Kanae Kobayashi

In the post-war Gion district of Kyoto, the geisha Miyoharu agrees to apprentice the 16 year-old Eiko, whose mother was a former geisha who had just died. After a year of training they have to find a large sum of money before Eiko can debut. Miyoharu borrows the ...  (more)

In this first film of the Lone Wolf and Cub series, adapted from the manga by Kazuo Koike, we are told the story of the Lone Wolf and Cub's origin. Ogami Itto, the official Shogunate executioner, has been framed for disloyalty to the Shogunate by the Yagyu clan, ...  (more)

A passionate telling of the story of Sada Abe, a woman whose affair with her master led to an obsessive and ultimately destructive sexual relationship.  (more)

A wandering gambler strolls into a village searching for his father's killer, unaware that the village is run by criminals who sell the poorest peasants into slavery.  (more)

Zatoichi is mentored by the blind leader of a secret organization as he contends with both the Yakuza and a jealous husband.  (more)

Kikuji is the scion of an Osaka merchant family whose traditional power is matrilineal. Instructed by his overbearing mother and grandmother to give them an heiress for the family business, he stands by helplessly as his wife is thrown out of the house for ...  (more)

Shocking scenes are revealed in the Nagasaki Women's prison.  (more)

Story of a Beloved Wife is an autobiographical work based on Shindo's first marriage. Jūkichi Uno stars as a struggling screenwriter, and Nobuko Otowa stars as the wife who supports him through his early struggles.  (more)

Zatoichi's trek through 88 temples to atone for his violent past is interrupted as he stumbles into a village terrorized by a violent yakuza boss.  (more)

Wishing to find peace, Zatoichi travels to his old village but only finds trouble when he ends up in a love triangle and finds old scores have followed him home.  (more)

Zatoichi makes friends with a dangerous chess player, while fending off angry yakuza and bloodthirsty relatives out for revenge, and trying to save a sick child. Meanwhile, his luck with dice is turning.  (more)

Ichi is staying at an inn when a woman dies. Her dying wish is that Ichi take her son to his father, an artist living in a nearby town. After arriving in the town, Ichi finds out that the father has been forced by a local boss to create illegal pornography to pay ...  (more)

When a local gambling house kidnaps some peasants because they failed to pay their debts, a rival gambling house pays their debts and sets them free.  (more)

Zatoichi comes upon a dying man who asks him to give a bag of money to "Taichi". Zatoichi has no idea who this is but when he comes upon a small town harassed by gangsters, he finds that "Taichi" was the man's young son. Along his travels he also met a blind monk ...  (more)

When a woman and her bridegroom are found dead in a double suicide the day after their wedding, it is up to the detective (Akira Nakao) to figure out what could possibly have motivated them. Carefully and systematically, he pieces together the inner lives of the two.  (more)

The adventures of a blind, gambling masseur and master swordsman. Zatoichi targets a yakuza-controlled village, because war with a neighbouring town's smaller gang is brewing.  (more)

Shinnosuke is introduced to Shizu as a prospective marriage partner, but he falls in love with her widowed sister Oyu. Convention forbids Oyu to marry because she has to raise her son as the head of her husband's family. Oyu convinces Shinnosuke and Shizu to marry ...  (more)

The film won 1959 Blue Ribbon Awards for best actor Raizo Ichikawa and for best cinematography Kazuo Miyagawa. The film also won 1959 Kinema Junpo Award for best actor Raizo Ichikawa.  (more)

It is brother against brother in this tale of love and betrayal within the famed Yagyu clan. In one of their earliest films together, superstars Ichikawa Raizo and Katsu Shintaro are magnificent as the two finest young swordsmen in the clan. As they vie for the ...  (more)

Okoyo, the mistress of Lord Arima, fears that she is being replaced by a younger woman named Otaki. In a fit of jealousy, she kills the younger girl. The dead woman's cat licks her blood and becomes a demon, seeking revenge on Okoyo  (more)