Jun Arai

An aging geisha, whose angry teenage son is ashamed of her profession, works alongside a young geisha, resentful of her family for forcing her into a life of ignominy.

The film is a lengthy work interweaving characters from different backgrounds and social strata in a narrative centered around the experiences of its heroine, Yumie Sone. Over two hours long, Seven Seas was released theatrically in two parts, with the first part entitled "Virginity Chapter" coming out in December 1931, while the second part, "Chastity Chapter," followed in March 1932. Near the beginning of the narrative, at a garden party given by the wealthy Yagibashi family in Tokyo, Yumie meets Takehiko, the Yagibashis' playboy son and the brother of Yumie's fiancé, Yuzuru. Yumie, a young middle-class woman, lives with her ailing father, a retired ministry official, an older sister, and a younger sister still a child (played by a very young Hideko Takamine). Takehiko, who has just returned from a trip to Europe, is attracted to Yumie and contrives to have her stay overnight at his family's mansion where he takes advantage of her.

Toshie, a young, conservative secretary-typist has fallen in love with Shozo Narita, a young man she has met through her work.

Otoku asks her brother Bunkichi to speak with her son Seiichi, a young man for whom sacrificed everything but who now seems to be headed for a wastrel life. Bunkichi admonishes the boy to study harder, but it seems his uncle's advice may already be too late.

Family drama. A middle-aged father has just married off his third daughter, but still has his nine year old son to raise whom he resents as he was unwanted. (British Film Institute)

A Japanese short film, the earliest extant film of the great director Hiroshi Shimizu.

Episode in the life of a composer of a popular Japanese song.

Part two of Shimizu's major silent Seven Seas, a family drama of the intertwining fates of the rich, decadent Yagibashis and the far less prosperous Sone family.

Directed by Eizo Tanaka. Only 8 minutes of film is known to have survived.

Heinosuke Gosho evokes in this film the family conflicts engendered by the eternal problem of a father who projects his professional desires on the life of his son. The sister Machiko is the essential link that will allow everyone to apologize to each other and achieve reconciliation

In Depression-era Tokyo, the life of a single mother and her young son are disrupted by the return of her ex-husband, who fathered the child and walked out on her years earlier.

"The Dancing Girl of Izu" tells of the story between a young male student who is touring the Izu Peninsula and a family of traveling dancers he meets there, including their youngest girl. The student finds the naïve girl attractive even though he eventually has to part with the family after spending memorable time together.

Reijin

A man who works late hours at a deadening job lives together with his wife and his younger sister. The younger sister's a modern girl who's starting to receive romantic attention from one of her co-workers.

A musical film made for the inauguration of Shochiku's Ofuna Studio, with an all-star cast of the era.

This 1932 adaptation is the earliest sound version of the ever-popular and much-filmed Chushingura story of the loyal 47 retainers who avenged their feudal lord after he was obliged to commit hara-kiri due to the machinations of a villainous courtier. As the first sound version of the classic narrative, the film was something of an event, and employed a stellar cast, who give a roster of memorable performances. Director Teinosuke Kinugasa was primarily a specialist in jidai-geki (period films), such as the internationally celebrated Gate of Hell (Jigokumon, 1953), and although he is now most famous as the maker of the avant-garde silent films A Page of Madness (Kurutta ichipeji, 1926) and Crossroads (Jujiro, 1928), Chushingura is in fact more typical of his output than those experimental works. The film ranked third in that year’s Kinema Junpo critics’ poll, and Joseph Anderson and Donald Richie noted that 'not only the sound but the quick cutting was admired by many critics.

Living Things a film by Heinosuke Gosho

Chûshingura - Zempen: Akahokyô no maki

Directed by Mikio Naruse. It is presumed to be lost.

Karabotan

The Village Bride

The Life of Workers in the Big City

The three-hour Ai yo jinrui to tomo ni are / Love, Be with Humanity (1931) starts as a satire of alienation in the world of money, develops into a lumberland epic with a forest fire on Sakhalin Island, turns into a tragedy of King Lear dimensions, and manages to amaze the blasé audience with a happy end in the Wild West.

Akatsuki

Futari shizuka

Directed by Mikio Naruse. It is presumed to be lost.

Directed by Mikio Naruse. It is presumed to be lost.