The story of Sanshiro, a strong stubborn youth, who travels into the city in order to learn Jujutsu. However, upon his arrival he discovers a new form of self-defence: Judo. The main character is based on Shiro Saigo, a legendary judoka.
At the residence of a feudal lord in a mountain province, a young lord, accompanied by his vassals and courtiers, listens to the rokyoku singer Toraizo at a leisurely pace. The title of the play is "Notes of Lord Mito's Travels. This play caused great turmoil in the feudal lord's house. The young lord was more impressed than anyone else by Lord Mito's benevolent management and actions, but he made the mistake of trying to follow in his footsteps...
The Opium War is a 1943 black-and-white Japanese film directed by Masahiro Makino. "Ahen senso" in Japan refers to the First Opium War. The story of the film concerns this war.
The film was produced during Second Sino-Japanese War, before the Pearl Harbor Attack in 1941. The film mainly concerns the training of newly-recruited pilots and their daily life, then their subsequent fighting experiences in China. Army supported the production, providing all the authentic airplanes, training and actual actions. They even provided the older biplanes disguised as Chinese fighter planes. Obinata plays the trainer-turned-combat-leader, who is passionate and cool at the same time. All his boys love him, of course. The film is not as intense, full of sugar-coated camaraderie, until young pilots are killed in action one by one. Last twenty minutes are fairly grim, as the message of self-sacrifice is heard loud and clear.
At the beginning of the Meiji era, three brothers of a samurai family each stand up to the times.
Set in wartime at the Yawata Steel Works in Tobata, Yawata, and Kokura cities in Fukuoka Prefecture, the film depicts people taking on the evil blast furnaces that prevent increased production. The film was shot on location at the actual Yawata Steel Works for an extended period of time, and special effects were created using a miniature blast furnace that closely reproduces the actual one.
Japanese Navy air cadets train for the attacks on Pearl Harbor and the HMS Prince of Wales.
This epic depicts the battle between Uesugi Kenshin and Takeda Shingen. The focus of the story is the struggle by the unit leader in charge of the main supply wagons and the supply troops to transport materiel to the Uesugi army. To this are added episodes involving an itinerant woman.
A self-absorbed young actor humiliates an elderly Noh performer, who then commits suicide. His act of cruelty compels his father to disown him, leading the once promising actor to a life on the streets. But his desire to win back the respect of his father and the affection of the dead actor's daughter pushes him toward a more noble existence. Naruse employed a delicately structured mise-en-scene in this family melodrama, which evokes the work of Josef von Sternberg.
A 1943 film.
Twenty-year-old Yoshiko (Setsuko Hara) and her younger sister Asako (Yōko Yaguchi) struggle to accept changes in their home during the preparations of their widowed father's wedding to his chosen bride, Maki Tsuneko (Sadako Sawamura), who's anxious about her conduct as the bride.
What is marriage? Young couple in match-making wanted to know before they decide. They visited married couples of sisters and brothers. Love comedy in 1942.
Part 2 of a 2-part romance (fist part - Kafuku zempen) based on a story by noted author Kikuchi Kan. In the second half, we discover that Toyomi is pregnant -- and while Shintaro and Yurie are on their extended honeymoon, she bears his child, a girl named Kiyoko. She is supported in adversity by Michiko -- and gets considerable moral support from not only her own mother but also from Shintaro's mother and siblings. Even more surprisingly, Yurie strikes up a friendship of sorts with her. When Yurie learns that the child is Shintaro's, she convinces Toyomi that it would be best to let Shintaro (and her) raise Kiyoko, so Toyomi can get on with making a proper life for herself. Tearfully, Toyomi agrees. Sometime later, Michiko goes to visit Toyomi -- and sees her at work, as a kindergarten teacher.
This is the only surviving “Mito Komon Manyu-ki” film. This release also known as "Adrift Tour Memoir" or literally "Mito Komon's Pleasure Trip" is an 80-minute compilation of the first (東海道の巻 or "Tokaido no maki") and second (日本晴れの巻 or "Japan's Fine Weather Reel") parts (147 minutes), which were re-edited and screened at a time when presentable films were dried up immediately after the defeat of the war.
OSHINO, the beautiful daughter of restaurant owners, is in love with SHIRASAGI the painter. But there is another young man, the son of a moneylender family, who is desperately in love with Oshino...
Young men endure challenging flight training in the Yokaren, a program feeding new pilots into the Army and Navy. By the time of the filming, the pressure of the war had led the government to shorten the training and expand the age range of the recruits. Yokaren was highly selective, and thus an object of great fascination and desire for boys and young men. In this Navy–sponsored film, Setsuko Hara plays the daughter of a family that often entertains recruits on their days off—a surrogate sister to many trainees. Her fragile younger brother aspires to join the program, but is rejected. With perseverance and much support from Hara and their mother, he surmounts his weaknesses and becomes a flier.
A half brother and sister work at a hotel in Hakone respectively as a porter and a souvenir shop clerk. They are close. One day a woman named Hasegawa checks into the hotel in order to recuperate in a calm environment with fresh air. She is the mother of the store employee. The mother and daughter were separated due to the Kanto earthquake. The girl was practically raised by her older half brother.
Based on an autobiographical story by Toyota Masako.
Song of the White Orchid was a co-production of Toho and Mantetsu, the railway that served the colonial region of Manchuria, and the first film in the Kazuo Hasegawa/Shirley Yamaguchi (Ri Koran) “Continental Trilogy.” Handsome Hasegawa (representing Japan) runs up against an impertinent Yamaguchi (representing the continent); not surprisingly, in the course of the film the woman comes around and realizes the benevolent intentions of the Japanese. In Song of the White Orchid Yamaguchi leaves Hasegawa, who plays an expatriate working for the railway, because of a misunderstanding. She joins a communist guerilla group plotting to blow up the Manchurian railway. Learning of the subterfuge that led to the misunderstanding, she renews her faith in Hasegawa—and by extension Japan—and tries to undermine the plot.
