Masayuki Mori Filmography

Born:: Tokyo, Japan
Occupation:: Actor
Biography:: During the '50s and '60s, Masayuki Mori was rivaled only by Toshiro Mifune as Japan's most respected actor. A novelist's son, Mori was educated at Kyoto University and began his acting career on-stage. Mori made his film debut in Akira Kurosawa's Tora no o wa Fumu Otokotachi (The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail...Read More

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Gateway to Glory

Synopsis: A young boy becomes a soldier in this Japanese WW II-set drama. The story begins as the young man enters the Etajima Naval Academy. At first, the notion of fighting disinterests him, but then some of his classmates are sent to China to fight the Sino-Japanese War. He suddenly applies himself and Read More

1970
Zatoichi: The Festival of Fire

Actors: Shintaro Katsu, Tatsuya Nakadai, Reiko Ohara, Masayuki Mori

Synopsis: Misumi Kenji's Zatoichi: The Festival of Fire finds the famous blind swordsman becoming mixed up with a blind but powerful gangster. The town is a brutal place where women and children are regularly available to the highest bidder. Zatoichi takes a fancy to two local women, and this causes him to Read More

1970
Through Days and Months

Synopsis: In this Japanese drama, a lonely woman living with her elderly father, meets an old flame and must make a difficult decision She must choose between her ailing former love, who is married, and his brother. Fate seems to intervene when her father suddenly dies and her ex-sweetheart, upset about his Read More

1969
Sun Above, Death Below

Synopsis: In this Japanese crime drama, a hit man finds that he has become the next mark of another professional killer. Rather than following his lover's advice and fleeing the country, the man decides to stand his ground. A deadly game of cat-and-mouse ensues. Unfortunately, all his cleverness doesn't Read More

1969
Alone on the Pacific

Actors: Yujiro Ishihara, Masayuki Mori

Synopsis: What might have been a banal TV "movie of the week" in American hands is transformed into a work of art by Japanese director Kon Ichikawa (Harp of Burma). Alone on the Pacific is based on the true story of Kenichi Horie, who as an adult fulfilled his childhood ambition of crossing the Pacific in a Read More

1963
Bushido

Actors: Kinnosuke Nakamura, Yoshiko Mita, Masayuki Mori, Kyoko Kishida, Ineko Arima

1963
Challenge to Live

Actors: Tatsuya Mihashi, Yoko Tsukasa, Yumi Shirakawa, Masayuki Mori

Synopsis: In this uneven but still challenging drama, director Eizo Sugawa tackles the problem of the effects of killing on the human psyche, even when the killing is condoned as a form of euthanasia. Izaki (Tatsuya Mihashi) is a successful executive who leads an oil company to break the embargo against Read More

1962
Shamisen to Otobai

Actors: Miyuki Kuwano

1961
The Bad Sleep Well

Actors: Toshiro Mifune

Synopsis: In this engaging drama, acclaimed Japanese director Akira Kurosawa deftly splices together the nuances of hypocrisy, old feudal misconceptions lingering in modern corruption, and Shakespeare's Hamlet. The rotten corporate world is taken on by Koichi Nishi (Toshiro Mifune), who is looking for Read More

1960
Ototo

Actors: Keiko Kishi, Hiroshi Kawaguchi, Kinuyo Tanaka, Masayuki Mori

Synopsis: Set in 1926 when Japanese tradition was much stronger, this standard drama looks at the inner workings of a small family, especially the relationship between a sister and brother. The father (Masayuki Mori) and stepmother (Kinuyo Tanaka) are not exactly an expressive, demonstrative couple, and so Read More

1960
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs

Actors: Hideko Takamine, Masayuki Mori, Daisuke Kato

Synopsis: Filmmaker Mikio Naruse takes a characteristic dour look at life in When A Woman Ascends the Stairs. The central character is a barmaid, who works day and night to avoid being thrown out into the street. She knows that, if she loses her job, the only profession open to her is the World's Oldest. Read More

1960
Yoru No Tsuzumi

Actors: Ineko Arima, Masayuki Mori

Synopsis: Tadashi Imai's Yoru no Tsuzani was released in English-speaking countries as The Adulteress Set in 18th century Japan, the story zeroes in on a faithful wife who is driven to distraction by her husband's lengthy absences. She is also driven into the arms of another man. Given the sexual mores Read More

1958
Untamed Woman

Actors: Hideko Takamine, Masayuki Mori, Daisuke Kato

Synopsis: Originally titled Arakure, Untamed Woman was the sole 1957 entry for prolific Japanese director Mikio Naruse. Like many of Naruse's previous films, this one deals with an unhappy woman's desperate search for domestic bliss. In the course of the film's 121 minutes, the heroine (a) marries, gives Read More

1957
Banka

1957
Kokoro

Synopsis: Kon Ichikawa's rich adaptation of Natsume Soseki's classic novel depicts a complex relationship between a student and an older man he calls "sensei." The older man's relations with his wife seems curiously strained to the student. When the boy goes to the country to tend to his dying father, he Read More

1955
Ukigumo

Actors: Hideko Takamine, Masayuki Mori

Synopsis: Floating Clouds is set in the dissolution of Japanese society after the war. Yukiko wanders figuratively and literally through a devastated Tokyo searching for a means of existence and comfort. At all turns, she is manipulated by men and forced to submit to their manipulations when she is unable Read More

1955
Princess Yang Kwei Fei

Actors: Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori

Synopsis: Japanese director Kenji Mizoguchi directed Princess Yang Kwei Fei. When first we see her, the "princess" (Machiko Kyo) is a mere servant girl. The reigning princess dies, and the emperor chooses the servant as his wife. Jealousy and back-stabbing doom this union from the start. Mizoguchi Read More

1955
Ugetsu Monogatari

Actors: Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori, Kinuyo Tanaka, Sakae Ozawa, Mitsuko Mito

Synopsis: Presented in a manner as eerie as it is heartbreaking, this film is a gorgeous supernatural fable about the folly of men with dreams larger than their abilities and their women who suffer as a result. Genjuro (Masuyaki Mori) is a potter who longs for wealth and luxury, while Tobei (Sakae Ozawa), a Read More

1953
Ani Imoto

1953
Kanikosen

Synopsis: Before government censorship was instituted full force in 1928, the proletarian novel was the ascendant form in Japanese prose. Takiji Kobayashi was the leading writer in this genre, which attempted to expose the oppression of the lower classes, until he was murdered in prison by the government in Read More

1953
Ano Te Kono Te

1952
Rashomon

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Masayuki Mori, Machiko Kyo, Takashi Shimura, Minoru Chiaki

Synopsis: This landmark film is a brilliant exploration of truth and human weakness. It opens with a priest, a woodcutter, and a peasant taking refuge from a downpour beneath a ruined gate in 12th-century Japan. The priest and the woodcutter, each looking stricken, discuss the trial of a notorious bandit Read More

1951
Zemma

Actors: Chikage Awashima, Rentaro Mikuni, Masayuki Mori

1951
Nusumareta Koi

Synopsis: This light romance is about a love triangle among an unemployed dancer, a banker she tries to coax into marrying her, and an impoverished painter whom she dates to make the banker jealous. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide Read More

1951
The Lady of Musashino

Actors: Masayuki Mori, So Yamamura, Yukiko Todoroki

Synopsis: Japan's contributions to the 1957 Venice Film Festival included three earlier-vintage Kenzi Mizoguchi films. Produced in 1951, Musashino Fujin (aka Mrs. Musashino and Lady Musashino) is another of Mizoguchi's pro-feminist efforts. The title character comes to grief when she falls in love with her Read More

1951
The Idiot

Actors: Masayuki Mori, Toshiro Mifune, Setsuko Hara, Yoshiko Kuga

Synopsis: A former soldier is branded an idiot because of his epileptic seizures caused by wartime experiences. He shows unbridled compassion for people after he moves in with friends of his family as he tries to help a young man ruined by the war and a woman hounded by a wealthy but cruel suitor. All the Read More

1951
Yabure-daiko

Actors: Sachiko Murase, Tsumasaburo Bando

1949
Those Who Make Tomorrow

1946
The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail

Actors: Hanshiro Iwai, Susumu Fujita, Kenichi Enomoto, Denjiro Okochi

Synopsis: Akira Kurosawa's Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail was put together at the last minute when Kurosawa's plan to direct a costume picture called Doko Kono Yari fell through (the producer couldn't get any horses!) Utilizing the costumes, sets and actors already commissioned, Kurosawa spent one long Read More

1945