Movies: Ganjirō Nakamura II

Yahagi Michiko is accosted and raped walking home one evening. From there she maneuvers the logistics of the police, hospital, and criminal justice system while balancing her home life including romantic relationships....

Taking its title from an archaic Japanese word meaning "ghost story," this anthology adapts four folk tales. A penniless samurai marries for money with tragic results. A man stranded in a blizzard is saved by Yuki the Snow Maiden, but his rescue come...

When a theater troupe's master visits his old flame, he unintentionally sets off a chain of unexpected events with devastating consequences. A remake of Ozu's own silent film The Story of Floating Weeds (1934)....

Residents of a rundown boardinghouse in 19th-century Japan, including a mysterious old man and an aging actor, get drawn into a love triangle that turns violent. When amoral thief Sutekichi breaks off his affair with landlady Osugi to romance her you...

The family of an older man who runs a small sake brewery become concerned with his finances and his health after they discover him visiting an old mistress from his youth....

Keiko, whom everyone calls Mama, narrates her story: she's a hostess on the Ginza, 30, a widow. She describes life's vicious cycle: acting cheerful around drunks, dressing and living well to convey confidence, needing money for these expenses and for...

In Edo Japan, a kabuki actor seeks revenge against the three men who drove his parents to their deaths years ago....

Learning of his family's collapse, acolyte Goichi, sent to study silently at the Temple of the Golden Pavilion, must endure acute psychological distress....

The legend of the birth of Shintoism. In Fourth Century Japan, the Emperor's son Ouso expects to succeed his father on the throne, but Otomo, the Emperor's vassal, prefers Ouso's stepbrother, and conspires to have Ouso die on a dangerous mission he h...

The Fencing Master tells the story of a man trying to survive as the only world he knows is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Danpei Ichikawa lives for swordfighting – he was once a renowned kabuki swordfight choreographer, and as the Chairman of the...

A middle-aged husband of a younger woman finds her youth intimidating to the point that he cannot become aroused. His solution involves the introduction of his daughter's lover to his wife....

Fascinated with women from an early age, Yonosuke had his first sexual encounter at the age of seven. From that day on, he recklessly and forwardly pursues women, feeding his fascination and experience. As Yonosuke's salacious behavior brings much ca...

Satoko is a mistress by trade or fate: when her master, the silkscreen artist of the Kohoan Temple in Kyoto, dies, she is given to the temple's lascivious head priest Kikuchi. She is drawn to a melancholy young acolyte, Jinen, who has observed the pr...

A poor peasant, after years of scraping, becomes a rich and powerful Osaka merchant. Mizoguchi Kenji's final project; he died before completing it and directing duties turned over to Yoshimura Kozaburo....

Subu makes pornographic films. He sees nothing wrong with it. They are an aid to a repressed society, and he uses the money to support his landlady, Haru, and her family. From time to time, Haru shares her bed with Subu, though she believes her dead ...

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 basic story in Love under the Crucifix is about Ogin, daughter of a tea master, who are both Christians in feudal Japan. Ogin falls in love with a feudal prince, also a Christian who is already married, and that creates problems. Further, when th...

[Period covered: 1614-1615] 4th film in the shinobi no mono series Tokugawa Ieyasu is now the ruler of all Japan. But one last loose thread must be tied up before his domination is complete -- the destruction of the Toyotomi clan, now beseiged in Os...

A young man who followed his father's wishes and became a travel actor causes a big commotion with his fellow members of the Gurentai group during their travel destination! Innocent to cute girls and reckless to bad guys! Exciting entertainment!...

In 39 interviews with actors and actresses, writers, producers and staff members, interspersed with film excerpts and stills, Shindō recounts the life and career of his friend and mentor Mizoguchi....