Yuki's family is nearly wiped out before she is born due to the machinations of a band of criminals. These criminals kidnap and brutalize her mother but leave her alive. Later her mother ends up in prison with only revenge to keep her alive. She creates an instrument for this revenge by purposefully getting pregnant. Yuki never knows the love of a family but only killing and revenge.
Lady Snowblood is caught by the police and sentenced to death for her crimes. As she is sent to the gallows she is rescued by the secret police who offer her a deal to assassinate some revolutionaries.
A businessman with a disfigured face obtains a lifelike mask from his doctor, but the mask starts altering his personality.
A truck driver is reunited with friends from his youth in a seedy bar and gets drawn into a web of crime.
Shozo is plagued by the needs of his ex-wife and his current one, but prefers the company of his cat.
In feudal Japan, women are vulnerable, in need of protection, and capable of deception. Jokichi of Mikogami, a drifter, has not yet fully revenged the death of his wife and son. He searches for Kunisada Chuji, who in turn has hired the knife-throwing Windmill Kobunji to kill him. Kobunji and Jokichi meet in the winter, near Sasago Pass, when both have rescued women: Jokichi has saved the lute-playing Oyae whose clan and whose lover want her dead; Kobunji has rescued Oharu, a well-born woman married to an innkeeper. Is this rescue a whim or something deeper? And why does Jokichi become the consumptive Kobunji's protector? What ultimately will Jokichi do about Oyae?
A guilt-haunted samurai warrior attempts to stop a massacre taking place.
In the late 1950's prostitution was banned in Japan and if a woman was found exercising this profession they were sent to a reformatory. This is the story of Kuniko, one of the brave women who is released from the reformatory and tries to build a new life.
Ayako Wakao won the Blue Ribbon and the Kinema Jumpo for this film.
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.
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.
A footballing law student tutors an undergraduate, developing into a romance that soon enough goes awry.
Nine maids serve the household of a writer and his wife. The couple treat their maids like daughters and marry them off to eligible men. So, they are forever looking for new maids. As the years go by maid servants become hired help and more bossy and independent, so Chikura and his wife find themselves adjusting their lives to keep up with changing times.
Follow-up to "Ekimae Ryokan." Set around the Yurigaoka and Nishi-Ikuta stations on the Odakyu-Odawara line, the film takes up the problem of real estate around the expanding Yurigaoka apartments.
Japanese soldiers stranded in Manokwari, New Guinea, improvise a theater play to keep their spirits up and endure the extremely difficult conditions.
This film by Toyoda depicts the hard life of an unmarried mother in Tokyo. Umeko (Machiko Kyo), at 36, is working in a bar, struggling valiantly to keep her family together. Her 17-year-old daughter Takeko becomes increasingly upset by her mother's constant drinking and yakuza boyfriend, and runs away from home. Kyo's performance was highly praised.
Set in the postwar turmoil, Akasaka no shimai paints a vivit portrait of the life of three sisters who struggle to live in Tokyo.
Young widow Ine is suffering under the harsh treatment of her mother in law. As a former Geisha, Ine had struggled to be accepted into the well-established Rokujo family from the beginning. With the support of Jiro, a young man Ine's late husband had saved from homelessness as a young boy, Ine tries to keep the family's heritage of silk processing alive. Their close relationship soon causes gossip among the villagers and threaten Ine's position in the family even further ...
The ghost of a samurai's wife takes revenge on her husband.
Hirobe is a lonely man. After witnessing her girlfriend die with a terminal illness, he wanders through the city like a shadow. One day, he meets Masako and they begin an affair. Masako is in an unhappy marriage with Yazawa, who is also cheating on her with a younger lover. The tension builds up to an unforgiving, yet quiet climax...
