Sachio Sakai

In feudal Japan, during a bloody war between clans, two cowardly and greedy peasants, soldiers of a defeated army, stumble upon a mysterious man who...

The advertising director of Pacific Pharmaceuticals, frustrated with the low ratings of their sponsored TV program, seeks a more sensationalist...

The story centers on an elderly hibakusha, whose husband was one of 80,000 human beings killed in the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki, caring for her...

In comic Woody Allen's film debut, he took the Japanese action film "International Secret Police: Key of Keys" and re-dubbed it, changing the plot to...

After years on the road establishing his reputation as Japan's greatest fencer, Takezo returns to Kyoto. Otsu waits for him, yet he has come not for...

Toshiro Mifune swaggers and snarls to brilliant comic effect in Kurosawa's tightly paced, beautifully composed "Sanjuro." In this companion piece and...

Doctor Sanada treats gangster Matsunaga after he is wounded in a gunfight, and discovers that he is suffering from tuberculosis. Sanada tries to...

A woman remembers her own marriage when dealing with the love life of her son.

Jidai-geki by Kiyoshi Saeki

When a space probe crash-lands on a far-flung Pacific atoll, the craft's alien stowaways decide to take over their new world one creature at a time....

A middle-aged journalist looking to make her big break. After working the same beat on the "women's page", Yumiko gets promoted to editorials.

Comedy of manners set on the "Kodama" train between Tokyo and Osaka, before the opening of the Shinkansen. In the leading role, Frankie Sakai plays a...

Film number six in the Desperado Outpost serie directed by Jun Fukuda

An adaptation of the Rankin/Bass cartoon, "The King Kong Show". King Kong is brought in by the evil Dr. Who to dig for Element X in a mine when the...

Ichiro Miki is a child living in the industrial district of Kawasaki, where his parents' constant struggle to make ends meet often leaves the...

The fifth film of the desperado outpost series directed by Senkichi Taniguchi

1962 Japanese movie

Osami, a soldier-of-fortune from Japan, joins with priest Ensai in a quest for the ashes of the great Buddha. Their journey takes them to a kingdom...

A young country boy leaves his village for Tokyo, where he begins to work as a stock trader. First part (of four) of the film adaptation of Bunroku...

Japanese neo-noir crime drama movie directed by Jun Fukuda

The first instalment in Toho's popular Wakadaishō (Young Guy) series.

Obscure French version of the original Godzilla. The film combines elements of the original Toho version and the American King of the Monsters! in a...

When Sergeant Okubo's brother is murdered at a Japanese outpost in Northern China during the Second World War, Okubo poses as a war correspondent and...

A re-edited Italian-language dubbed version of the original Godzilla, using as a basis the U.S. version, "Godzilla, King of the Monsters!" (1956),...

A killer-for-hire gets mixed up with a cast of wacky characters involved in a gold smuggling route from Beirut to Tokyo.

Three competing parties all race against time to track down an elusive creature known only as the Snowman.

After being mistaken for an Interpol agent, a man who was just supposed to go on vacation gets mixed up in a war between two gangs intent on winning...

During the military phase of the Meiji Restoration of 1868, Sentaro joins a local militia loyal to the Tokugawa Shogunate in order to fight Imperial...

A young man gets thrown into detention after an episode of sexual assault; he soon meets several impostors in the same situation.

Tells the story of Shintaro, a lawyer who quits his job to work at a camera factory, and his love adventures.

1961 Japanese movie

Kansuke Yamamoto is a samurai who dreams of a country united, peaceful from sea to sea. He enters the service of Takeda, the lord of Kai domain. He...

A hard-working section chief, fast approaching retirement and beset by stress from all directions, joins a jazz band and reignites his youthful...

Captain Murakami takes over as skipper of the Azuma Maru, replacing the well-liked former captain. Murakami forces the crew to work harder than they...

The Blue Pearl depicts the interplay between a young man from Tokyo and two ama (pearl divers; literally “women of the sea”) in a...

Urban love comedy in which Koji Tsuruta, who works for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government's Parks and Greenery Department, plays love shepherd to a...

Intelligence director Suritai asks agent Kitami to steal money from anti-government guerrillas.

An early Okamoto yakuza film, though it's not in the Underworld series (along with The Last Gunfight and The Big Boss) despite being alternatively...

Japan, February 1868. As the Tokugawa shogunate declines and the power of Emperor Meiji grows, Gonzo, a soldier of the Restoration Army, returns to...

1962 Japanese movie

A nameless ronin, or samurai with no master, enters a small village in feudal Japan where two rival businessmen are struggling for control of the...

Japan is thrown into a panic after several ships are sunk near Odo Island. An expedition to the island led by Dr. Kyohei Yamane soon discover...

A math teacher loses his job while falling in love with a local girl.

Yuzo and his fiancée Masako spend their Sunday afternoon together, trying to have a good time on just thirty-five yen. They manage to have...

In 1976, a drifting star named Gorath is discovered to be on a collision course with Earth. Although it is smaller than Earth, its enormous mass is...

Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to...

A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six...

Returning to their lord's castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the...

In Japan, scientifically advanced invaders from the war-destroyed planet Mysteroid cause an entire village to vanish, then send a giant robot out to...

The Americans are swiftly closing on Okinawa, an island just south of the Japanese mainland. The Imperial command sends top generals and several army...

Teacher Yukiko finds herself in opposition to conservative faculty and villagers after defending a student for being in a relationship with a young...

A husband and wife's pet peeves and minor irritations escalate into major rifts and animosity.

Theatrical version of episode 17 of Ultra Q TV series.

UFOs appear on Earth, and people who actually see them suddenly find that their blood has turned blue. Soon panic and hysteria result in the new...

A bad cop is engaged in a violent chase to catch a yakuza boss. In his absence his wife runs away with another man, who turns out to be the very same...

Men are being murdered by a psycho called "The Telegian," who uses a matter-transmitting device to locate his victims.

In this patriotic WW II drama, the Japanese army demonstrates its courage and willingness to do anything to win as they endeavor to sneak into...

Toho-produced crime drama involving the drug trade.

Chuji Kunisada returns to his home village to find that Jubei Matsui, the corrupt magistrate, has been responsible for virtually destroying...

Ryuta and Mineo Komatsu are brothers, both yakuza (gangsters). Mineo, although complicit in crime, even murder, wants out of the gangster life,...

Soldiers on the front lines in China during World War II are besieged by guerrilla attacks and attempt to destroy an enemy fort.

An American scientist tells two colleagues about the finding of an abominable snowman living in the Japanese alps, where it is worshipped by a remote...

Yukiko Nogami is rescued during a mountain blizzard by handsome forester Shinkichi, and the two subsequently fall in love. But when Shinkichi dies in...

Hiroshi Kakurai is an assassin who was thinking of retiring. He travels to an island in the Seto Inland Sea and begins to live peacefully with...

Adapted from the Seicho Matsumoto story "Tazutazushi". Ryohei Suzuki, a manager at a travel company, is married to his superior's daughter, but...

A humble and simple Takezo abandons his life as a knight errant. He's sought as a teacher and vassal by Shogun, Japan's most powerful clan leader....

The famous showdown at Kagiya corner has been told many times, but never before with the realism and intensity of this version scripted by Kurosawa...

Edmund Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac, transplanted to Japan. A poet-warrior with an oversized nose (matched only by his great heart) loves a...

During the raging war between the Toyotomi and Tokugawa clans, the swordsman Mohei (whose family has been completely decimated) is recruited by...

Yuzo Kayama plays the protagonist, a whale-hunting cannon manufactuing supervisor, whose brother is an automobile tester for Komatsu Motors which has...

During an assignment, foreign correspondent Steve Martin spends a layover in Tokyo and is caught amid the rampage of an unstoppable prehistoric...

Set at the end of the Siege of Osaka this film follows the exploits of several members of the defeated Toyotomi clan as they cope with the post...

Yakuza boss Furuya leans more and more on his protege Takao Shoji, though Shoji has become romantically involved with Furuya's mistress, Natsue....

Young Yuichi (Kayama) romances Sumiko (Hoshi) while helping out at his family's restaurant, singing in a band, and preparing for an important boxing...

Older, wiser but still a wandering loner, the blind, peace-loving masseur Ichi seeks a peaceful life in a rural village. When he's caught in the...

In 1943, the Aleutian island of Kiska was fortified by a small contingent of Japanese soldiers. When word arrived of an impending attack by an...

Farmer Abare Goemon is confronted by brigand-like samurai. He raises an army of farmers to fight them and does so brilliantly. When Lord Asakura sees...

A screwball tale of a suspected “lady thief” and the detective who is on her trail, following her from Osaka to her home village, where...

A young man goes missing after visiting his girlfriend's isolated country home. His sister and her boyfriend trace him to the creepy mansion, but...

During World War II, Japan sends gold to the Phillipines. After the war, the gold is lost in the bay of Manille. Former soldier Takeichi Matsuo is...

A longtime hotel employee (Morishige) struggles to bring his old-fashioned ryokan in line with postwar Japanese business practices.

In Hong Kong an International Secret Police (ISP) Agent is murdered while investigating ZZZ, a group bent on assassinating the Prime Minister of...

Jirocho the gambler hits the road.

A legendary gangster raises himself out of a small town and gathers followers on his rise to power.

An Ishiro Honda film.

An Ishiro Honda film.

An Ishiro Honda film.

Takashi, who took the blame when his father shot a gangster, returns home after serving a four-year sentence, only to find it infested with yakuza...

After their lord is tricked into committing ritual suicide, forty-seven samurai warriors await the chance to avenge their master and reclaim their...

Lord Taro must deliver a money chest but is robbed by brigands led by Jibu. One of Jibu's men, Rokuro, steals the money from Jibu, but after meeting...

The Maccherone organization is out to get a priceless national treasure. But when they see third-generation cat-burglar Lupin as an obstacle,...

Ultra-perky model likes single freedom but feels ryosai kenbo ("good wife, wise mother") pressure, exemplified by her bored-to-tears sister.

Musical-comedy about nine soldiers deserted on an island in South Pacific.

TV film about the "Nishiyama Incident", a scandal surrounding the 1972 return of Okinawa to Japan. Produced to commemorate the 20th anniversary of TV...

A Toho film featuring the comedy duo Konto 55, (コント55号), comprised of comedians Kinichi Hagimoto and Jiro Sakagami.

An adaptation of the popular Sazae-San comic strip.

A Toho film featuring the comedy duo Konto 55, (コント55号), comprised of comedians Kinichi Hagimoto and Jiro Sakagami.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, a brilliant tactician, is a loyal subject of the emperor, despite his grave misgivings about leading Japan's navy into war...

Gangsters Ken and Maki are rivals in the ticket-scalping game. They make an uneasy truce, but Ken wrecks the truce by agreeing to fix a boxing match...

Starring Akira Takarada as a lightweight boxing champion.

Girls in the Orchard (1953) is about tension between the life of a family in a rural area with all the traditions (continuing family business, taking...

Wataru Naohiko who has the prosecutor general as his father became a young composer and its symphony "saint" invoked the world echoed. But his...

The 22nd film in the Shacho comedy series.

Fourth entry in Toho's Wakadaishō series directed by Jun Fukuda and released on a simultaneous screening with Matango. Filmed on location in...

Japanese police detective Saburo Fujioka is suspected of corruption, demoted, and sent to the city of Kojin. Kojin is the scene of fierce fighting...

On a post-war peaceful day in Japan, Toyomatsu Shimizu, a barber as well as a good father and husband, is suddenly arrested by the Prefectural Police...

Following the detonation of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese military and the government clash over the demand from the...

Following the Second World War, the lives of various people in a poverty-stricken area of Tokyo are entertwined. Pachinko parlor girls, shoeshine...

When a group of young geologists declares a mountainside marked for residential development unstable, they are met with scorn on two fronts. On one...

1964 Japanese movie

Sequel to "真実の愛情を求めて　何処へ" (1954). A coming-of-age drama...

1953 movie by Eisuke Takizawa

In the middle of the period of high economic growth in Japan, a family is thrown into disarray over work, money, and romance. Their father's sudden...

Keisuke Morita, a man with dark glasses standing on the Shibaura pier, a descendant of an illegitimate descendant left behind in Osaka and a brother...