Kinuyo Tanaka Archives

Sandakan No. 8

A young journalist interviews an elderly woman about being forced into prostitution in Borneo at a brothel called Sandakan No. 8.

NR

7.6

1974 Drama 120 min Play

6.9

Alone on the Pacific

Kenichi Horie is determined to challenge his family, the law and the nature crossing the Pacific to America in a small sailboat. Despite his careful planning many unforeseen events will test his determination.

NR

6.9

1963 Adventure 97 min Play

5.5

The Fencing Master

The Fencing Master tells the story of a man trying to survive as the only world he knows is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Danpei Ichikawa lives for swordfighting – he was once a renowned kabuki swordfight choreographer, and as the Chairman of the New National Theatre Company, he wants nothing more than to choreograph the swordfights for the modern plays put on by the company.

NR

5.5

1962 Action 86 min Play

7.6

The Ballad of Narayama

In Kabuki style, the film tells the story of a remote mountain village where the scarcity of food leads to a voluntary but socially-enforced policy in which relatives carry 70-year-old family members up Narayama mountain to die. Granny Orin is approaching 70, content to embrace her fate. Her widowed son Tatsuhei cannot bear losing his mother, even as she arranges his marriage to a widow his age. Her grandson Kesa, who's girlfriend is pregnant, is selfishly happy to see Orin die. Around ...

NR

7.6

1958 Drama 98 min Play

7.6

Equinox Flower

Later in his career, Ozu started becoming increasingly sympathetic with the younger generation, a shift that was cemented in Equinox Flower, his gorgeously detailed first color film, about an old-fashioned father and his newfangled daughter.

NR

7.6

1958 Comedy 118 min Play

5.5

Yellow Crow

In this Golden Globe winner for Best Foreign-Language Film, director Heinosuke Gosho -- a master chronicler of Japanese middle-class life -- presents the story of Kiyoshi Yoshida (Koji Shitara), who feels estranged from both parents after his father returns from war. How the boy adapts to life with the virtual stranger his father has become is the film's focus. Chikage Awashima, Yûnosuke Itô and Yoshiko Kuga also star.

NR

5.5

1957 Drama 104 min Play

7

Flowing

Otsuta is running the geisha house Tsuta in Tokyo. Her business is heavily in debt. Her daughter Katsuyo doesn't see any future in her mothers trade in the late days of Geisha. But Otsuta will not give up. This film portraits the day time life of geisha when not entertaining customers.

NR

7

1956 Drama 117 min Play

7.7

Woman of Rumor

Yukiko's fiance learns her mother runs a geisha house and ends their engagement. She despises what her mother does until one of her clients shows interest and starts to woo her.

NR

7.7

1954 Drama 83 min Play

8.3

Sansho the Bailiff

In medieval Japan a compassionate governor is sent into exile. His wife and children try to join him, but are separated, and the children grow up amid suffering and oppression.

NR

8.3

1954 Drama 124 min Play

8.1

Ugetsu

In 16th century Japan, peasants Genjuro and Tobei sell their earthenware pots to a group of soldiers in a nearby village, in defiance of a local sage's warning against seeking to profit from warfare. Genjuro's pursuit of both riches and the mysterious Lady Wakasa, as well as Tobei's desire to become a samurai, run the risk of destroying both themselves and their wives, Miyagi and Ohama.

NR

8.1

1953 Drama 96 min Play

6.6

Mother

A teenaged girl witnesses her widowed mother's attempt to sustain her family.

NR

6.6

1952 Drama 98 min Play

7.9

The Life of Oharu

Follows a woman's fight and survival amid the vicissitudes of life and the cruelty of the society.

NR

7.9

1952 Drama 136 min Play

5.6

Ginza Cosmetics

Italy is usually cited as the anchor of the neo-realist movement in cinema, but Mikio Naruse's Ginza Cosmetics (1951) is a reminder that Japan had its own output equally rooted in realism. Set in Tokyo's Ginza district, this low-key, lyrical unassuming account of a few days in the life of a luckless geisha (Kinuyo Tanaka), as she struggles to make a living for herself and her young son, has few dramatic highs or artificial moments, but possesses a startlingly vivid power in its ...

NR

5.6

1951 Drama 87 min Play

7.1

Miss Oyu

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 so that she can remain close to Shinnosuke.

NR

7.1

1951 Drama 94 min Play

6.9

The Munekata Sisters

Setsuko is unhappily to Mimura, an engineer with no job and a bad drinking habit. She had always been in love with Hiroshi but both of them failed to propose when Hiroshi left for France a few years ago. Now he is back and Mariko (Setsuko's sister) tries to reunite them. She too is secretly in love with Hiroshi.

NR

6.9

1950 Drama 112 min Play