Kaneto Shindô

One woman searches for the truth about her husband's death in World War II.

In Okayama in the mid-1930s, Kiroku attends high school and boards with a Catholic family whose daughter, Michiko, captures his heart. (imdb)

A documentary film on the life and works of director Kenji Mizoguchi.

After enlisting as a volunteer in a war in 14th century Japan, his wife and mother remain living in a swamp... (imdb)

In this 14th installment of the series, our reluctant warrior, Zatoichi (Katsu), is ambushed by a gang of bandits, and is forced to kill a young man in self-defense. In an odd quirk of fate, Zatoichi meets his victim's sister, Okichi (Yasuda), who attacks him in a fit of uncontrolled anger. Later, realizing that he had no choice in his actions, Okichi's conscience gets the better of her, and as she cares for Zatoichi's wounds, the two fall in love. (amazon)

The autobiographical story of a family struggling to come to grips with their memmories and affection of a lost mother. Filmed entirely in black and white. (CDJapan)

Sonoko, a bored housewife entering middle age, finds herself driven to steal a small trinket from a shop. She notices another woman watching her, however, and decides to follow the woman out of the store to explain herself... (imdb)

Deals with the intolerably hard life of a family of four, the only inhabitants of a very small Japanese island in the Setonaikai archipelago. (imdb)

A woman and her daughter are raped and murdered by soldiers during a time of civil war. Afterwards, a series of samurai returning from the war through that area are found mysteriously dead with their throats torn out. The governor calls in a wild and fierce young hero, to quell what is evidently a ghost. He encounters the two beautiful women, in an eery, beautiful scene. After spiritual purification, he meets the demon in a thrilling fight. (imdb)

Romance story about a Korean War veteran and his undying love for a beautiful Japanese nurse. (imdb)

Post war Hiroshima: It's been four years since the last time she visited her hometown. Takako faces the after effects of the A-bomb when she travels around the city to call on old friends. (imdb)

Director Masumura used a full palette of primary colors (with very vivid reds) to tell us about the story of Otsuya, a beautiful young woman from a middle-class merchant family who is abducted into geisha work, and who catches one day the eye of Seikichi, a tattoo master who marks her back with a huge, monstrous spider. From that moment on, Otsuya will take her revenge with every man who shared her bed. (IMDb)

Okane, a beautiful girl from a poor family, must serve as a mistress to a much older rich man. Upon the death of the man and her father, she returns to her village where she meets a young soldier, Seisaku. The locals despise them because of Okane's past, the young woman meets them with arrogance and haughty behavior. The two fall in love and marry against the spite of the whole village, but then Seisaku has to go to war against the Russians and their world falls apart... (imdb)

Yoko is a famous actress who goes to a mountain chalet for a few days rest. There, she learns a secret from her companion Toyoko. (imdb)

Attempting to capture a vital staging area for an invasion of the Japanese homeland, Allied forces launched a massive attack on the island of Okinawa in March of 1945. When the Japanese military fought back, the bloodiest battle in the Pacific Theater was underway.

Based on a novel by Kafu Nagai, this movie uses a short story of the same name, and at the same time infused it with real diary entries of Kafu's as well, making it seem like an amalgamation of his life and that pre-war story. Some however, have claimed that it's solely based on the novel, and the director Kaneto Shindo had changed the protagonist to the author himself. (imdb)

A woman's struggle for equality in Japan in the 1880s. Eiko Hirayama leaves Okayama for Tokyo, where she helps the fledgling Liberal Party and falls in love with its leader Kentaro Omoi, just as the party is being disbanded by the government. (imdb)

The true story about a dog's loyalty to its master, even after his death (imdb)

After Japan's loss in the war, the wealthy, cultured, liberal Anjo family have to give up their mansion and their way of life. They hold one last ball at the house before leaving. (imdb)

The world-famous woodblock artist Hokusai is a widower who lacks the ability to earn money, and he lives with his daughter Oei at the house of his friend, Bakin. Hokusai meets a woman called Onao and finds himself uncontrollably attracted to her, but she disappears all of a sudden. One day, an excited Oei brings home a young girl who looks exactly like Onao. Immediately, Hokusai starts to paint, using the young girl as a model.

A thriller set in contemporary Japan. (imdb)

A drama based on the true story of a college professor's bond with the abandoned dog he takes into his home. (imdb)

An abandoned temple in the mountains outside of the old capital city of Kyoto is the scene of a fated meeting between a traveling priest, two women, and a vicious killer, known thoughout Japan as "Mumyo no Taro". Bloody violence erupts whenever strangers approach the temple. Can the traveling priest bring his belief in the Buddha and rid the three temple residents of the devils that hold their souls?

The story of a troubled romance between a mechanic and a young, blind, upper class lady.

Set in a family apartment, an intrigue develops around some missing money as secrets are revealed.

Mieko Takamine is a former ballet star and current ballet teacher married to So Yamamura. The couple have a teen-aged son and daughter. Takamine's affections seem to be engaged by an old friend (Kan Nihonyanagi). Okada is now an advanced ballet student -- but is distracted by her mother's romance (which she is not entirely unsympathetic to) and the illness of her old teacher. (Michael Kerpan)

An orphan raised by a Samurai goes on a quest to find himself and discovers a way to bring samurai to their knees.

A socially committed film about the feudal state of many Japanese women in 1946. Hiroko Hosokawa, a female lawyer, defends Mrs. Asakura, who suffocated her child in her grief after her husband died penniless following an industrial accident. The prosecutor is Hiroko's sister's husband Kono, who also sent Hiroko's fiance, Yamaoka, to jail for his liberal views during the war. Yamaoka has just been freed, but is seriously ill from his time in prison. (imdb)

A group of thugs messes with the wrong girl when they kidnap and try to sell half-Japanese, half-American Rica's (Rika Aoki) all-girl gang members into sex slavery. The man-hating, hard-hearted and sexy Rica -- who has a tragic and violent past -- is ready to kick major butt in director Kô Nakahira's girl power-filled, Japanese exploitation flick from the 1970s. (Netflix)

Rica travels to Misawa to discover that one of her girls has ended up in an insane asylum, and its up to Rica to figure out the reasons why.

A yakuza gang is exploiting girls from a juvenile prison by forcing them to appear in pornographic films. It's up to Rica to stop them.

Towards the end of the war, one hundred middle-aged soldiers were sent to the frontline according to lots drawn by their superior officer. On the night of the lottery, a soldier, expecting to be killed in action, leaves a postcard from his wife with Keita Matsuyama. The card tells, "It is the festival today, but the air feels empty without your presence." The soldier asks Keita to let his wife know that he had read the postcard. (mubi.com)

In this Japanese melodrama, a young painter struggles in all things to remain true to his art and to his friends, a difficult task in a society where such a quest can lead to a truly disastrous individualism. In his case, in late 19th-century Japan, repression and death surround and follow him as his culture painfully adjusts to the changes sweeping through it. (allmovie.com)

It is the story of the ship Kaijin Maru, that is left adrift after losing all means of navigation in a storm, and the four people on it, becoming increasingly desperate as food and water run out.

The wife (Ayako Wakao) and mother (Hideko Takamine) of a nineteenth-century physician battle for his love in this extraordinary drama from the perennially underrated Yasuzo Masumura.

Early Kaneto Shindô post-war drama starring Nobuko Otowa and featuring stunning black and white cinematography with Shindô's beautiful use of deep focus to bring depth to the imagery. (KG)

When a married woman has an affair with a young musician, feudal Japanese law requires that both offenders pay with their lives. However, the woman's husband blames himself for his wife's straying and attempts to thwart the law demanding capital punishment. (imdb)

An ageing fishing boat, Dai-go Fukuryū Maru ("Lucky Dragon No. 5") sets out from the port of Yaizu in Shizuoka Prefecture. It travels around the Pacific, line fishing. While the ship is near Bikini Atoll, the ship's navigator sees a flash. All the crew come up to watch. They realize it is an atomic explosion, but take the time to clear their fishing gear. A short time later, grey ash starts to fall on the ship. By the time the ship returns to port, the sailors have been burned brown.

A mother leaves her husband and small village and travels to Kyoto with her teenage daughter. There they become part of the hostess industry tricking male clients out of their funds some of which is sent back to welfare bilking father.

Schoolgirl Kuniko is kidnapped by a middle-aged man Iwazono when she is jogging. He tells her that he had a failed marriage which leaves him a deep and everlasting scar in his mind. He kidnaps her in search of a perfect marriage and intends to lock her in the room and 'educate' her.

Set in the late 1950s, when geisha culture was threatened by moral crusades, it tells the story of Omacha (Miyamoto Maki), a young girl who sees the geisha life as a way to lift her poverty-stricken family from their hand-to-mouth existence. Through her eyes, we see the protocols and complex financial relationships which dictate the running of the geisha house.

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

Based on the classic novel by Murasaki Shikibu, written over 1000 years ago. Genji, the son of the emperor, has gained renown among the nobility of Kyoto for his charm and good looks, yet he cannot stop himself from pursuing the one object of desire he must never obtain: his father's young and beautiful bride. Following the tragic onsequences of his obsession, Genji wanders from one affair to another, always seeking some sort of resolution to his life. (KG)

K is a young student who rents a room in a Tokyo quiet place to deliver the studies. K is attracted by the daughter of the lady of the house, while not openly declare to her. After calling a friend to live in the same house, his feelings for the girl and the friend put him in a complex situation of personal dilemmas. Based on one of the greatest classics of Japanese literature Natsume Soseki writer.

A jeweler hires detective Akechi to find his daughter kidnapped by a famous thief known as the Black Lizard. (imdb)

Blind masseur Zatôichi travels from town to town gambling, drinking, and fighting off the local gangs. (mydramalist.com)

Near the southern tip of the island of Shikoku, a bus snakes its way along one of the steep mountain passes of Kochi Prefecture. The driver of the bus, Yoshimi Misaki (Keiji Sada), plans to finally settle down and marry his bus conductor, Kaeko (Chieko Baisho), after years of pursuing Ichie (Ineko Arima), a woman he grew up with but was torn apart from by the war. (KG)

When the young lawyer Yano hears that Takako the daughter of his former teacher has become an orphan he is ready to help her. Takako becomes part of his household to teach his children and spreads love and warmth among the family. Soon both of them develop romantic feelings for each other...

A fishing village is terrorized by a giant whale, and the fishermen are determined to kill it. A Japanese variation of the "Moby Dick" story. (imdb)

Toei's 10th anniversary film, featuring an all-star cast from the golden movie era of the 1960s. A famous story of the 47 loyal samurai. When Lord Asano is unjustly executed, his loyal retainers strike back for revenge. (The Movie Database)

A mother and her daughter discover an unusual way to make money.

A film inspired by the life of Japanese actor Taiji Tonoyama, with whom Kaneto Shindo had worked on many occasions, with the help of archive images and fragments of the director's most famous films. The actress Nobuko Otowa adds dialogue facing the camera, as if she was talking to Tonoyama and remembering together old episodes of the interpreter, a past marked by alcoholism and a hectic sex life.

When her husband leaves her for a younger woman, a woman plots revenge against him. (imdb)

A blind samisen player wanders across Japan for 50 years and becomes a musical sensation.

In postwar Japan a young woman is unable to marry her sweetheart because her family's in difficult circumstances and needs her income to keep afloat. (imdb)

1957 drama from director Kôzaburô Yoshimura. (themoviedb)

The story of a novelist whose wife is confined in a mental hospital. His love for her drives him to write about her, though he runs into trouble when her parents accuse him of cashing in on her misfortune. (themoviedb)

A family of weavers deals with an uncertain future after the father commits suicide. (imdb)

A 1949 drama starring Kinuyo Tanaka.

After leaving high school, Michio Yamada (Norio Nagayama in the real life incidents) becomes involved in the shudan shushoku, a post-war Japanese government work program which involves taking almost an entire high school graduating class from the countryside to Tokyo to work for a fruit company. Some terrible things happened to his family in the past and that explains why Michio came later to have perpetrated so many killings. (imdb)

Time; a few years after the surrender of Japan in the Second World War. The country is in ruins, economy devastated, and the vulnerable masses deprived of work; let alone the basic amenities of life. A new order, led by voratius opportunists is in the make where the weak are easy prey to the hydraheaded mountebanks. Betrayed and exploited by their employer, a group of five trainee insurance brokers face the challenge of commuting suicide, or taking the path of felony. (imdb)

Postwar Tokyo. Pin (Jukichi Uno) and Toku (Taiji Tonoyama) live in the squatter area of Kappanuma. Pin and Toku are avid gamblers. They take in Tsuru (Nobuko Otowa), a slightly demented woman who has run away from a geisha house. (imdb)

Shusei Tokuda's starkly realistic novel about a poor girl pressed into becoming a sex worker/entertainer forcefully adapted by Kaneto Shindo (Onibaba). Ginko (Nobuko Otowa, Shindo's wife) born into a dirt poor family is sold to a brothel when her father falls ill as she is the only item of worth the family has. Follows her progress from brothel to brothel & personal change as she is blown about by circumstance, all the time trying to earn enough to keep her family together (imdb)

The 95-year-old director shot the film in his hometown of Ishiuchi, Hiroshima. The story is based on a teacher he had when he was a child. (letterboxd)

Following the breakout of the Pacific War, the Japanese film industry was forcibly downsized. Numazaki, a mediocre screenwriter, faces imminent dismissal. His wife Takako encourages him to seek work in Kyoto. Numazaki fails his aptitude test, which is to write a script for the famous but demanding director Sakaguchi (a veiled reference for Kenji Mizoguchi). Takako offers to support his husband for a year, so that he can hone his craft from scratch. (imdb)

A pair of sisters make a go at life in post-WWII Kyoto; one as a geisha, the other as an office worker.

A modern adaptation of Narayamabushi-ko, The Ballad of Narayama. (imdb)

A bored warlord becomes obsessed with a married woman.

The story tells of the adoration of Sasuke for his mistress, the blind samisen-teacher Shunkin, who treats him imperiously and subjects him to cruel beatings. (mubi.com)

The omnibus movie by Shindo Kaneto is separated into three parts, each one of which follows a different life problem of the Japanese citizen and their way of facing the world. The first story consists of a high school student who plays hooky and befriends a middle-aged man. The second story deals with an elderly couple who wants their daughter to have a better life. The last story is about an eleven-year-old who's abandoned by his mother and he has to take care of his two younger siblings.

In the backstreets of Ginza, the boss of a hairdressing salon is found dead, killed by strangulation. The detective on the case soon hears rumors about the murder. (letterboxd)

Tokyo in the late 1950s. Eikichi, a car salesman, is baffled by the new business practices born with the Americanization of society. Near ruined, he is approached by one of his younger competitors, false charity, who asked him to partner with him to mount insurance fraud. Eikichi will not resist the temptation of easy money ... (KG) ASIDE thin IMDB listing has correct crew and cast but synopsis is very wrong (perhaps for "Black Sun"?? - is repeated on several sites unfortunately)

Melodrama that lovingly portrays working people who live in poverty but righteously. Kosaburo Yoshimura, the master of “women’s films,” cast Yasuko Fujita, an unknown newcomer, in the leading role for this masterpiece about the joy of love. The Yoshikawa family is a typical small town family. With only the father’s and daughter’s salaries to support the family’s six members, life is not easy. (Letterbox'd)

Based on the original novel by Tokuda Shusei, adaptation by Kaneto Shindo, Masumura Yasuzo directs. A battle of woman competing for the same man. Masuko (Ayako Wakao) is the number one hostess at a cabaret, living with her lover, but finds out that he has a wife. (imdb)

A dynamic woman who aspires to be a writer, living a wild life in constant search of freedom while indulging in lust with four men. (imdb)

Tradition and modernity clash when a young woman inherits a sweet-making firm in Kyoto. (letterboxd)

Black Board tells the story of middle school bullying taken to the point of homicide.

Based on a true story, an elderly woman resiliently spends nine months attempting to retrieve her husband’s dead body, fighting government bureaucracy and indifference all along the way.

A woman who grew up in a prestigious household, begins to have an affair outside the marriage. Based on a Yukio Mishima novel.

The entangled relations between the son of a seductive tea-ceremony teacher and the women in his father's life. Based on the novel by Kawabata Yasunari.

Three stories about the relationship between men and women: "Playgirl" (Masumura/Shirasaka), "Company No. 2" (Yoshimura/Kasahara), and "San Nyotai" (Kinugasa/Shindô). (Avistaz)