with four daughters. Two of the girls still live at home; the other two are married, with lives of their own. The film chronicles the shifting-sand relationship between mother and daughters, with happiness and heartbreak coming out even. The cast of Read More

Samurai Assassin

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Keiju Kobayashi, Yunosuke Ito, Koshiro Matsumoto, Michiyo Aratama

Synopsis: A ronin seeking to redeem his wandering status by gaining entry into one of the great houses takes part in a plot to assassinate a Shogunate Elder in this classic tale of swordplay directed by Okamoto Kihachi, starring Toshiro Mifune, and based on actual events. Niiro Tsuruchiyo (Mifune) is a Read More

The Naked General

Synopsis: This film biography of Japanese artist Kiyoshi Yamashita follows his rise to international fame, including an incident in WWII when he declared himself a pacifist and took off all his clothes in public, which landed him in an institution and helped him avoid being drafted. ~ Steve Huey, All Movie Read More

Pressure of Guilt

Actors: Keiju Kobayashi, Tatsuya Nakadai, Koreya Senda, Akira Nishimura

Synopsis: In this Japanese drama, an attorney is having an affair with his law partner's wife. Things go terribly wrong when during an argument, the philandering lawyer accidentally strangles her to death. Horribly frightened, the fellow checks her body again to see that she is dead, then flees. Time Read More

My Hobo

Actors: Keiju Kobayashi, Hideko Takamine, Norihei Miki

Synopsis: This Japanese comedy is about a hobo who has saved a great deal of money over the years, keeping it taped to his side. After he is arrested for trying to stiff a restaurant, he meets a female hobo who cons people out of cash by telling them she is an A-bomb victim. They stay together for a little Read More

Chushingura

Actors: Koshiro Matsumoto, Yuzo Kayama, Chusha Ichikawa, Toshiro Mifune, Yoko Tsukasa

Synopsis: This sweeping historical epic has sometimes been labelled the Gone with the Wind of Japan; at any rate, it's almost the same length as Gone (the film was originally released in two parts). Chusha Ichikawa plays a powerful and ruthless feudal lord who battles virtuous young noble Yuzo Kayama. Ichikawa Read More

Sanjuro

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Yuzo Kayama, Tatsuya Nakadai, Keiju Kobayashi, Reiko Dan, Takashi Shimura

Synopsis: Set in the mid-19th century when the disintegration of a rigid social structure was turning the once wealthy into paupers, or vice-versa, this kinetic drama by acclaimed Akira Kurosawa features the hero Sanjuro (Toshiro Mifune), one of many samurai whose once traditional positions were fast Read More

The Wiser Age

Synopsis: This Japanese drama chronicles the trials and joys of five young women struggling to live and love in a modern Tokyo suburb. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Happiness of Us Alone

Synopsis: In this Japanese melodrama, a deaf-mute widow returns to her mother after her husband is killed in the war. At her mother's she meets another deaf-mute and they fall in love. He promises her that they can work together and overcome all obstacles and lead happy, successful lives. The wary woman Read More

Eternity of Love

Synopsis: In this Japanese melodrama, set during the last years of WW II, Tsukasa, a high school student, ends up marrying a manipulative teacher after he sabotages her relationship with a college student. Not long after the wedding, he begins beating her so frequently that she runs away from him. She is Read More

Early Autumn

Actors: Ganjiro Nakamura, Setsuko Hara, Yoko Tsukasa, Michiyo Aratama, Chieko Naniwa

Synopsis: The highly accomplished Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu demonstrates his stylistic touch for deceptive simplicity, rapier wit, and nuances of melancholy in this well-wrought drama about a man in the declining years of his life. Manbei Kohayagawa (Ganjiro Nakamura) has a rich life on three different Read More

Namonaku Mazushiku Utsukushiku

Actors: Hideko Takamine

Synopsis: An unusual topic for a romantic story of love that transcends ordinary barriers, this well-wrought tale by director and scripter Zenzo Matsuyama centers on a married couple and their son. The wife and mother is deaf but she can speak, whereas her husband is both deaf and mute. They run into a Read More

Taiheiyo No Washi

Adolescence Part 2

Rakkii-san

Meshi

Synopsis: Based on popular Japanese writer Fumiko Hayahi's final novel, a condemning portrait of married life and women's position in Japanese society, Repast tells the story of Michiyo and Hatsunosuke, a married couple who, in the routine of family life, have begun to fall out of love. With no child to Read More