Masakazu Kuwayama

Taking its title from an archaic Japanese word meaning "ghost story," this anthology adapts four folk tales. A penniless samurai marries for money with tragic results. A man stranded in a blizzard is saved by Yuki the Snow Maiden, but his rescue comes at a cost. Blind musician Hoichi is forced to perform for an audience of ghosts. An author relates the story of a samurai who sees another warrior's reflection in his teacup.

A woman, Tome, is born to a lower class family in Japan in 1918. The title refers to an insect, repeating its mistakes, as in an infinite circle. Imamura, with this metaphor, introduces the life of Tome, who keeps trying to change her poor life.

Sawaki is released from prison after serving eight years for murdering a rival gang leader in order to obtain the land rights to a landfill for the Kotaki clan and he discovers that the world has changed significantly in that time. The police have forced the disbanding of all yakuza groups in and around Tokyo and most of the former yakuza have moved on to legitimate jobs. Sawaki is disgusted that his yakuza brothers have abandoned their codes of honor and are abusing their newfound power in the legitimate business world to exploit the poor. Sawaki feels partly responsible for making them so powerful and enabling their corruption, so he decides to follow his traditional code of honor to save the residents of a small town where his former lover lives.

No overview available.

Based on a 1956 television feature on Japan’s national network, NHK, this is one of Uchida’s rarest films. A socially conscious drama with a contemporary backdrop, Dotanba focuses on the attempts to rescue a group of trapped miners. The title is a figure of speech — (essentially “last minute” or “eleventh hour”) — that refers to a situation of peril. The film boasts a script co-written by Uchida and Akira Kurosawa’s frequent screenwriter, Shinobu Hashimoto, and stars Kurosawa’s frequent star Takashi Shimura.

Lonely youth Shinji meets Hatsue, a pretty pearl diver, on the beach and the two fall in love. But Shinji has a rival for Hatsue's affections, Yasuo. Yasuo spreads unpleasant gossip about his rival, and Hatsue's father forbids her to see Shinji. But when the boy saves the passengers on a boat owned by Hatsue's father, his luck in love begins to change.

One day, Yumiko, an office worker, is called in by the managing director. Having been holding in her urge to urinate, she is ordered by the managing director to relieve herself in front of him, and embarrassed, she urinates into a vase. Later, when section chief Suzuki invites Yumiko on a drive, he takes her virginity that same day, awakening her to the pleasures of sex.

Okoto is blind since childhood. Her young servant Sasuke is in love of her. One day Koto is badly scarred on her face. In order to preserve the memory of her once beautiful face, Sasuke takes away his own sight.

A woman named Chieko Kuwano is hired as an assistant manager at a large corporate office in Japan. She’s smart, sexy, and willing to do almost anything for her sex-starved new boss but, since he’s married, his deviant behavior makes her uncomfortable. Fed up with the boss and his perverted ways, the ladies in the building band together to enact their own special kind of revenge… that is, after they have a lesbian three-way slumber party, of course!

Expelled from her group for losing her virginity, blind travelling musician Orin endures a life of hardship, abuse, and poverty while wandering the countryside, finding brief companionship with an army deserter, and struggling against a society that marginalises her.

Rokurō starts a part-time job on a fishing boat, but the ship has an engine failure in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Love story of a working-class boy and girl.

No overview available.