Shigeo Katô

The Corporation

The story of an orphan girl, brought up in naive, rustic innocence by an elderly relative, who is suddenly exposed to the brutality, greed and deceptiveness of the outside world when her grandmother dies.

Suicide has long been used as a form of social protest in Japan. In this film, set in 1703, samurai culture is being transformed by the emergence of a new merchant class. Elements of the social contract are beginning to unravel, and some unscrupulous people took undue advantage of these changes before the social order was re-created. In this story, a rich merchant gives his clerk an I.O.U. instead of wages. When the impoverished clerk presents the paper to the merchant at the agreed upon time asking for payment, the man flies into a rage and pretends he never wrote it and claims the clerk is trying to defraud him. Then he sets his henchmen on the clerk to administer a beating.

Youth suspense movie.

It is based on the story "The Lawyer" by attorney Hiroshi Masaki and his account of Japan's "Headless Murder Case" in which a police officer beat a suspect to death during the Pacific War.

A mailman becomes obsessed with a pretty, young wife. He captures the woman, tortures her and keeps her in his basement dungeon where she becomes his private sex toy.

A young man goes missing after visiting his girlfriend's isolated country home. His sister and her boyfriend trace him to the creepy mansion, but their search becomes perilous when they uncover a gruesome family history.

Ushinosuke returns to Tokyo with new ambitions. Fourth and final part of the film adaptation of Bunroku Shishi’s novel, Oban.

When a space probe crash-lands on a far-flung Pacific atoll, the craft's alien stowaways decide to take over their new world one creature at a time. Soon, the parasitic life forms latch onto three indigenous critters -- a squid, a crab and a snapping turtle -- and transform them into colossal mutant monsters.

Based on the life of Hyakken Uchida, a Japanese author and academic. The film opens with Uchida resigning his job as a German professor at the onset of WWII. The story is told mostly in vignettes as he is cared for by former students in his old age.

A timid salaryman is the subject of this black comedy.

Originally released in Japan as "The Return of Godzilla" in 1984, this is the heavily re-edited, re-titled "Godzilla 1985". Adding in new footage of Raymond Burr, this 16th Godzilla film ignores all previous sequels and serves as a direct follow-up to the 1956 "Godzilla King of the Monsters", which also featured scenes with Burr edited into 1954's "Godzilla". This film restores the darker tone of the original, as we witness the nuclear destruction of giant lizard terrorizing Japan.

After a fishing boat is attacked, the sole surviving crew member realizes it is none other than a resurrected Godzilla. However, efforts to bring the story to light are suppressed by the Japanese government amid growing political tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, who are both willing to bomb Japan to stop the monster.

Tai Kato’s early 20th century set yakuza epic about an ordinary merchant girl (Hiroko Maki) who crosses paths with an assassin (Tetsuya Watari). The encounter sends her to jail as a suspected accomplice. Years later she marries a yakuza boss, whose gang is affiliated with working class people.

A young couple, composed by a cheating wife and a retired car racer, arrive at a drive-in. A man with a gun arrives at the restaurant and takes hostages. Chaos ensues in director's Kiyoshi Nishimura's debut film, almost totally filmed in one space.

A young girl suffers a terrifying nightmare of a vampire with blazing golden eyes. Eighteen years later, it is revealed to be a hellish prophecy when a strange package containing an empty coffin mysteriously turns up at a nearby lake.

Struggling to elevate himself from his low caste in 17th century Japan, Miyamoto trains to become a mighty samurai warrior.

An Ishiro Honda film.

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 combat what once was the military band. Kosugi must somehow prepare his inept soldiers for the rigors of combat.

An Ishiro Honda film.

Three competing parties all race against time to track down an elusive creature known only as the Snowman.

Nuclear tests create a radioactive man who can turn people into slime.

The story centers on an elderly hibakusha, whose husband was one of 80,000 human beings killed in the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki, caring for her four grandchildren over the summer. She learns of a long-lost brother, Suzujiro, living in Hawaii who wants her to visit him before he dies.

Based on the novel of the same name by Seichô Matsumoto.

Following the Second World War, the lives of various people in a poverty-stricken area of Tokyo are entertwined. Pachinko parlor girls, shoeshine boys, a maker of costume jewelry, and a streetcorner artist all struggle to make their livings and to find happiness in difficult surroundings.

Ushinosuke returns broke to his hometown, where everyone believes he's rich and successful. Part two (of four) of the film adaptation of Bunroku Shishi's novel, Oban.

Older, wiser but still a wandering loner, the blind, peace-loving masseur Ichi seeks a peaceful life in a rural village. When he's caught in the middle of a power struggle between two rival Yakuza clans, his reputation as a deadly defender of the innocent is put to the ultimate test in a series of sword-slashing showdowns.

A young country boy leaves his village for Tokyo, where he begins to work as a stock trader. First part (of four) of the film adaptation of Bunroku Shishi's novel, Oban.

In 1965, the space station JSS-3 is destroyed by a fleet of UFOs, which then begin a global siege on Earth, using rays to manipulate gravity and control the minds of men. In response, a global council meeting is held to determine the source of the attacks and prepare a rocket ship armada for a counter-attack, a true battle in outer space. . . The film is a sequel of sorts to Toho's THE MYSTERIANS in the reprise of the Etsuko Shiraishi character of that film as its heroine. It was edited to 74 minutes for its American release.

The film deals with the recruitment of race car driver Jiro Miki (Masao Kusakari) and his dog, Caesar, to a group of people who use ESP, psychokinesis, and other special mental abilities to fight crime.

Towards the end of World War II, five men are tasked with freeing the son of a general from Chinese captivity.

A detective goes out of his way to crack the case of a serial killer who specialises in murdering police officers.

Shipwreck survivors found on the presumably uninhabited Infant Island leads to a scientific expedition that discovers a surviving native population along with the Shobijin, tiny twin fairy priestesses of the island's mythical deity called Mothra. After the fairies are kidnapped by an exploitative businessman named Clark Nelson, Mothra sets out to rescue them.

A collection of magical tales based upon the actual dreams of director Akira Kurosawa.

A lavish retelling of the true story of the final voyage and ultimate destruction and sinking of the battleship Yamato, Japan's greatest flagship during the Second World War.

Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.

A group of friends try to find success in corporate Japan.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, a brilliant tactician, is a loyal subject of the emperor, despite his grave misgivings about leading Japan's navy into war with the United States. He opposes the attack on Pearl Harbor, but, overruled, he leads his forces to the best of his ability.

In 1976, a drifting star named Gorath is discovered to be on a collision course with Earth. Although it is smaller than Earth, its enormous mass is enough to destroy the planet totally. A mission sent to observe Gorath is destroyed after the ship is drawn into the star, with a later mission barely escaping the same fate. However, Astronaut Tatsuma Kanai is left in a catatonic state due to his near death experience. Unable to destroy the invading star, Earth's scientists undertake a desperate plan to build giant rockets at the South Pole to move the planet out of Gorath's path before it is too late.

A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food.

As supernatural events and monster attacks rock Japan, the military and government look to be overwhelmed. Three intrepid young investigators—two pilots and a reporter—take it upon themselves to study these unexplained phenomena in order to inform and protect the public. With allies and science aiding them on their journey, the trio must separate myth from history as they explore the greater mysteries of these occurrences: are they unrelated, or is this barrage somehow a portent of even worse things to come?