Takeshi Katō
Birthday: Born in 1929-05-24 in Tokyo, Japan
Deathday: 2015-07-31
Takeshi Katō (加藤 武 Katō Takeshi, 24 May 1929 – 31 July 2015) was a Japanese stage and film actor. He appeared in more than one hundred films.
TV Credits
赤穂浪士
Character: Horibe Yasubee
"Ako Roshi" is a group of 47 former retainers of Lord Asano. Lord Asano was forced to commit suicide after attempting to kill Lord Kira. Once the retainers hear about their Lord's death, they sacrifice their lives to regain the honor of their former master....
花の生涯
Character: Kaneko Magojiro
The story chronicles the life of Ii Naosuke....
超電子バイオマン
Character: Takashi
Five descendants of the people showered with Bio Particles by Bio Robots five centuries in the past have become Biomen. They transform with the Bio Brace and fight using their Super Electronic Brains on their masks. Their Bioswords are equipped with sword and gun modes....
花のあすか組！
Character: Shinomiya
While the adults were devouring the country in peace the young girls are now plunging into the Sengoku Period. A domination of fear and terror by the Zenchura, a federation of banchos nationwide, began. With 80% of the nation's middle schools already under its control. Yet, there was one girl who was determined to crush those wicked ambitions. Her name is Asuka Kuraku....
イキのいい奴
Character:
Set in a sushi restaurant in Tokyo shortly after the end of the war, the story follows a stubborn, old-fashioned master and his hot-tempered, brash apprentice growing up among the warm-hearted people of downtown Tokyo....
樅ノ木は残った 乱心
Character:
A human drama based on the "Date Riots"....
君の名は
Character: 永橋
A story of a man and a woman who meet amid the Great Tokyo Air Raid in 1945....
なっちゃんの写真館
Character: 父・西城賢輔
The 25th NHK Asadora. Nishiki Natsuko is a woman who strives to become a photographer....
古谷一行の名探偵・金田一耕助シリーズ
Character: Kahei Nirei
...
源氏物語
Character:
The life of Prince Hikaru Genji, who was nicknamed "Shining" by people for his dazzling noble beauty. Based on the novel "The Tale of Genji" by Murasaki Shikibu....
Movie Credits
The Hidden Fortress
Character: Samurai (uncredited)
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 guides them to a fortress hidden in the mountains....
Crybaby Chacha
Character:
Chiaki Onoda a young assisstant sound mixer is unhappy with his job, but otherwise he is enjoying life. He loves his cat, his friends, hunting for girls and breakdancing in discos. A funeral forces him to return home and meet his familiy, which (espicially his father) disapprove of his lifestyle....
Pigs and Battleships
Character: Ohachi
In the city of Yokosuka, Kinta and his lover Haruko, both involved with yakuza, brave the post-occupation period with a goal to be together....
The Bad Sleep Well
Character: Itakura
In this loose adaptation of "Hamlet," illegitimate son Kôichi Nishi climbs to a high position within a Japanese corporation and marries the crippled daughter of company vice president Iwabuchi. At the reception, the wedding cake is a replica of their corporate headquarters, but an aspect of the design reminds the party of the hushed-up death of Nishi's father. It is then that Nishi unleashes his plan to avenge his father's death....
Ninja, A Band of Assassins
Character:
Warlord Oda Nobunaga seeks to unite a fractured Japan. A young man trained in the arts of ninjitsu is manipulated by a ninja master into attempting to assassinate the warlord before he completes his task....
Two Lives, Two Yakuza
Character: Makoto Misugi
An early ninkyo film from before the genre had truly established its form. Koji Tsuruta plays an honourable outlaw who saves an older man from an ambush. It turns out the man is the head of a hard working clan appointed to a railway construction project. A ruthless yakuza gang is also trying to get their share of the project and attempts to sabotage the work. After the old man dies, his son (Sonny Chiba) and daughter (Junko Fuji) try to complete the project. Tsuruta joins them while also falling...
New Treasure Island
Character: Long John Silver (voice)
This was the first episode of Mushi Pro Land, a unique series of 60-minute animated programs. It was also Japan's first 60-minute animated TV program. However, the series never materialized and only this episode was actually aired. The story follows Stevenson's "Treasure Island," featuring characters in the form of animals. For example, the pirate Silver is illustrated as a wolf, where the main character Jim is changed into a rabbit. This has, therefore, nothing to do with the "New Treasure Isla...
The Lucky General
Character:
The action takes place in a city where you can live on only 100 yen a day. The "General", who indulged in gambling with his henchmen all day, he was running his business and hitting him with a taxi turned out to be a trifle for him. A unique work, filled with tears and laughter, praising the beautiful human love that blooms at the bottom of life, focused on the genius “General” who lives in the troubled city of Kamagasaki....
Otoko to otoko no ikiru machi
Character:
1962 Japanese movie...
High and Low
Character: Detective Nakao
A Yokohama shoe executive faces a wrenching choice when kidnappers mistakenly seize his chauffeur’s son but demand the ransom anyway....
Kimagure tosei
Character:
1962 Japanese movie...
Watashi no naka no shōfu
Character: Fisherman A
...
None But the Brave
Character: Sgt. Tamura
American and Japanese soldiers, stranded on a tiny Pacific island during World War II, must make a temporary truce and cooperate to survive various tribulations. Told through the eyes of the American and Japanese unit commanders, who must deal with an atmosphere of growing distrust and tension between their men....
Mother
Character: Toshiro
A divorced woman enters a marriage arranged by her mother in exchange for money to save the life of her seriously ill son....
Neon taiheiki
Character:
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Aogeba Tôtoshi
Character: Koichi's father
Mortality and death seen through the eyes of a lonely student who has an morbid and albeit naive fascination with death. His teacher, Koichi is also grappling with the issue of mortality as he deals with the impending death of his ailing father, who has decided to spend his final days in the family home. As the story progresses, Koichi finds unexpected solace from his grief by letting his troubled student visit and meet with his father in the hopes that he will understand the meaning of life and...
Foundry Town
Character: Mr. Noda
Set in Kawaguchi in the early 60s, this simple story chronicles the lives of foundry families and one girl's dreams of higher education....
Zatoichi's Revenge
Character: Koheita Kadokura
Itinerant masseur and master swordsman, the blind Zatoichi, is near the village of his teacher, Hikonoichi, so he decides to visit. He learns of Hikonoichi's recent robbery and murder and the imprisonment of his virginal daughter, Osayo, in a brothel. Through friendship with Denroku, a local dice thrower and devoted father, Ichi uncovers an unholy alliance between the governor and the area strongman: among their scams is falsifying tax records to put farmers in debt, then forcing their daughters...
Ōatari hyappatsuhyakuchū
Character:
1961 Japanese movie...
Three Yakuza
Character:
A tale of three Yakuza gamblers who traveled Japan during the samurai era living by their wits and sword skills. Told in 3 separate vignettes, each part tells the story of a different drifter’s life. Part 1: A man is on the run after killing two Hasshu Officials to avenge his Boss. He must make a life or death decision as he is asked to protect a gang from attack. Part 2: A pair of gamblers chased out of a crooked game must fight not only their pursuers, but the ghosts of their pasts as well. ...
Love for Eternity
Character:
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Kigeki Ijiwaru Daishougai
Character:
...
A Sun-Tribe Myth from the Bakumatsu Era
Character: Narrator (uncredited)
Saheji, a man-about-town, gets stuck at a high-class brothel when he can’t pay the bill. He makes the best of his situation by performing various tasks amidst the tumult of the end of the shogunate—but always by making sure to get a “commission” for his troubles....
Only on Mondays
Character: Yuka's sugar-daddy
Yuka is a “good-time girl” from Yokohama who is persuaded by her papa to sleep with a foreign business executive so that he can close an important deal. Nakahira presents a shrewdly observed portrait of a modern, sexually assertive woman—an unsettling character for a changing but still patriarchal society....
Black Comedy - Ah, Fool
Character:
A timid salaryman is the subject of this black comedy....
Kill or Be Killed
Character:
When Yakuza decides to take avenge his brother, the war shall begin....
Lullaby to Kill
Character: Inspector Tachibana
Kôsuke Kindaichi, a somewhat peculiar private detective, visits a remote town. He meets a police detective and they start to investigate an old unsolved murder. Then some murders happen. Kindaichi must find out about the past in order to reveal who the murderer is....
The Sands of Kurobe
Character: Kunikida
Kitagawa is an engineer charged with construction of a gigantic tunnel through the Japan Alps for the transportation of equipment in the building of the massive Kurobe Dam. The tunnel crosses an earthquake fault and Kitagawa is beleaguered not only by cave-ins and flooding, but by strife between management and the workers's union. Adding to Kitagawa's stress is the knowledge that as his attention is pulled inexorably toward the tunnel construction, his youngest daughter is dying from leukemia....
The Thick-Walled Room
Character:
A group of rank-and-file Japanese soldiers are jailed for crimes against humanity, themselves victims of a nation refusing to bear its burdens as a whole....
The Inugami Family
Character: Police Chief Tachibana
When a tycoon passes away, he unexpectedly leaves the family fortune to outsider Tamayo on the condition that she marries one of the grandsons, pitting blood against blood....
For Kayako
Character: Kyusu Im
A film about the substantial population of Koreans living in Japan, and the love affair between Kayako, a Japanese girl, and Im, a Korean....
Children of Nagasaki
Character:
August 9, 1945. An atomic bomb drops on Urakami, Nagasaki at 11:02am. The story of Dr. Nagai and his family....
Tracing Jake
Character:
Inuyama is intrigued by the existence of "Jake," a mysterious crocodile that has been sighted in many countries around the world. He continues to travel around the world, listening to the testimonies of various people of different ages, nationalities, and sighting situations who have seen "Jake"....
Hayauchi burai - Daiheigen no otoko
Character:
...
Battle of the Japan Sea
Character: Chief of Staff Officer Kato
Japan and Russia clash in what comes to be known as the Russo-Japanese War. An attempt by the Japanese fleet and army to take Port Arthur fails, and a Russian fleet bears down on the Sea of Japan. Admiral Heihachiro Togo sends his fleet to confront the Russians, with results which stun both nations. Meanwhile, Major Genjiro Akashi makes secret negotiations with the Bolshevik revolutionaries in Russia, negotiations that have repercussions far beyond the conflict at hand....
Last Round
Character:
1962 Japanese movie...
An Inlet of Muddy Water
Character:
A Japanese woman writes down three stories she has witnessed or heard of in her diary, each about the difficult situation a young woman finds herself in....
Island of Hell
Character: Inspector Todoroki
A scruffy detective investigates the murders of three sisters on a small Japanese island in 1946....
Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Police Tactics
Character: Noburo Uchimoto
As Japan gears up for the 1964 Olympic games, the cops start to crack down on the gangs, under pressure from the public and the press, adding a new dimension in the war for power among the yakuza families of Hiroshima....
Murder of the Inugami Clan
Character: Todoroki Shochô
Inugami Sahei, who built up the wealth of the Inugami Clan, passes away, leaving a will with Furudate, his legal adviser, for his daughters Matsuko, Takeko and Umeko, all of whom have different mothers, and for their sons, as well as for Nonomiya Tamayo, the granddaughter of a person to whom Sahei feels heavily indebted. The will states that all his assets are inherited by Tamayo alone, on the condition that she marries one of the sons of the daughters. Furudate's assistant learns the content of...
The Crimson Plains
Character: Koike
The action takes place in the highlands of the Chugoku region. While the owner of the Yazaki ranch is away, a gang of villains is trying to take over the ranch, which is run by his wife alone, but then the rancher's best friend, Joji, appears and saves the day. This is one of a series of Japanese westerns starring Jo Shishido....
Let's Meet in Our Dreams
Character:
1962 Japanese movie...
Free and Easy Special
Character:
Approached by a friend about a matchmaking arrangement, Su-san goes to Hama-chan's home seeking help. Hama-chan is away on a business trip, but Michiko entertains Su-san late into the night. When he gets drunk and ends up spending the night, Hama-chan, begins to question his boss's relationship with Michiko....
Dora-heita
Character: Toneri Uchijima
A new magistrate in the town of Horisoto—widely reputed to be the most lawless township in Japan, uses guile and his opponents' own misperceptions and prejudices to defeat his enemies and uproot corruption....
Across a Gold Prairie
Character: Takashi Kanzaki
Meet NIPPORI Ayumu, an 80 year-old man, who, due to a serious heart condition, has spent sixty years of his life confined to his house. One morning, he wakes up believing himself to be twenty again. In his mind, he has become the youthful young man that he once was. However, reality fails to keep up with his illusion, and everything around him seems to be quite different from what he is used to. So, he decides that he is simply dreaming. As his reality becomes his dream, his unhappy world turns ...
XX: Beautiful Weapon
Character: Yasuhiro Kokubu
A blind female assassin lives alone in a remote house; her superiors occasionally send her "clients" / targets that she shoots right after having sex with them in her completely darkened bedroom....
Run Ichiro Run
Character:
Various individuals named Ichiro undergo life-changing events while being inspired by the baseball player Ichiro. A heartwarming movie about the people who root for the baseball player Ichiro, and their struggles to make their own dreams come true....
Free and Easy 15
Character:
Hama-chan takes a vacation to go fishing in Akita despite warnings from Su-san as his company faces a restructuring process....
Free and Easy 12: Big Holiday Bonus Project
Character: Managing Director Akiyama
Mr. Takano, a company employee, announces plans to take an early retirement so he can return to his home town and spend his days fishing. Su-san and Hama-chan envy his decision, and Hama-chan conspires to visit Takano, even though he has no vacation time left....
Japan Sinks
Character: Professor Yamashiro
In the aftermath of a major earthquake, scientists predict that Japan will sink into the sea. As further disasters follow, politicians plead with other countries to take refugees, while scientists struggle to save Japan itself....
Bring Me the Head of Shichiemon!
Character:
During the Sengoku period, an army relentlessly lays siege to a castle, but they will need the head of the opposing lord to declare victory....
Fighting Elegy
Character:
Kiroku boards with a Roman Catholic family and falls for the daughter Michiko. He ignores his feelings, joins a gang, gets in fights and, eventually, becomes involved with the radical Kita Ikki group....
Yojimbo
Character: Ronin Kobuhachi
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 local gambling trade. Taking the name Sanjuro Kuwabatake, the ronin convinces both silk merchant Tazaemon and sake merchant Tokuemon to hire him as a personal bodyguard, then artfully sets in motion a full-scale gang war between the two ambitious and unscrupulous men....
Ran
Character: Koyota Hatakeyama
Shakespeare's King Lear is reimagined as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan where an aging warlord divides his kingdom between his three sons....
Seven Samurai
Character: Samurai Wandering through Town (uncredited)
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 others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food....
Throne of Blood
Character: Guard killed by Washizu
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 spirit's prophecy comes true, Washizu's scheming wife, Asaji, presses him to speed up the rest of the spirit's prophecy by murdering his lord and usurping his place. Director Akira Kurosawa's resetting of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" in feudal Japan is one of his most acclaimed films....
The Fir Trees Remain
Character:
The 21-year-old feudal on Sendai, Tsunamune Date, was prohibited to go out in the daytime for his misbehavior during his short stay in Edo. On the next day, his 4 attendants were killed one after another. Sakai Utanokamike, the Rozyu, is turned out to be involved in this scheme, and the aim is to destroy the Date family. Tsunamune's brother Munekatsu Date who is willing to take over the family doesn't know the real purpose of Utanokami and helps him. Munesuku Harada gets to know the whole pictur...
Free and Easy 17
Character:
Yumiko returns to work in Hama-chan's department. She had once left the company after getting married, but a dark shadow now seems to loom over her....
Free and Easy 20: Final
Character:
...
A Wanderer's Notebook
Character: Uenoyama
Considered one of the finest late Naruses and a model of film biography, A Wanderer’s Notebook features remarkable performances by Hideko Takamine – Phillip Lopate calls it “probably her greatest performance” – and Kinuyo Tanaka as mother and daughter living from hand to mouth in Twenties Tokyo. Based on the life and career of Fumiko Hayashi, the novelist whose work Naruse adapted to the screen several times, A Wanderer’s Notebook traces her bitter struggle for literary recognition in the first ...
Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space
Character: Zombie Cat (Voice)
Tamala is a cat living on Planet Cat Earth in the Feline Galaxy. In attempt to leave the Feline Galaxy, which is practically owned by a mega corporation called Catty & Co., she crashes on the violence-ridden Planet Q where she meets Michelangelo. Together they have fun, while Tamala seaches for her connections to Catty & Co. and her mysterious homeworld Orion....
The Phoenix
Character: Kamamushi
This extraordinarily complex film is not only a send-up of every samurai film ever made, it is also an extrapolation of the value of life. The Yamatai, represented by Prince Susano-O and elderly advisor Sumuke, hire Yumihiko of Matsuro to hunt the phoenix so that Queen Himiko, sister of Susano-O can have eteranal life....
The Great White Tower
Character:
The story contrasts the life of two doctors, former classmates and now both assistant professors at Naniwa University Hospital in Osaka. The brilliant and ambitious surgeon Goro Zaizen stops at nothing to rise to a position of eminence and authority, while the friendly Shuji Satomi busies himself with his patients and research....
The Class of the Sewage Canal
Character:
The struggle of a young man and boys who try to create the environment where they can speak their minds freely....
Flame of Father and Son
Character:
Yokomizo, a police officer in the traffic police force, is looking forward to watching his son Kazuhiko grow up. However, Kazuhiko rebels against his perfectionist father and turns to delinquency. Kazuhiko teams up with his bad friend Teshima to rob 300 million yen from a cash transport truck. Yokomizo, who is investigating the case, is shocked to realize that his son is the culprit....
Tale of Japanese Burglars
Character: Public prosecutor Tamura
Gisuke Hayashida is an illegal dentist during the day and a burglar by night. One night during a burglary he witnesses a train derailment. Some communists are found guilty of causing the incident, but he knows it wasn't them. He can save innocent people but for that he must confess his own crime....
Endless Desire
Character: Brutal yakuza
Set in post-war Japan, a group of five, four men and one woman, gathers in the basement of a butcher shop to dig up a cache of morphine buried during the war. A grimly humorous tale of twisted relationships as one by one each of the group is eliminated....
Mifune: The Last Samurai
Character: Self - Actor
An account of the life and work of legendary Japanese actor Toshirō Mifune (1920-97), the most prominent actor of the Golden Age of Japanese cinema....
Queen Bee
Character: Detective Todoroki
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....
Moment of Terror
Character:
When an only child is struck by a car and dies, the child's mother seeks vengeance against the driver in this thrilling drama. The car was driven by the wife of a company president who is having an affair. The woman's husband manages to buy silence about the incident, but the victim's mother discovers the identity of the driver. After she secures a job in the home of the company president and his philandering spouse, the woman plans to murder the couple's son when he reaches the age of her late ...
Odin: Starlight Mutiny
Character: Takeshi Suzuka
Odin centers around the novice crew of the laser sailing space schooner Starlight as they embark on an historic interstellar test flight. They are intercepted by what seems to be a wrecked spaceship only to find that it contains a lone survivor; a young woman named Sara Cyanbaker. Unknown to the crew at this time, a mechanized space fleet approaches Earth and a scout vessel from that fleet was responsible for the destruction of Sara's ship....
Company Executives
Character:
A fierce succession battle ignites at a newspaper company when the president passes away....
Free and Easy 6
Character:
Hama-chan and Su-san go fishing during a business trip, but Hama-chan has to give a lecture on Su-san's behalf in a case of mistaken identity....
Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Proxy War
Character: Noboru Uchimoto
Shozo Hirono has managed to separate from the Yamamori family and create his own small family, and extend his circle of acquaintances. These new friendships include a powerful underboss of the Muraoka family, Noboru Uchimoto....
Location
Character: Hara
The melodramatic story of a pink crew’s tragi-comedic adventures on location. A fictionalized adaptation of set photographer Ichiro Tsuda's 1980 book The Location (Za Rokēshon), an illustrated 229-page document about the cameraman’s experiences with pink cast and crew on the sets of several films produced in the late 1970's....
Volunteering for Villainy
Character: Deka
Two outsiders start a relationship in a mining town....
Bushido: The Cruel Code of the Samurai
Character:
After a salary-man's fiancée attempts suicide, he recounts his gruesome family history which saw generations of his ancestors suffer and sacrifice themselves for the sake of their cruel lords....
Special Boy Soldiers of the Navy
Character:
Japanese youngsters enduring hard training in Recruit Camp and then going to Iwo Jima in the last days of World War II....
Four Days of Snow and Blood
Character: Kohei Kashi
Based on the "2.26 Incident", an attempted coup d'état in Japan 1936, launched by radical ultra-nationalist parts of the military. Several leading politicians were killed and the center of Tokyo was briefly held by the insurgents before the coup was suppressed....
You'll Die Six Hours Later
Character:
"You will die six hours later." Keishi, a youth who proclaims himself a seer, suddenly says this to Mio, who is walking along the streets of Shibuya. At first, Mio scoffs at it as nonsense but ever since her acquaintance was murdered a few days ago, she realises that she has also become a victim of a stalker. Half believing it, she decides to hang around with Keishi. Later, with the help of Sawaki, a detective she knows, the stalker is identified. She thinks the case is closed but a totally unex...
Night Scandal in Japan
Character:
Mayumi Ogawa stars in the tale of a Turkey miss—basically a prostitute who services men in Turkish baths—whose plans to get rich in the stock market, open a beauty salon, and marry her sweetie are turned upside down by the arrival of her boyfriend-stealing half sister Mako Midori. - Pulpinternational...
Free and Easy 4
Character: Akiyama
Hama-chan and his wife are ecstatic about their long-awaited pregnancy. Meanwhile, Su-san's nephew joins Hama-chan's department at the company....
Free and Easy 10
Character:
Su-san resigns after getting fed up with corporate life, but he finds himself back in familiar surroundings on his first assignment at a new job....
Free and Easy 8
Character:
When Su-san invites his late friend's daughter to come along on a fishing trip, she falls in love with Hama-chan's fishing protégé....
Free and Easy 5
Character:
Hama-chan shows up to work with his son on his back when his wife goes to her class reunion and his mother throws her back out....
Free and Easy 16
Character: Akiyama
Hama-chan meets a friendly US soldier on a trip to Nagasaki with Su-san. Su-san returns to Tokyo and is informed that Hama-chan has gone missing....
Dansen
Character:
Based on crime fiction novel written by Seicho Matsumoto....
Room for Let
Character:
When Yumiko Tsuyama, a potter by profession, comes inquiring about a room for rent in an old mansion overlooking Osaka, she finds a bizarre collection of characters already living there. The unlikely leader of this menagerie is Yoda Goro, who speaks four languages fluently, is an expert in cabbage rolls, and has written how-to books encompassing every aspect of human existence....
Battles Without Honor and Humanity
Character: Noburo Uchimoto
In the teeming black markets of postwar Japan, Shozo Hirono and his buddies find themselves in a new war between factious and ambitious yakuza....
Miyamoto Musashi
Character: Iwama Kakubei
In Part I we see the young would-be swordsman setting out to achieve greatness in war, achieving nothing because fighting on the losing side, & then beginning his long period of wandering & training, with the goal always in mind of his duel with Kojiro. Part II builds toward that great duel on Ganryu Island, with considerable focus on Musashi's planning & forethought as to how to gain an advantage....
The Geisha House
Character: Kitayama
Set in the late 1950s, when geisha culture was threatened by moral crusades, it tells the story of Omocha (Miyamoto Maki), a young girl who sees the geisha life as a way to lift her poverty-stricken family from their hand-to-mouth existence. Through her eyes, we see the protocols and complex financial relationships which dictate the running of the geisha house. Fukasaku's film is a work of great delicacy with moments of hypnotic beauty, and his tender direction, often touched with a sense of won...
Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create: 'The Hidden Fortress'
Character: Self
Documentary made by Toho for the Masterworks reissue of all of its Kurosawa films. This one focuses on "The Hidden Fortress" (1958)....
Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create: 'The Lower Depths'
Character: Self
Documentary made by Toho for the Masterworks reissue of all of its Kurosawa films. This one focuses on "The Lower Depths" (1957)....
Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create: 'High and Low'
Character: Self
Documentary made by Toho for the Masterworks reissue of all of its Kurosawa films. This one focuses on "High and Low" (1963)....
Zenigeba
Character:
Based on the comic by George Akiyama...
Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create: 'The Bad Sleep Well'
Character: Self
Documentary made by Toho for the Masterworks reissue of all of its Kurosawa films. This one focuses on "The Bad Sleep Well" (1960)....
The First Catch
Character:
Based on the comic book series of the same name by Yûsuke Aoyagi....
Virgin Road
Character:
Based on the comic book by Tatsuo Kanai...
The Last Judgment
Character:
The last judgment....
Sword of the Beast
Character: Katori
Legendary swordplay filmmaker Hideo Gosha's Sword of the Beast chronicles the flight of the low-level swordsman Gennosuke, who kills one of his ministers as part of a reform plot. His former comrades then turn on him, and this betrayal so shakes his sense of honor that he decides to live in the wild, like an animal. There he joins up with a motley group who are illegally mining the shogun’s gold, and, with the aid of another swordsman, gets a chance not just at survival but to recover his name a...
Scorpion
Character:
Japanese drama film....
Lost in the Sun
Character:
...
House of Terrors
Character: Keisuke Munakata
A hunchbacked caretaker presides over a forlorn mansion inhabited by the ghosts of his previous masters. An unbelieving trio (a doctor, his assistant and his niece) fail to heed the caretaker's warnings and are slaughtered horribly by the jealous occupants....
Whirlpool of Flesh
Character: Segawa
During the war a university professor meets a girl and marries her. Very soon however, it is apparent that their needs are not matched. He would much rather be translating Shakespeare than attending to her, and she has a secret in her past - one that results in her sleeping with a great number of men....
Lonely Heart
Character:
A police procedural surrounding murder at a bookstore and the private lives of the cops trying to solve the case....
Voice from the Dark
Character: Toyokichi Kuze
A woman fears for the safety of her fiance after his three brothers mysteriously disappear....
Summer Soldiers
Character: Driver
During the Vietnam War, an American G.I. deserts his base in Japan and escapes to Tokyo with the help of his Japanese bar hostess girlfriend. In the capital he gets involved with an anti-war organization while dodging the military police....
Kogarashi Monjirō Returns
Character:
...
Marriage Counselor Tora-san
Character: Kingo
In Shibamata, Tokyo, Tora-san's family prepares for a wedding. Meanwhile, the traveling Tora-san meets an old acqaintance in Iwate Province. Tora-san refuses to drink with him, afraid that the acquaintance, now settled and married, will again become attracted to Tora-san's wandering existence. Tora-san becomes attracted to a female barber, but must break off their relationship so that she too can live a secure life. She instead gets into an abusive relationship with a motorcyclist....
The Spying Sorceress
Character:
Second part of the series where sex magic skills of female and Iga ninjas clash over enourmous treasure of the Toyotomi family, discovered in connection with the plot to overthrow the shogunate....
The Gambling Monk
Character:
One summer day, the chief monk of the Hojuin Temple dies. Harumichi rushes back to town hearing about his brother's death and requests for a grand funeral. He had been unwilling to take over the family business and had chosen a life as a middle school teacher far away from home, but considering the circumstances, he changes his mind. As the new chief of Hojuin, Harumichi scrambles around day after day for donations. He has kept strictly to the straight and narrow, until he passes a bicycle race ...
Koto: The Ancient City
Character:
Chieko (Momoe Yamaguchi) has been raised as the only child of parents who run a dry goods store. When Chieko was a middle-school student, she learned that her parents are not her biological parents. Cheiko's mother told her that she was stolen while sleeping under a cherry tree in Gion, Kyoto, Japan, but Chieko doesn't believe that. Her relationship with her parents is very close. Chieko only tells her childhood friend Shinichi, but......
The Gate of Youth
Character:
Mainly the story of Shinsuke and his stepmother, ranging from Shinsuke's infanthood to his mid-teens. Coal workers and the mines dominate nearly every aspect of the life of the characters. Shinsuke's father dies while bravely using dynamite to rescue a group of trapped Korean miners. Several older men attempt to help he and his mother cope, including a kind Korean and a Harley-riding yakuza....
The Girl I Abandoned
Character:
Tsutomu Yoshioka, a Tokyo office worker, is engaged to Mariko, the niece of his company's president. But Yoshioka has a crisis of consence when he remembers his former love Mitsu, a rural girl whom he met and later left while in college. Shimako, a former friend, persuades Yoshioka to meet with Mitsu while she plots to blackmail Yoshioka by photographing the meeting to break up Mariko and Yoshioka....
The House of Hanging
Character: Inspector Todoroki
This time, Kousuke investigates a murder in a hospital. The murderer leaves misleading evidence to divert Kousuke's attention on the case. Suspicion and doubt clouds Kousuke's mind....
Happiness of Us Alone
Character:
The story is of two people. One is deaf, the other deaf and mute. They marry after meeting at a school reunion, and the film follows their trials and tribulations ... and joys....
Free and Easy 18
Character:
Hama-chan goes to Okayama to look for Su-san when he goes missing a few days after freezing up during his inaugural speech as the company chairman....
Love and Faith
Character:
Sen Rikyu is a ceremonial tea master who advises warlord Hideyoshi in sixteenth-century feudal Japan. His daughter, the beautiful Lady Ogin, has an unrequited love for Lord Ukon, who has angered Hideyoshi by becoming a Christian convert. Ogin's father Rikyu also displeases Hideyoshi by opposing the warlord's plan to invade China and Korea. When the animalistic Hideyoshi is rejected by Ogin, he threatens her and her father with arrest and worse....
Noh Mask Murders
Character: Assistant Inspector Senba
The patriarch of a bickering family announces his retirement, stirring competition about who will succeed him as a leading practitioner of Noh theater, his granddaughter or grandson....
Zero
Character: Ugaki
Two young men are recruited into the Japanese air force just before outbreak of WW2 by the test pilot of Japans new super fighter - the Zero. The movie is told in reverse from the point of one of the young men who don't qualify for the pilot training and instead joins the ground crew. It chronicles the entire history of the famous fighter from the first prototype test flights all through the war....
The Pirates of Buban
Character:
By going to the Philippines, Imamura comes to meet people living in an extreme poverty. He discovers very quickly that some communities are under the control of cruel & armed pirates. Imamura will come to meet those men in order to understand their position....
This Madding Crowd
Character:
...
The Great Shogunate Battle
Character:
The early days of the Tokugawa shogunate are brought to light in this exciting historical tale of broken vows and violent swordplay. In an ambush the heir to the shogun’s seat is brutally cut down by those who hope to install the emperor’s 5th son as military leader of the nation....
Free and Easy: Samurai Edition
Character:
A traveling ronin perceived as a fool impresses a samurai leader with his fishing skills and gains employment....
Bloody Record of the Shinsengumi
Character:
...
Tenpo suiko-den: ohara yugaku
Character:
A great famine struck all of Japan: the so-called Great Tenpō famine. It was a time when there were frequent uprisings in rural areas due to farmers losing their land as a result of strict tax collection. The Tonegawa area of Boso was a lawless area for a generation, as two major forces fought against each other: Sukegoro of Iioka, who wields power with his industrial capital behind him, and Shigezo of Sasakawa, a rising yakuza. Furthermore, the successive floods of the Tone River, which could...
Nosappu no jū
Character:
...
Japan's Longest Day
Character: Cabinet Chief Secretary Hisatsune Sakomizu
Following the detonation of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese military and the government clash over the demand from the Allies for unconditional surrender. Minister of the Army Anami leads the military officers who propose to fight on, even to the death of every Japanese citizen. Emperor Hirohito, however, joins with his ministers in asking the unthinkable, the peaceful surrender of Japan. When the military plots a coup to overthrow the Emperor's civilian government, Anam...
Yume-Chiyo
Character:
Yumechiyo, a geisha house madam recently diagnosed with a terminal illness, yearns to do something constructive with the little time she has left. Though her responsibility lies in taking care of her girls, she finds purpose in helping a man wrongfully accused of murder and in the process discovers love....
300 Million Yen Mission
Character:
...
Gambler in the Sea
Character:
Joe, a master diver, explodes his fighting spirit and friendship across raging seas and scorching deserts in this gorgeous and entertaining epic....
Godzilla 1985
Character: Internal Trade and Industry Minister Kasaoka
Originally released in Japan as "The Return of Godzilla" in 1984, this is the heavily re-edited, re-titled "Godzilla 1985". Adding in new footage of Raymond Burr, this 16th Godzilla film ignores all previous sequels and serves as a direct follow-up to the 1956 "Godzilla King of the Monsters", which also featured scenes with Burr edited into 1954's "Godzilla". This film restores the darker tone of the original, as we witness the nuclear destruction of giant lizard terrorizing Japan....
The Navy
Character:
A tale of two best friends in the WWII era Japan. Takao is a young man enthusiastic about joining the navy to fight for his country. He convinces his best friend Shinji to join him. As it turns out, however, Takao's poor health prevents him from entering the navy while his friend is chosen instead. As time goes by, Takao becomes a painter and changes his mind about the meaningfulness of war and fighting, while his friend goes the opposite path. Meanwhile Takao's sister falls in love with Shinji....
Million Dollar Smash-and-Grab
Character:
A boxing melodrama. Two friends become boxers and begin training for the championship. These two boys eventually face each other in the ring....
Fossilized Wilderness
Character:
Detective Nishina Sosuke, the director of the Metropolitan Police Department's Investigation Division 1, is suddenly attacked by a trio of men at his apartment at midnight. When he regains consciousness, the corpse of a foreigner shot with his pistol lies in front of him. Nishina, with the help of his friend and newspaper reporter Mineshima, who believes in his innocence and vows to cooperate, pursues the incident and reveals a conspiracy related with 5,000 kilograms of gold that disappeared at ...
The Summit of Mt. Fuji
Character:
The Japanese government decides to install a radar on the top of Mt. Fuji, in order to detect typhoons as far as 800 km south of the Japanese archipelago, but the task will not be easy....
Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp
Character:
This film stays very faithful to the original down to the smallest details, save for the kangaroo-rat that suddenly appears twenty minutes into the movie and subsequently follows Aladdin around, serving no purpose in the story but fulfilling the role of token animal mascot. The story takes some illogical and confusing jumps at the point where Aladdin begins to court the princess, and the extravagant animation that had characterised Toei films of the 60s, when Toei had the best animators around,...
The Politicians
Character:
Who will be the next prime minister? As two candidates start to compete, political game and brutal murder ensue. And the existence of secret love letters changes the situation....
High Teen
Character:
Terasaki, the new history teacher at the Senior High School, finds encouragement in the words of his Principal. "There are no bad children in this world. Some may be hard to handle but a teacher should never lose courage … never give up." But when put in charge of the third year class C, reputed to be the most incorrigible in the whole school, he is faced with surly opposition from the start. However, Terasaki perseveres. His greatest headaches are three students ... Sanae, who develops a "crush...
Monrō no yōna onna
Character:
1964 Japanese movie...
Wakarete ikiru toki mo
Character:
A Hiromichi Horikawa movie...
How the Bell of Liberty Rings
Character: Ronin on the ship
Set during Japan's Bakumatsu period, the film follows Fukuzawa Yukichi, a poor samurai's son who defies societal norms to study Dutch and English. Despite facing opposition from his family and nationalist factions, he founds Keio University, becoming a key figure in Japan's modernization amid political turmoil....
午前零時の出獄
Character:
This movie depicts the confrontation between a man entangled in a despicable trap and the shadow of murderous intent, and the efforts of a journalist chasing after the truth. Due to the passage of time since the film's release, some scenes may be marred by visual and audio distortions. We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your understanding....
Free and Easy 7
Character:
Hama-chan and Su-san meet a charming woman on a fishing trip, but forget to ask her name. Days later, Hama-chan sees her again at a dentist's office....
The 8-Tomb Village
Character:
A band of samurai warriors places a curse on a family fortune thus frustrating the heir 4 centuries later....
Kawachi fūten zoku
Character:
1968 film...