Setsuko Shinobu

A spirited young teacher challenges the conservative school employing her with liberal thinking and teaching methods.

Mikio Naruse’s final silent film is a gloriously rich portrait of a waitress, Sugiko, whose life, despite a host of male admirers and even some intrigued movie talent scouts, ends up taking a suffocatingly domestic turn after a wealthy businessman accidentally hits her with his car.

Yuki is a young, single mother supporting herself and her son, Haru, with a job as a bar hostess.

The story is centered around the devastating experiences of two villagers, Osaki Shuichi, and his cousin, Nishimiura Kinue, when they leave their hometown for the metropolis of Tokyo. They are in love with each other, but Kinue is expected to marry the lawyer Kanda Seiji. In consequence, Shukichi leaves for Tokyo, where he becomes tutor to the son of the rick Iwaki family. The heartbroken Kinue also makes her way to the capital, where she becomes a bar hostess.

This pair of gentle yet witty and inventive comedies from the director of The Neighbour's Wife and Mine typify both the formal experimentation of early Japanese sound cinema and the social milieux that Shochiku tended to depict. 'Virtually plotless, and feeling more like comic sketches than fully developed stories,' writes Arthur Nolletti, Jr, 'these light comedies, or farces, take a wholly trivial matter (often a socially embarrassing situation) and use it as a springboard for a succession of gags.' Much of the films' distinction comes from the wit of Gosho's direction, the imaginative use of the new sound technology and the charm of the acting, particularly of the heroines (Kinuyo Tanaka in Bride; Hiroko Kawasaki in Groom). Yet in both films, Gosho finds room for some shrewd observation of character and environment, subtly exploring the values and assumptions of the suburban petit bourgeoisie.

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)

Movie about a devoted and single woman and her daughter. The mother's nickname is "Bokuseki" (wooden head) because of his supposed stubbornness. No.10 in the list of "The 10 best films of 1940" by Kinema Junpo.

Three men fall in love with the same young girl who works in a tonkatsu restaurant in the Shitamachi district of Tokyo.

The eldest daughter of a noble family is in love with an aviator while being courted by a fellow aristocrat she thinks is a dullard. This part is told from the perspective of Akemi.

After the death of her husband, an elderly woman and her youngest, unmarried daughter are forced to sell their house to cover his debts and decide to move in with one of the former's children, each of whom is scarcely happy to accommodate.

A young doctor, Kozo Tsumura, falls for young nurse Katsue Takaishi. But she's got a secret: she's a widow with a son. Kozo and Katsue decide to run away to Kyoto, but her child suddenly became sick and she just missed the train and Kozo. She makes it to Kyoto finally, but is unable to meet him. Plus she isn't accepted into Kyoto society. She goes back to her hometown and tries to forget him. She quits the hospital to concentrate on her singing. She makes her professional debut with the hit "Aizen Katsura". Kozo is in the audience.

Izu no musumetachi

Adaptation of Kishida Kunio's novel. Set against the backdrop of a power struggle within a hospital, depicts the love lives of the director's daughter, the administrative director, a doctor, and a nurse.

The events of the film are based on the real facts of the Pacific War, when in June 1944 the American troops began landing on the Saipan island. On July 7, an order comes that everyone must die in order not to be captured by the enemy.

A 1937 Japanese film.

Weed with Flowers

In Depression-era Japan, a courteous bus driver carries an eclectic group of passengers from the mountainous Izu to Tokyo.

Inoue was something of a rarity in the sense, that he was a Shochiku house director who seems to have worked mostly in period films, often with big stars like Hasegawa or Bando. "Sumidagawa", named after the river that runs through Tokyo, is also a period film, but thematically a modern one. All the themes that you associate with the normal Shochiku women's films set in the present day are in this film, just in a different context: love, the planning of a marriage, career, family relations and societal melancholy. There is no action or swordplay.

Pretty Oshige is deceived by her first love. After this, she lives a hard lifestyle, working at a number of jobs. Her only pleasure is her nephew, who eventually becomes a merchant marine. When Oshige meets her old love ten years later, she is able to forgive him and even thank him for the path her life has taken.

1939 Japanese movie

A reformatory in the remote countryside houses 200 delinquents and problem children. The teachers and caretakers face much trouble. The school is often short on water, and one day, the well runs dry.

A period piece about the love of a wealthy blind woman, a teacher of koto and shamisen, and her devoted manservant. Based on a novella by Tanizaki Junichiro.