Shin Saburi

A woman and her daughter are each forced to contend with an increasing pressure to marry, particularly from three men who knew her late husband.

Shuhei Horikawa, a poor schoolteacher, struggles to raise his son Ryohei by himself, despite neither money nor prospects.

Wataru Hirayama's outwardly liberal views on marriage are severely tested when his daughter declares that she is in love with a musician and is adamant to live life her own way, instead of agreeing to an arranged marriage. Outwitted by his female relatives, Hirayama stubbornly refuses to admit defeat.

A Japanese wartime film directed by Yasushi Sasaki.

The arranged marriage between a capricious woman from Tokyo high society and a quiet and rustic man is tested by a marital crisis.

1939 Japanese movie

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 starts working at a mental hospital in the Yokohama region and falls in love with one of the patients there.

The movie depicts the strength and resilience of a woman who spent her entire life as a merchant in Semba, Osaka.

Divorce

Two detectives are tasked to investigate the murder of an old man, found bludgeoned to death in a Tokyo rail yard.

Based on the novel by Yoshie Hotta

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.

The narrative is about a woman who faces hard times, when her husband is arrested for a crime committed by his boss. The woman also has a child to look after, and they end up meeting several colorful personalities.

Sabu Toshinobu is an archaeologist who has taken a liking to Kinuyo Tanaka, the daughter of an archaeologist at an inn in Izu, where he is visiting to conduct an excavation. Sabun gets along well with his childhood friend Michiko Kuwano, but his mother (Fumiko Okamura) is against her, so he gives up easily and ends up being married to Kinuyo Tanaka.

Sabu Toshinobu is an archaeologist who has taken a liking to Kinuyo Tanaka, the daughter of an archaeologist at an inn in Izu, where he is visiting to conduct an excavation. Sabun gets along well with his childhood friend Michiko Kuwano, but his mother (Fumiko Okamura) is against her, so he gives up easily and ends up being married to Kinuyo Tanaka.

Based on the original work by Fumiko Hayashi, this is a story about a woman and two men. The lust is restrained and indifferent. The story even has an elegance to it, which is the charm of the 30 year old Kinuyo Tanaka. There was a time when Tanaka was adorable... Shin Saburi was young and Chishu Ryu was young too. It is a promise of melodrama that the rival or friend is prettier than the heroine Kinyo.

Hana wa itsuwarazu (1941) is the second directorial work by Shochiku's Oba Hideo. Oba had previously worked as an assistant director to Shimizu Hiroshi and penned films for Shimazu Yasujiro. In this early effort, he is not stylistically very far from either, but then again all Shochiku directors resemble each other to a point. The film is an everyday romance for younger audiences, full of clean, ideal human beings.

Amusing masterpiece from director Yoshimura Kazusabu divided in two parts taken from the newspaper serial novel of Shishiko Shishi. Like in "Warm Current", Shin Saburi, Mieko Takamine and Mitsuko Mito are appearing, but this is a fresh comedy very unusual for wartime.

Three men vying for the same job end up chasing the same girl in this comedy-drama from noted Japanese director Yasujiro Shimazu.

A group of female doctors travel to a remote village during their summer holiday to offer free medical care to villagers. There they must battle prejudice and superstition as much as disease.

Wakaki sugata

Though a farmer and his fellow villagers in this Japanese film resist the effort to turn the unspoiled region in which they live into a land development, they are ultimately unsuccessful.

Living in a house that has lost its man to the war a year earlier are the widow and her child. Four of the dead man's friends gather to have an anniversary wake. Some time following the ceremony one of the attendees marries the widow. Soon another friend of the deceased and his family also make the house their home when they move to town. Everyone's life is changed quite a bit. When the newer husband sustains an injury to his leg and loses his job it leads to the wife having to work. By the time the fifth anniversary of the friend's death occurs and another reunion is held another friend is in love with the former widow.

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.

Fossilized Wilderness

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.

Minamimura, who had always wanted to be free, suddenly quits his job. His hardworking wife is surprised and angry, and throws him out of the house. Confused by his sudden freedom, Iosuke ends up living as a vagrant under a bridge. His wife, Komako, also finds herself freed and is unable to ignore her confusion.

A botanist woos the secretary of an industrialist whose company threatens the local water supply.

Tozai Electric president Minamoto (Yanagi) is about to be pursued by the public prosecutor's office and tries to bribe Manabe (Saburi), the man in charge, but fails. His daughter Naeko (Takamine) finds out and takes on the role herself. This is a love romance adapted from an original story by Seiichi Funabashi that appeared in the magazine "Romance.”

Our Planes Fly South

A young lawyer falls in love with the daughter of his former professor, whom he's hired to tutor his children.

Miyake has a boyfriend, Daijiro Natsukawa, who is a novelist, but considering her future marriage, Miyake is also looking for a job for her, but Saburi, who was in her private car, does not come to his company. mosquito? She is told that she has to work.

Set in the post-World War II climate of the 1960s in Kobe, the movie explores the struggle for power within the powerful Manpyo family.

A very beautiful Japanese woman is in love with Persian carpets. She is being chased by lecherous Saburi Shin and a handsome young photographer. Lecherous Saburi Shin knows what she wants, and is able to produce it for her.

1945 Japanese movie

TV drama based off the play of the same name by Yukio Mishima.

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.

In this comic sequel to Yoshimura Kozaburo's original, Minami no Kaze, ex-baron (Saburi Shin) is in Singapore where he meets an old friend who proposes a scam to make some quick cash. It involved inventing the story that Saigo Takamori didn't actually die in the Satsuma Rebellion but escaped to Southeast Asia to start a new religion and in the process fathered a son who is now the founder. But when they bring the supposed heir and his aide to Japan, chaos ensues...

1961 Japanese movie

Taking the Chilean coup as an example, a group of young officers plan to overthrow the Japanese government on V-J Day. They aim to abolish the post-war constitution, restore the national army and revive the traditional spirit of Japan. As the conspiracy is exposed, the coup squadrons are wiped out one by one. The remaining squadron takes over a night train bound for Tokyo.

Genichiro Okugawa is appointed as the head of accounting in a feudal domain and travels with his servant Gonsuke to the country from Edo. Along the way, they are attacked by masked samurai on a mountain road. Genichiro is saved by Sukezaemon Tsuda, the supervisor of public works who was out hunting. Upon arriving in the domain, Genichiro is given a warm welcome by the vassals, who force him to drink heavily and find his subordinates to be rebellious. His proposed fiscal reforms are met with resistance, except by Tsuda who understands Genichiro's intentions. Genichiro marries Matsuo, the daughter of a senior councilor, but soon faces accusations of corruption.

Two childhood friends go their own ways but meet again some years later after they have both married. They get re-acquainted, meet each others’ families, and all is well. Then the disagreements start...

Story of a woman, Saiko, who divorces her doctor husband when she is given a baby by a stranger who claims it is the husband's child. Saiko embarks on an affair with her cousin's husband, but a crisis threatens when she discovers that her ex-husband is about to remarry.

A melodrama about a businessman's relations with the three women in his life.

A pair of blind masseurs, an enigmatic city woman, a lonely man and his ill-behaved nephew—The Masseurs and a Woman is made up of crisscrossing miniature studies of love and family at a remote resort in the mountains. With delicate and surprising humor, Hiroshi Shimizu paints a timeless portrait of loneliness and the human need to connect.

Japanese Warmovie

The Spy Has Not Died Yet

Nichijô no tatakai

The story of an airport and its air traffic control crew in a remote and northern Japanese town. Three of the air traffic controllers are female with one of them working with her dead fiancé's sister. The engaged man had gone to war and never returned.

Kanazawa in the Taisho era. A former junior high school student, Ichiro's family used to be a large landowner, but now they are living in poverty with his mother. His mother works hard to get her son through school. Under such circumstances, Ichiro meets Wakako, the daughter of a wealthy man, and they fall in love with each other, but they are opposed by those around them because of their different social status.

Kinuyo is a daughter of doctor of Chinese medicine, and Yasuo is a son of surgeon. Their families always fight like cat and dog. This relationship is ancestral. Although Kinuyo and Yasuo love each other, they have different thoughts toward treatments.

A penniless orphan loses the woman he loves, when her family arranges a marriage to a wealthy playboy. He believes she was blinded by greed, and becomes a miser.

The body of Sakai Hatsuko, a woman of 23 who has been slain with a knife, has been found in a forest. Some days later, Ueda Hiroshi, a 19-year-old shipyard worker, is arrested and charged with the murder. At Ueda's trial, a complex story unfolds.

Seisen aiba fu: Akatsuki ni inoru

Political fixer Homei Yamaoka's misdeeds come to light, throwing Japanese politics into deadly confusion. But he's not going down without a fight.

A businessman’s daughter falls in love with one of her father’s employees.

Story of a romance between a middle-aged journalist and a young woman.

A Chinese medical student named Gan Shosho finds himself cut off from his homeland as he is studying in Japan during the outbreak of the war. Despite his difficult circumstances, he finds love in the form of Sachiko and the two marry. They later travel to Nanjing to live a new life together where Sachiko and Shaochang cooperate with the Japanese-backed government. Their ultimate hope is to secure peace but their idealism is not enough to keep them together through brutal times and with the end of the war the two find themselves facing a divorce... --Osaka Asian Film Festival

A scruffy detective investigates the murders of three sisters on a small Japanese island in 1946.

Nami (波 Nami) is a Japanese film directed by Noboru Nakamura. It was entered into the 1952 Cannes Film Festival.

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

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

The three-film saga comes to a conclusion as three leaders of the underworld battle it out to determine who will become Don of Japan.

The story tells of Tsuchiya, a university professor and a widower who is in love with a widow who runs a small restaurant, and his son is in love with a runaway girl who turns out to be the leader of a religious sect. Kusano is the henpecked proprietor of a rice biscuit shop who dreams of owning a bird and dog shop and his daughter is in love with a boarder, employed by the private detective agency searching for the runaway girl. The agency head has his own dream of arranging thirty marriages and has already accomplished twenty-seven. Tatsumi is a newspaper reporter who dreams of a big scoop to enable him to marry a girl TV producer and his friend a mountain climbing enthusiast who dreams of joining a Himalayan expedition but is opposed by his wife. His love of the mountains is shared by a boarder in their home and by a fishmonger's son.

Though plagued by ill health all his life, a young Japanese man is obligated to fulfill his family's longstanding military tradition.

An industrialist is diagnosed with terminal cancer. He is on a trip to Europe at the time, and a glimpse of a Japanese woman in that setting causes him to fantasize about her as the personification of his impending death. As his dialogue with his imagined mortality continues, he actually meets the living woman who is the template for his fantasy, and together they tour rural churches. Gradually he comes to some kind of peace about the diagnosis. When he returns to Japan, he is met with a series of challenges which profoundly test the lessons he has learned.

A young Japanese-American man arrives at his grandmother's old hometown in Yamaguchi, begins to stay at her family's elite but dysfunctional household, and gets entangled in a sinister plot of murder.

A movie adaptation of Funayama Kaoru's novel of the same name, which depicts the story of a modern youth who is attracted to the evil path. Saburi Shin, a well-known actor who also demonstrated his skill as a director in a bold social work, embodies a person with a complicated dilemma in a shadowy manner, and is a dramatic work that plays a part in the lead role.

Comedy drama by Kon Ichikawa

A tragic love story between a prostitute and a young trainee monk.

Famous detective Kosuke Kindaichi follows a dying man's words to an enigmatic island, where he meets beautiful twin sisters and tragic events unfold.

A selfish playboy uses rich women to pay off his debts. Divorcing his wife and marrying the woman he loves throws him into a spiral of destruction.

Dôkoku

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.

An ambitious Kansai yakuza don moves in on Tokyo using financial and political tactics, sparking conflict with a local criminal association.

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 inventor of a ground-breaking glue, Sanada, becomes rich thanks to his discovery a high executive in his company. Because of this promotion, his world is changing completely : his wife behaves like never before, considering she's now rich and has the right to do whatever she wants, even having an affair. (Also occasionally known in English as “Overflow”)

A large earthquake hits Tokyo, which was predicted by a seismologist but was ignored.

Part one of Shin Saburi's Theater of Life adaptation.

Part two of Shin Saburi's Theater of Life adaptation.

A yakuza leader must balance his violent tactics necessary for the rough streets of 1960s Tokyo with the domestic needs of his daughters.

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. Told from the perspective of Ryota. In this second part, we learn that Akemi is pregnant...

Masahiko Koseki, a judo master, gets in several fights as a result of protecting a young woman. Despite his success, Koseki is expelled from his judo school because of his propensity for street fighting. He goes to work for a gangster named Joji, but when he realizes that Joji is mixed up in the slave trade, Koseki helps the police in their attempts to foil Joji.

Television production of I Want to Be a Shellfish. On a post-war peaceful day in Japan, Toyomatsu Shimizu, a barber as well as a good father and husband, is suddenly arrested by the Prefectural Police as a war criminal and sued for murder. According to the accusation by GHQ, Toyomatsu "attemped to kill a US prisoner", which was nothing but an order by his superior and failed after all with hurting the prisoner by weak Toyomatsu. Also, Toyomatsu was driven to corner at the trial by the fact that he fed the US prisoner some burdock roots to nourish him. Toyomatsu believes nothing but being not guilty, but he is sentenced to death by hanging. Prior to the execution, Toyomatsu writes a long farewell letter to his family, the wife and the only son: "If I ever incarnate, I hate to be a human being any more.... Oh yes, I would like to be...a shellfish living on the rock-bottom of the sea."

In the movies of those times, you can see young boys in the company scene often. Those boys were called kyuji (給仕), which means “waiter” literally. They are doing odd jobs in the company including serving tea, ushering visitors, buying tobacco, etc. Ordering lunch for the individual requests was also an important job. Those boys were hired often as soon as they graduated from elementary school.

娘十八嘘つき時代

The Stormy Era of Twenty Years

Probation

A former naval officer returns to Japan after the Second World War ends, encounters the former mistress who ratted him out, and reconnects with his daughter.

The movie follows a young woman (Kinuyo Tanaka), a daughter of a high-ranking businessman and his neglected mistress, as she struggles to ease her mother's loneliness, while also having an affair with her father's subordinate.

Kinuyo is a daughter of rice cracker shop in downtown. She fell in love with her sister's boyfriend. It is a story whose theme is warm human relationships in a town of customs and manners.

Aa seishun 1951

Weed with Flowers

Dawn Chorus

Japanese propaganda film about the Normanton Incident.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto leads the Combined Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy to defeat the American Fleet.

First Love Questions and Answers

Thirst

The 8th NHK Asadora. Starring Yumiko Fujita in a family drama. The first Asadora filmed in color.

The 3rd NHK Asadora. Starring Shin Saburi as a professor who quits the university to become a painter.

Kuniko Mukōda's masterpiece, a poignant and subtle portrait of the jealousy and suspicion that secretly swirl behind seemingly peaceful family relationships.