Tetsuro TambaFilmography

Yakuza Demon

Synopsis: Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike directed this characteristically offbeat and hard-hitting crime drama. Seiji and Yoshifumi are a pair of yakuza (Japanese gangsters) who have sworn their loyalty to mob boss Muto. When Muto fails to pay his proscribed share of the fund for an upcoming gang battle Read More

Kinyu Fushuku Retto Jubake

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

Pod Severnym Siyaniem

Actors: Kodzi Yakuse, Andrei Boltnev, Marina Zudina, Nikita Mikhalkov, Anatoly Romashin

No Daireikai II

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Tetsuro Tamba, Koji Takahashi, Judy Ongg

Synopsis: In his current life, Okamoto (Tetsuro Tamba) didn't commit the murder he is sentenced to die for. However, in a previous life he did murder, so karmically his death is a fitting punishment. This film follows his adventures in the afterlife. At first, he just wanders around looking at stuff Read More

A Taxing Woman's Return

Actors: Nobuko Miyamoto, Rentaro Mikuni, Masahiko Tsugawa, Tetsuro Tamba, Toru Masuoka

Synopsis: This comedy satire is the sequel to the third biggest box office draw in Japan during the 1987 season. Ryoko (Nobuko Miyamoto) is the diligent female tax collector who exposes a fake religious cult using their status to avoid paying their share of taxes. She sets out to collect the evidence that Read More

Shogun's Shadow

Actors: Ken Ogata, Tetsuro Tamba, Hiroki Matsukata, Sonny Chiba

Synopsis: The boy who is the Shogun's Shadow, or heir, is in considerable danger. Personal bodyguard Igo Gyobu (Ken Igata), accompanied by seven samurai, is sent to bring him to safety. They cross deserts, swim through roaring rivers, and climb snow covered mountains, all with hostile armies in pursuit. Read More

Tokyo Pop

Actors: Carrie Hamilton, Yutaka Tadokoro, Taiji Tonoyama, Tetsuro Tamba, Masumi Harukawa

Synopsis: A young New York City rock singer decides to try her hand at fame in Japan so makes the journey. Upon her arrival she meets a Japanese musician who needs an American girl to front his band. Fortunately, she joins up, and the band makes it big while she and the musician engage in a comedic romance. Read More

Cabaret

Actors: Takeshi Kaga, Hironobu Nomura, Mitsuko Baisho, Junko Mihara

Synopsis: A young jazz musician's desire to advance in his career runs afoul of organized crime in this thriller from Haruki Kadokawa. After a saxophonist starts playing at a particular nightspot, a thug from the Yakuza (Japanese Mafia) adopts him as a special friend for no greater reason than he plays one Read More

Zero

Synopsis: This film chronicles the creation of the deadly Japanese fighter plane, the Mitsubishi Zero, that was used in the World War II attack on Pearl Harbor. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide Read More

The Geisha

Actors: Ken Ogata, Atsuko Asano, Mitsuko Baisho

Synopsis: Director Hideo Gosha goes behind the doors of one of Japan's most popular Geisha houses on a mission to demystify one of the country's oldest traditions. During the first half of the 20th Century, Yokiro was the most successful Geisha house in Western Japan - housing over 200 geisha in its heyday. Read More

Marco Polo

Actors: Ken Marshall, Denholm Elliott, Tony Vogel, Anne Bancroft, John Gielgud

Synopsis: Thirteen months and ten million dollars were lavished upon this ten-hour, four-part TV miniseries about legendary globetrotter Marco Polo. Newcomer Ken Marshall played the title character, a 14th century Venetian explorer who, among other accomplishments, firmly established the "silk route" Read More

Onimasa

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

Dai Nippon 'Teikoku

Actors: Tetsuro Tamba, Tomokazu Miura, Teruhiko Saigo, Teruhiko Aoi, Saburo Shinoda

Synopsis: In this heroic portrait of Japanese soldiers during World War II, young men of all stripes (from a barber to a graduate of a military academy) go off to put their lives on the line for their country (as did their counterparts from many other areas of the globe, though that is not an issue in the 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

Yukai Hodo

Actors: Kenichi Hagiwara, Kumiko Akiyoshi

Synopsis: Yukai Hodo is a melodrama about a kidnapper spiriting away a young boy from his distraught, partially hysterical, tragically grieving parents and then bumbling, fumbling, and generally screwing up his designs on a ransom until everything looks pretty hopeless. The little boy even escapes being Read More

Port Arthur

The Bushido Blade

Actors: Richard Boone, Sonny Chiba, Frank Converse, Laura Gemser, James Earl Jones

Synopsis: The Bushido Blade is set in 19th century Japan, at the time of American Commodore Matthew Perry's opening up of the ancient oriental nation. As played by Richard Boone (in his last film), Perry is a megalomaniac mercenary who makes Custer look like a humanitarian. The plot involves Perry's efforts Read More

Hunter in the Dark

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

Message from Space

Actors: Vic Morrow, Sonny Chiba, Philip Casnoff, Peggy Lee Brennan, Sue Shiomi

Synopsis: Message from Space, a bargain-rack Japanese Star Wars clone, stars Vic Morrow as the token American. Responding to a plea for help from a faraway planet, A young, idealistic four-person crew hurtles to the rescue. Along for the ride are two funny robots. As could expected from the Toei Studios Read More

Shogun's Samurai: The Yagyu Clan Conspiracy

Actors: Sonny Chiba

Synopsis: You've seen him as the bone-cracking anti-hero of the Street Fighter films, now watch Sonny Chiba team with Japanese screen legend Toshiro Mifune and some of the biggest names in Asian cinema in an all-out martial arts melee that's guaranteed to please. Yagyu Jubei (Chiba) is the son of a shogun's Read More

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

The Last Days of Planet Earth

Synopsis: This speculative drama's original name, Prophecies of Nostradamus is perhaps more descriptive of the subject. Set in the year 1999, this feature dramatizes the events predicted by the great French seer. Disasters depicted included severely polluted air and water, crazed adults, war, and natural Read More

The Human Revolution

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

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

Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs

Actors: Miki Sugimoto, Tetsuro Tamba, Eiji Go, Hideo Murota, Yoko Mihara

Synopsis: This new entry in the popular Zero Woman film series, Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs, begins with Agent Zero being imprisoned after getting overly violent with a rapist she was apprehending. She is released, however, when a powerful politician discovers his daughter has been kidnapped. Only Agent Zero Read More

Nippon Chinbotsu

Under the Flag of the Rising Sun

Synopsis: The quest of a war-widow for the truth about her husband's death during World War II serves as the backbone for this film, which portrays the Japanese militarism of that time and the attitudes which gave rise to it. Though the government labelled her husband as a deserter, his widow does not Read More

Seven Blows of the Dragon

Synopsis: Based on the Chinese novel All Men Are Brothers, Seven Blows of the Dragon revolves around a series of violent martial arts battles, and features both epic sword and spear fights, as well as brutal hand-to-hand combat. The film stars David Chiang. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide Read More

The Wolves

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

Chinmoku

Synopsis: Chinmoku or Silence is a story about the suppression of Christianity in Japan, as seen from the point of view of a fugitive priest. The film is critical of both Christianity's expansionism and Japanese society at the time. When the priest is finally captured, he is disturbed at seeing many of his Read More

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

Buraikan

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

Un Esercito di Cinque Uomini

Actors: Peter Graves, James Daly, Bud Spencer, Nino Castelnuovo, Tetsuro Tamba

Synopsis: Five Man Army can best be described as a marked-down Magnificent Seven. Peter Graves, James Daly, Bud Spencer, Testuro Tamba and Nino Castelnuovo play the quintet of the title. Caught in the middle of the 1914 Mexican Revolution, the five men pool their individual skills in hopes of Read More

Goyokin

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

Portrait of Chieko

Actors: Shima Iwashita, Eiji Okada, Jin Nakayama

Synopsis: Tetsuro Tamba portrays Kotaro Takamura, one of Japan's most celebrated artists. A poet and sculptor, Takamura is married to Chieko (Shima Iwashita), who has artistic aspirations of her own. She gradually comes to realize that her husband has all the talent in the family; as she sinks deeper into Read More

You Only Live Twice

Actors: Sean Connery, Akiko Wakabayashi, Tetsuro Tamba, Mie Hama, Teru Shimada, Karin Dor

Synopsis: James Bond heads East to save the world (and to learn how to serve saki properly) in this action-packed espionage adventure. When an American spacecraft disappears during a mission, it's widely believed to have been intercepted by the Soviet Union, and after a Russian space capsule similarly goes Read More

Kino Kawa

Actors: Yoko Tsukasa, Shima Iwashita, Takahiro Tamura, Tetsuro Tamba, Sadako Sawamura

Synopsis: Based on the popular novel by Eirijo Ariyoshi, this plodding drama tells the life story of a young bride from her wedding day to her death 65 years later. The film opens up with the idyllic scene of a procession of boats carrying the newlyweds up the river. Technical aspects of this lavishly Read More

Sarutobi

Actors: Koji Takahashi, Mutsuhiro Toura

Synopsis: A seemingly simple assignment sends a warrior for hire into a labyrinth of danger and intrigue in this intelligent and expressive action vehicle from filmmaker Masahiro Shinoda. In Japan in the year 1614, Sasuke Sarutobi (Koji Takahashi) is a retainer of the Sanada Clan who has grown weary of the Read More

Ansatsu

Actors: Tetsuro Tamba, Shima Iwashita, Ko (Isao) Kimura

Synopsis: Based on a story by Ryotaro Shiba, this samurai classic from director Masahiro Shinoda follows a mysterious samurai leader who continuously shifts his allegiance from one political faction to another. All involved are under the constant threat of assassination. Ansatsu's screenplay was written by Nobuo Yamada Read More

The Seventh Dawn

Actors: William Holden, Susannah York, Capucine, Tetsuro Tamba, Michael Goodliffe

Synopsis: In this drama, William Holden plays Ferris, an American soldier who led troops in Malaya during World War II. After the end of the war, Ferris opts to stay in Malaya to seek his fortune. He invests in land there and does quite well, but soon his new life with his girlfriend, a local girl named Read More

Kwaidan

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

Samurai from Nowhere

Actors: Tetsuro Tamba, Shima Iwashita, Chieko Baisho, Seiji Miyaguchi

Synopsis: Japanese screenwriter Hideo Oguni, who had previously worked on such films as Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954) and Yojimbo (1961), contributed his adept storytelling to this drama shortly after working on Kurosawa's intriguing High and Low (1962). Like Seven Samurai, as the title indicates Read More

Harakiri

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

One-Eyed Swordsman

Synopsis: Tetsuro Tamba, Haruko Wanibuchi star in the Japanese One-Eyed Swordsman. The Samurai hero unfortunately pays no heed to the old warning "You'll put your eye out." But the loss of his depth perception slows him down not a whit. Even when an eyeball short, he offers formidable opposition to the Read More

The Diplomat's Mansion

Synopsis: Diplomat's Mansion was originally released in Japan as Tokyo Yawa. The protagonist, played by Hiroshi Akutagawa, is an elderly diplomat facing compulsory retirement. With no source of income, Akutagawa is forced to swallow his pride and rely on his bartender son Tsutomu Yamazaki. The Read More

Pigs and Battleships

Actors: Hiroyuki Nagato, Jitsuko Yoshimura, Tetsuro Tamba, Shiro Osaka

Synopsis: Long before he gained fame for winning the 1983 Cannes Golden Palm award for The Ballad of Narayama, director Shohei Imamura created this superbly crafted, sardonic drama about the yakuza (Japanese Mafia) and the modernization of Japan after World War II. Kinta (Hiroyuki Nagato) is caught in the Read More

Le Pont Vers Le Soleil

Actors: Carroll Baker, James Shigeta, James Yagi, Tetsuro Tamba, Ruth Masters, Hiroshi Tomono

Synopsis: This combination romance and wartime drama by Etienne Perier was unusual at the time it was released because it portrayed World War II in the Pacific from the perspective of Gwen Terasaki, a woman from the Southern U.S., married to a Japanese diplomat. Based on her autobiography, the interesting Read More

Satsuji Yogisha