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Actors: Koji Ishizaka, Nanako Matsushima, Kikunosuke Onoe, Sumiko Fuji, Hisako Manda
Synopsis: Precisely thirty-years after first bringing star detective Kosuke Kindaichi to the screen in The Inugami Family, acclaimed Japanese director Kon Ichikawa returns to follow author Seishi Yokomizo's super sleuth on his most challenging case. World War II has recently drawn to a close, and as Read More
Actors: Shinobu Otake, Hitomi Kuroki, Eri Fukatsu, Kyoko Fukada, Tatsuya Nakadai
Synopsis: Yoshimitsu Morita's comedy drama Ashura No Gotoku (Like Ashura) tells the story of what happens to four sisters when they discover a secret their father has been keeping. The film opens with third sister Takiko (Eri Fukatsu) revealing to the others that dad has been having an affair that has Read More
Actors: Hiroyuki Sanada, Kyoka Suzuki, Takehiro Murata, Tatsuya Nakadai, Shingo Tsurumi
Synopsis: Veteran filmmaker Kihachi Okamoto revives his similarly named 1960s television series about happy-go-lucky avenger-for-hire Sukeroku (Hiroyuki Sanada) who prefers to brandish a wooden pole or a rope rather than a sword. The film opens with Sukeroku returning to his home in the mountainous Joshu Read More
Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai, Shiho Fujimura, Mayumi Wakamura, Kohsuke Toyohara, Kaho Minami
Synopsis: Former Shohei Imamura and Takeshi Kitaro assistant Takashi Tsukinoki makes his own feature-film directorial debut with To Dance With the White Dog, the story of an elderly Japanese man's struggle to cope with the loss of his wife of 40 years. After a seemingly normal day of work, a venerable tree Read More
Actors: Sam Shepard, Paul Scofield, James Coburn, Clint Eastwood, Shinobu Hashimoto
Synopsis: Akira Kurosawa was arguably the most important Japanese filmmaker who ever lived; he was certainly among the most revered and most influential. His award-winning feature Rashomon was one of the first major international successes in Japanese filmmaking, convincing many western cineastes for the Read More
Actors: Jun Fubuki, Hirotaro Honda, Renji Ishibashi
Synopsis: Following up on his critically acclaimed Bounce Ko Gals (1998), director Masato Harada spins this slickly-produced, compelling salary man drama that was a surprise smash hit in Japan. Tapping into the economic malaise and the growing outrage against endless tawdry financial scandals of Japan in Read More
Actors: Akira Terao, Yoshiko Miyazaki, Shiro Mifune, Mieko Harada, Fumi Dan
Synopsis: Shortly before his death in 1998, Akira Kurosawa completed a screenplay entitled Ame Agaru, based on a short story by Shugoro Yamamoto. Kurosawa passed on before he could bring this story to the screen, but one of his assistants, Takashi Koizumi, has directed a film adapted from the script Read More
Actors: Jacky Cheung, Leon Lai, Tatsuya Nakadai
Synopsis: Peter Mak Tai-kit spins this exuberant, visually dense adaptation from the popular similarly named Japanese anime. The film is set in a world where shape-shifting alien creatures known as Raptors have infiltrated human society. To deal with this problem, Hong Kong has fashioned a secret government Read More
Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai, Hisashi Igawa
Synopsis: Acclaimed filmmaker, actor, and head of the Sogetsu school of Ikebana, Hiroshi Teshigahara spins this sequel of sorts to his 1991 work Rikyu. In that film, tea ceremony master Sen no Rikyu dares to speak his conscience and is in turn forced to commit suicide by his ill-tempered master, Toyotomi Read More
Actors: Timothy Bottoms, Michael Dante, Edward Fox, Chris Penn, George Takei, Nick Tate
Synopsis: This poorly received sequel to the classic 1957 movie The Bridge over the River Kwai, is also based on a true story, as told in the book by Joan & Clay Blair, Jr. This story begins where the previous one left off, with the blowing up of the marvelous bridge. Here, the Australian POWs are rounded Read More
Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai, Mayumi Ogawa, Kiichi Nakai, Takayuki Takemoto
Synopsis: This gripping docudrama is a fictionalized account of what could happen to a Japanese family when one of their sons shames them in front of the entire nation. Director Masaki Kobayashi has used real events so the dramatic turns in the film are based on fact -- a 1970s shootout in the mountains Read More
Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu, Daisuke Ryu, Mieko Harada
Synopsis: Ran is Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa's reinterpretation of William Shakespeare's King Lear. The Lear counterpart is an elderly 16th-century warlord (Tatsuya Nakadai), who announces that he's about to divide his kingdom equally among his three sons. In his dotage, he falls prey to the false Read More
Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai, Masako Natsume, Tetsuro Tamba, Kaori Tagasugi
Synopsis: In this brutal Japanese melodrama, the gangster boss of the town of Shikoku had been in charge since 1921. Though he is married and has two mistresses, the yakuza leader has no children so he adopts a pre-adolescent girl. The two become very close, and even the birth of a natural daughter does not Read More
Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai, Kei Yamamoto, Kaneko Iwasaki, Ichiro Hashimoto
Synopsis: Released outside of Japan as Willful Murder, this is based on an actual 1948 case involving the mysterious death of a government official. The president of the Japanese railroads is found dead during a period in which train service is plagued by numerous layoffs, strikes and shutdowns. The Read More
Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Kenichi Hagiwara, Kota Yui, Shuji Otake
Synopsis: Just as many American studio-era directors found acclaim abroad that was denied them in their home country, by 1980 Akira Kurosawa's reputation outside Japan exceeded his esteem at home. As uncompromising as ever, he found considerable difficulty securing backing for his ambitious projects. Unsure Read More
Synopsis: In Hideo Gosha's tale of organized crime in 18th-century Japan, a group of disenfranchised warriors decide to form an underground criminal network. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More
Actors: Keiko Kishi, Tatsuya Nakadai
Synopsis: In order to solve the mystery of a murder of an old governess which takes place at a wealthy Daidoji family's country estate, family secrets and lies dating back several generations must be sorted out once and for all. In the process, ancient wrongs are righted, and the innocent are cleared of Read More
Actors: Tomisaburo Wakayama, Masao Kusakari, Kaoru Yumi, Reiko Ohara, Mieko Takamine
Synopsis: The battle for good and against evil never ends in this long series of episodes about attempts to capture the phoenix, a mythic bird of immortality. Set in the second century A.D., this fantasy adventure yarn includes plenty of special effects and animation, yet that does not mean it is innocuous. Read More
Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai, Tetsuro Tanba, Iwashita Shima, Keiko Matsuzaka, Baisho Mitsuko
Synopsis: Goyokin director Hideo Gosha makes his triumphant return to the samurai genre with this plot twisting, nerve shredding tale of an enigmatic bandit chieftain who resorts to elaborate trickery to finance a furious revenge plot. Tatsuya Nakadai is a desperate man. Robbery and con games are his Read More
Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai, Yoko Shimada, Mariko Okada, Juzo Itami
Synopsis: Kushami (Tatsuya Nakadai) is a teacher given to flights of philosophy as he mulls over life and its meanings, unaware that his gray cat is observing life at home with his own version of a philosopher's eye. Kushami's relatives dominate the action as they move in and out of romantic liaisons Read More
Synopsis: Though a farmer and his fellow villagers in this Japanese film resist the effort to turn the unspoiled region in which they live into a land development, they are ultimately unsuccessful. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide Read More
Synopsis: This Japanese-made film is basically a religious tract for the Nichiren Shoshu Association. The NSA is an atypically evangelistic self-labelled Buddhist group which has made some headway in the U.S. with the likes of performers Tina Turner and Patrick Duffy. The story concerns the religious Read More
Synopsis: This well-crafted Japanese animated feature adapts the novel Belladonna by Jules Michelet in a unique manner. The story concerns a love affair, taking place in the Middle Ages, shadowed by witch-trials and the Inquisition. The actual moments of the story are shown in more-or-less still tableaux Read More
Synopsis: Wolves is set in Japan in the 1920s. The disintegration of the ancient samurai traditions is paralleled with the rise of the Yakuza, Japan's equivalent of the Mafia. Three gangsters try to keep themselves from getting killed, not only by their higher-ups but by those who perceive them as a threat Read More
Synopsis: This black-and-white crime drama takes place in a remote rural inn located on an island in a river. It is the headquarters for a smuggling gang and is protected by higher-ups in the government. Even with this protection, the police continue their efforts to put the gang away. Things begin to Read More
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
Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai, Tetsuro Tamba, Shoichi Ozawa, Kiwako Taichi, Fumio Watanabe
Synopsis: Masahiro Shinoda directed this sexy, darkly humorous look at Tokyo's red-light Edo district in 1842, focusing on three characters whose lives intersect. Soshun (Tetsuro Tamba) is the infamous fugitive Buraikan in disguise, Naojiro (Tatsuya Nakadai) is a shiftless lout who dreams of being a Kabuki Read More
Synopsis: This Japanese historical drama set during the mid-19th century chronicles the attempts of a brave group to restore their beloved emperor to his throne. Unfortunately, an evil villain wants the seat and so hires a warrior to kill the rightful emperor. It works. The wicked new emperor rewards his Read More
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
Synopsis: In this adventure, set in Japan, a Shogun warrior sets off to save the daughter of a Russian count. She is being held captive by Shimada who took her to defend himself from the count who cheated him. The warrior battles Mikuni, another warrior who is trying to return an arms shipment to his Read More
Synopsis: In this Japanese historical drama, a hard-headed painter refuses to allow his daughter to be with his Korean protege and ends up throwing the lad from his house. The girl then escapes to the court of the local ruler who informs the painter that she will only be released if he will paint a mural. Read More
Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai, Tetsuro Tamba, Kinnosuke Nakamura, Isao Natsuyagi, Yoko Tsukasa
Synopsis: In this samurai movie, an evil warrior violates his samurai codes of ethics by stealing some gold to pay an unfair government tax and then murdering the fishermen who witnessed the robbery. His actions are derided by his brother-in-law. In anger, the samurai casts his sister's husband out of the Read More
Synopsis: After a rancher serves his prison sentence for a crime he did not commit, he contracts a gang of killers to hunt down the man who framed him. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide Read More
Synopsis: A pair of luckless would-be warriors find themselves caught in the middle of a skirmish between rival gangsters in this darkly comic samurai film. Tabata (Etsushi Takahashi) and Genta (Tatsuya Nakadai) are two hungry ronin who meet in a windswept town which has fallen so deeply upon hard times Read More
Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai, Reiko Dan
Synopsis: Twenty years after the end of World War II, international agents try to apprehend the world's largest diamond in this offbeat spy comedy. An eight year-old boy had the diamond sewn inside him during the war to smuggle the bauble out of the country. A mad scientists tortures one of the former Nazi Read More
Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai, Toshiro Mifune, Yuzo Kayama, Michiyo Aratama, Ichiro Nakaya
Synopsis: In this epic Japanese samurai adventure, a bloodthirsty young fighter (Tatsuya Nakadai) kills a man in competition and is pursued by the slain warrior's brother. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More
Actors: Kikunosuke Onoe, Yuriko Hoshi, Yoko Tsukasa, Yoshio Tsuchiya
Synopsis: Also known as Sasaki Kojiro, this sprawling Samurai epic stars Kikunosuke Onoe as a humble peasant youth. The Japanese feudal system being what it is (or was during the time in which this film is set), Onoe evidently hasn't much of a chance of becoming a samurai warrior. But he does, and Read More
Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Go Kato, Tatsuya Nakadai, Yoko Tsukasa
Synopsis: A father and son prepare to die for their beliefs in this historical drama set in 18th century Japan. While Isaburo Sasahara (Toshiro Mifune) has been loyal to Japan's feudal system all his life, his beliefs begin to change when the local rulers demand that his son Yogoro (Go Kato) give up his Read More
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
Synopsis: In this Japanese war movie, a rebellious war hero disobeys orders. For his punishment, the fellow is sent to the Chinese front. He goes there and finds that his brother was killed for desertion. This enrages the soldier who explodes and finds himself in deeper trouble, and he is faced with a Read More
Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai, Mariko Okada, Junko Ikeuchi, Keiko Awaji, Masao Mishima
Synopsis: This eerie supernatural fantasy from Japan -- a poor man's Kwaidan -- is equal parts samurai adventure film and surreal ghost story. Tatsuya Nakadai stars as a desperate, unbalanced ex-samurai who turns to crime to make ends meet. Forced to commit murder during a robbery, he later kills several Read More
Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai, Machiko Kyo, Kyoko Kishida, Eiji Okada, Mikijiro Hira
Synopsis: Bearing traces of both Frankenstein and the 1959 Georges Franju horror classic Eyes without a Face, the Japanese The Face of Another is a disturbing Japanese drama featuring Tatsuya Nakadai. His face horribly disfigured in an accident, Nakadai, a wealthy industrialist, commissions a special mask Read More
Synopsis: In this Japanese costume drama set during the 16th-century, a young woman endures many trials after she falls in love with a Christian who is married to another. Eventually, she too must marry another, but in her heart she remains true to the Christian. Many years pass, the two finally have an Read More
Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai, Yoko Tsukasa, Koreya Senda, Keiko Awaji, Jun Tazaki
Synopsis: Tatsuya Nakadai plays a scheming low-level executive who plays labor against management and uses anyone he can to further his career in this moral drama. When things get to hot, he bails and goes to work for a prominent politician (Koreya Senda). Soon he has impregnated the daughter (Yoko Tsukasa) Read More
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
Actors: Rentaro Mikuni, Misako Watanabe, Michiyo Aratama, Keiko Kishi, Tetsuro Tamba, Tatsuya Nakadai, Katsuo Nakamura
Synopsis: Kwaidan is an impressively mounted anthology horror film based on four stories by Lafcadio Hearn, a Greek-born writer who began his career in the United States at the age of 19 and moved permanently to Japan in 1890 at the age of 40, where he eventually became a subject of the empire and took on Read More
Synopsis: In this Japanese adventure, a man is kidnapped by the wealthy president of a wartime trading company. He is taken because he is the only one who knows the location of 10,000 gold coins that the Japanese army left in the Philippines during WW II. His captors take him to a boat helmed by the Read More
Actors: Hisaya Morishige, Fujiko Yamamoto, Michiyo Aratama, Chieko Naniwa, Tatsuya Nakadai
Synopsis: In this Japanese drama, a business executive begins a harmless flirtation with his deceased friend's younger sister. His wife, upon meeting the lass, becomes convinced that her husband is fooling around. Her husband admits that he finds her attractive, and then the real trouble begins when his Read More
Actors: Hideko Takamine, Tatsuya Nakadai, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Akira Takarada, Yuriko Hoshi
Synopsis: Nobuko (Hideko Takamine) is a gentle Japanese woman who endures several ordeals during her adult life in this somber, sentimental drama. She gives birth to a baby boy after she marries the man she loves, but the philandering husband is killed during the war. Nobuko raises her son as a single Read More
Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Ishihama, Shima Iwashita, Tetsuro Tamba, Rentaro Mikuni, Yoshio Inaba
Synopsis: This well-regarded Japanese drama follows an aging samurai as he attempts to regain his family's honor. In 17th century Japan, a shift in the country's political structure has thrown the feudal Shogun system into disuse. Impoverished samurai wander the countryside, asking wealthy estate owners if Read More
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
Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Kyoko Kagawa, Tatsuya Nakadai
Synopsis: Based on King's Ransom, an "87th Precinct" novel by Ed McBain (aka Evan Hunter), High and Low stars Toshiro Mifune as Gondo, a wealthy industrialist. Gondo is contacted by a gang of kidnappers, who inform him that they've kidnapped his son. The crooks demand a huge ransom for the boy's return Read More
Actors: Keiko Kishi, Misako Watanabe, So Yamamura, Minoru Chiaki
Synopsis: Director Masaki Kobayashi uses the sharpest-edged knife in this cutting indictment of selfishness, greed, and the competition for the wealth of a dying man. A moribund business tycoon expresses his desire to finally see his three illegitimate children before he dies, but his wife blocks his Read More
Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai, Michiyo Aratama, Taketoshi Naito, Keijiro Morozumi, Yasuke Kawazu
Synopsis: A Soldier's Prayer (Ningen No Joken III) was the final entry in Japanese filmmaker Masaki Kobayashi's Human Condition trilogy. As in 1958's No Greater Love (see entry 23818) and 1961's The Road to Eternity (see entry 23819), the protagonist is the pacifistic Kaji, played by Tatsuya Nakadai. Read More
Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Eijiro Tono, Tatsuya Nakadai, Isuzu Yamada, Seizaburo Kawazu, Hiroshi Tachikawa, Daisuke Kato
Synopsis: Toshiro Mifune portrays a Samurai who finds himself in the middle of a feud-torn Japanese village. Neither side is particularly honorable, but Mifune is hungry and impoverished, so he agrees to work as bodyguard (or Yojimbo) for a silk merchant (Kamatari Fujiwara) against a sake merchant (Takashi Shimura Read More
Actors: Hideko Takamine, Tatsuya Nakadai
Synopsis: Slow-paced but endowed with understanding, characters of some depth and complexity, and good direction, this slice-of-drama by Keisuke Kinoshita is taken from a bitter confection. The tale begins when Sadako (Hideko Takamine) finds that she will not be able to marry the man she loves after all. Read More
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
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
Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai, Michiyo Aratama, Keiji Sada, Jun Tatara, Kei Sato
Synopsis: The second of Japanese director Masaki Kobayashi's Human Condition trilogy was titled The Road to Eternity (originally Zoku Ningen No Joken). Picking up where 1958's No Greater Love left off, this 1961 film finds the gentle, pacifistic Kaji (Tatsuya Nakadai) being sent to basic training camp in Read More
Actors: Machiko Kyo, Ganjiro Nakamura, Junko Kano, Tatsuya Nakadai, Tanie Kitabayashi
Synopsis: Several cinematic variations on Junichiro Tanizaki's novel about jealousy, voyeurism, and sexual arousal began with this award-winning drama by director Kon Ichikawa. Kenji Kenmochi (Ganjiro Nakamura) is the older and increasingly impotent husband of young Ikuko (Machiko Kyo). He is desperate to Read More
Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai, Aiko Mimasu, Daisuke Kato
Synopsis: A slight though effective slice-of-life story, this drama by Miyoji Ieki focuses on a young, struggling couple. They are making every sacrifice so they will one day in the not-too-distant-future, have enough money to get married. As they have agreed on this procedure, it comes as a shock to the Read More
Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai, Michiyo Aratama, Chikage Awashima, So Yamamura, Eitaro Ozawa, Ineko Arima,