Movies: Kihachi Okamoto

A pair of down-on-their-luck swordsmen arrive in a dusty, windblown town, where they become involved in a local clan dispute. One, previously a farmer, longs to become a noble samurai. The other, a former samurai haunted by his past, prefers living a...

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

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 seeks out his brother's killer....

Japan, 1860. The men of the Mito clan, victims of the Ansei purge, anxiously prowl around the Sakurada Gate of Edo Castle with the intention of assassinating Naosuke Ii of Hikone, tairō of the Tokugawa shogunate and responsible for their misfortune....

A brave, highly principled warrior resigns his post as a body guard to the head of a powerful clan after he learns that his employers have been smuggling arms to the enemy. The remaining samurai try in vain to coerce him back, but their efforts are t...

The Blue Pearl depicts the interplay between a young man from Tokyo and two ama (pearl divers; literally “women of the sea”) in a superstitious coastal town. Though raised within the same tradition-bound crucible, the two women – Noe and Riu – are po...

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 the favor of a notorious arms dealer....

A modern love story involving different affairs....

A disgraced warrior planning the murder of a Japanese diplomat, and a ninja in the employ of a navy official are about to land in San Francisco when a band of thieves steal the money the diplomats are carrying. The two set off on a chase across the A...

A young couple lives together in a small apartment and struggles to keep their relationship together, despite inertia and financial hardship. Based on the comic Red Colored Elegy by Seiichi Hayashi....

After the war-time government orders the disbanding of the Big-Six baseball league, the teams of Waseda and Keio universities play one final game before they are drafted into the armed forces and face the hardships of military service....

A salaryman's drunken ravings in public attract the attention of journalists who coerce him into telling them his life's story....

A young teen's father dies, and he is sent to an orphanage. He's teased because he stutters almost runs away, until a beautiful, androgynous boy, Yasuo (Sora Toma), convinces him to join the choir....

Ryuta and Mineo Komatsu are brothers, both yakuza (gangsters). Mineo, although complicit in crime, even murder, wants out of the gangster life, hoping to become a successful singer instead. Ryuta loves his brother, but Mineo's possible defection pres...

Japanese police detective Saburo Fujioka is suspected of corruption, demoted, and sent to the city of Kojin. Kojin is the scene of fierce fighting between rival gangs. Fujioka is assigned to investigate the death of the wife of gangster Tetsuo Maruya...

Yuzo Kayama plays the protagonist, a whale-hunting cannon manufactuing supervisor, whose brother is an automobile tester for Komatsu Motors which has a fatal accident. As his brother investigates the "Accident" with his old college friend (makoto Sat...

Based on the novel of the same name by Hisashi Inoue....

A nerdy young college instructor named Shinji Kikyo returns home one day to find himself the target of a mad assassin. Surviving somewhat miraculously, he fends off other assassins and with the help of reporter Keiko Tsurumaki and car mechanic Bill O...

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 Communist China to bring back the flag of a defeated enemy regiment....

Charged with insubordination for punching a superior, Sergeant Kosugi is shipped to China in the last desperate days of the Second World War. His commander, Captain Sakuma, is vicious and dictatorial. Sakuma places Kosugi in charge of training for co...