Sadako Sawamura

Based on the mystery novel by Tsutomu Mizukami, this intense drama starts with 2 dead bodies found at the site of a shipwreck. They could be among the many victims who perished in the wreck but a gnarled old school detective thinks otherwise. (original uploader & me)

This movie takes a look at a very Westernized subarban Japan in the late 50's. It focuses mainly on the daily lives of a small community and the way its members interact (imdb)

The great actress and Ozu regular Setsuko Hara plays a mother gently trying to persuade her daughter to marry in this glowing portrait of family love and conflict (DVD Beaver)

Five prostitutes work at Dreamland, in Tokyo's Yoshiwara district. As the Diet considers a ban on prostitution, the women's daily dramas play out... (imdb)

What is the life of a Geisha like once her beauty has faded and she has retired? Kin has saved her money, and has become a wealthy money-lender, spending her days cold-heartedly collecting debts. Even her best friends, Tomi, Nobu, and Tamae, who were her fellow Geisha, are now indebted to her. Kin has two former lovers who still pursue her; one she wants to see, and the other she doesn't. But even the one she remembers fondly, when he shows up, proves to be a disappointment. (imdb)

Fusako Owada, a young woman in postwar Japan, is the mistress of a notorious drug dealer. Fusako's tenuous grasp on meaningful life is shaken when she learns that her lover is having an affair with her sister. (imdb)

A teenaged girl witnesses her widowed mother's attempt to sustain her family. (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)

Teiko, a young newlywed, bids farewell to her new husband, Kenichi, in a Tokyo station, as he leaves to conclude business in Kanazawa, promising to return on December 12. But the 12th comes and goes with no word from Kenichi. Teiko's only clue to her husband's whereabouts is a couple of strange postcards she finds among his belongings. When Kenichi's employers invite her to Kanazawa to help them locate him, Teiko finds herself embroiled in a complicated mystery. (sansebastianfestival.com)

Kiyoko, along with her husband Shinji (Keiju Kobayashi), wants to open a coffee shop and so goes to Kenkichi to ask for a loan. (Slant)

A black soldier flying during World War 2 is taken prisoner in a small Japanese village when his plane goes down.

Former playmates both long ago abandoned by their parents, recall their youth and fall in love. A young man, deserted as a child by his mother, and a young woman, deserted in childhood by her father, meet and recall their days as playmates. When a romance develops between them, the man's foster parents express their disapproval and the woman's teacher claims they are too young for marriage; and the two lovers part. (The Toho Studios Story: A History and Complete Filmography)

Ignoring the protests of his working-class mother, a young man becomes wrapped up in the world of delinquents and yakuza. (Hulu+)

Set in the 1860s, the final years of the Tokugawa Shogunate, The Fireflies focuses on Tose (Awashima Chikage), the mistress of the Teradaya, a small inn in the Kyoto suburb of Fushimi.

Shimamura, an artist, comes to this snowbound town to rejuvenate himself. He connects with Komako, a geisha he met on a previous trip, and it seems like love. She's the foster daughter of a local family, almost engaged to the family's son Yukio, now dying of consumption. He's tended by his sister Yuko who's angry at Komako for abandoning her brother. Shimamura returns to Tokyo but promises he will be back soon... (KG)

A father with no wife has three daughters with the oldest one (played by Hara Setsuko) at the age to be married off, which means the man needs to re-marry in order for someone to take care of him and his daughters. With the eldest and father now married, there is tension and an uncomfortable distance between the two remaining daughters and the mother-in-law. (imdb)

Ine Onoda, the eldest daughter of a poor family of farmers, raises a colt from birth and comes to love the horse dearly. When the horse is grown, the government orders it auctioned and sold to the army. Ine struggles to prevent the sale. (imdb)

A 1969 Japanese drama

Musical featuring three Japanese pop stars of the time, Hibari Misora, Chiemi Eri, and Izumi Yukimura, identified as a trio by the name of "Sannin Musume." Hibari Misora, it should be noted, was the biggest recording star in Japan in the postwar era. The movie's in color and was part of the earliest wave of color movies in Japan.

A human billboard and a shoeshine girl met a kid of five who got separated from her mother at a street of Ginza. They try to find a mother in a crowded town.... (KG)

One month has passed since Japan plunged into the Pacific War, but it has not yet touched the suburban life. The state of the suburbs where you can see from the train window is relaxing. It is not much different from now. Ms. Takamine, a female student, goes hiking with some of her colleagues in the suburbs.

Kuniko, a former prostitute, tries to leave her past behind, with the support of her reform counselor and friends. But the more she tries to lead a regular life, the more society rejects her.

A film adaptation of the autobiography of Aishinkakura Hiro, who lived a tumultuous life as the consort of Fuketsu, the younger brother of Emperor Puyi of Manchukuo. (imdb)

The lord of Aizu Shirakawa-han was a descendant of Tokugawa, therefore the people in Aizu were strongly loyal to Tokugawa. Even the farmers were proud of it. The tragedy was, the last shogun of Tokugawa himself agreed to Taisei-hokan, the restoration of imperial rule, nevertheless, the Aizu army refused to surrender.

The fourth film in the long-running series Daiei Studio's Woman Gambler with Kyoko Enami starring where she plays the woman gambler Ogin.

Tane, the lady proprietor of an inn for amorous couples, lives there with her three children. When her eldest daughter loses her fiancé due to the fact her mother is a mistress, her despair drives her to become a cabaret hostess.

Chocolate and Soldiers (チョコレートと兵隊, Chokorēto to Heitai) is a 1938 Japanese war film directed by Sato Takeshi and one of the most effective Japanese propaganda films with a vision of the noble, obedient and honourable Japanese army fighting to defend the emperor and Japan.