Days of Youth

A hard-hearted old woman in a bombed-out Tokyo neighborhood reluctantly takes in an abandoned boy, leading to a heartwarming bond between them.

Famed movie director Paul Robaix breaks with tradition by not casting his actress-comedienne wife, Lucy Dell, in his latest film production, a version of Madame Butterfly. Undaunted, the resourceful Lucy wings her way to Tokyo and, masquerading as a Japanese geisha, lands the coveted role from her unsuspecting husband! But in front of the cameras (and behind the pancake makeup), Lucy faces greater challenges: her lecherous leading man - and a husband who is beginning to realize that his talented new "discovery" seems vaguely familiar...

Fumiko, mother of two and wife to an unfaithful man, shares her family life with her budding vocation as a poet. The beginning of her successful literary career coincides with her divorce and her breast cancer diagnosis. In her final stages, Fumiko meets a young journalist from Tokyo who wants to write a story on her experiences.

Brothers Keiji and Ryoichi move to a new neighborhood in the Tokyo suburbs after their father, an office clerk, is promoted. The boys join the local gang as lowly new kids and emerge as natural leaders after defeating a bully. While visiting the home of their father's boss, the brothers witness the ridicule their father endures to please his superior. Angry and embarrassed, the boys find their naive ideas about power being challenged.

A professor, Komiya, and his bossy wife, Tokiko, are to look after Setsuko, their high-spirited niece from Osaka. Despite being a minor, Setsuko is a liberated woman who does whatever she wants, including smoking. She even convinces Koyima to take her to a geisha house. When she gets rather tipsy, the professor calls Okada, one of his students, to take her home. The wife becomes suspicious of Setsuko when she sees Okada bringing her home.

In late 19th-century Tokyo, Kikunosuke Onoue, the adopted son of a legendary actor, himself an actor specializing in female roles, discovers that the praise he receives is only due to his status as his father's heir. Devastated, he turns to Otoku, a servant of his family, for comfort, and they fall in love. Kikunosuke becomes determined to leave home and develop as an actor on his own merits, and Otoku faithfully joins him.

A poor rickshaw driver finds himself helping a young woman and her son after the woman's husband dies suddenly.

After the plans of a group of college students to cheat on their final exams goes awry, they're left to reassess their lives and educations and get back on track.

The staff of "Yank" magazine are among the first American troops into Tokyo after the Japanese surrender. Their mission: produce an issue of the magazine...in three days. To accomplish the seeming impossible, they reluctantly enlist the aid of black marketeer and arch-conniver Joe Butterfly, who sets them up in a palatial private mansion, complete with lovely daughter -- strictly against regulations. How much trouble can our heroes talk their way out of?

A rural village elder plans an event on the return of a farmer's daughter from the city, unaware that she has become a Westernized burlesque artist.

The film is a lengthy work interweaving characters from different backgrounds and social strata in a narrative centered around the experiences of its heroine, Yumie Sone. Over two hours long, Seven Seas was released theatrically in two parts, with the first part entitled "Virginity Chapter" coming out in December 1931, while the second part, "Chastity Chapter," followed in March 1932. Near the beginning of the narrative, at a garden party given by the wealthy Yagibashi family in Tokyo, Yumie meets Takehiko, the Yagibashis' playboy son and the brother of Yumie's fiancé, Yuzuru. Yumie, a young middle-class woman, lives with her ailing father, a retired ministry official, an older sister, and a younger sister still a child (played by a very young Hideko Takamine). Takehiko, who has just returned from a trip to Europe, is attracted to Yumie and contrives to have her stay overnight at his family's mansion where he takes advantage of her.

Lost silent film

A bad day gets worse for young detective Murakami when a pickpocket steals his gun on a hot, crowded bus. Desperate to right the wrong, he goes undercover, scavenging Tokyo’s sweltering streets for the stray dog whose desperation has led him to a life of crime. With each step, cop and criminal’s lives become more intertwined and the investigation becomes an examination of Murakami’s own dark side.

In postwar Tokyo, a blunt, alcohol-soaked doctor diagnoses a swaggering young yakuza with tuberculosis, forging an uneasy bond that’s tested when the gangster’s ruthless former boss returns and drags him back toward the swampy underworld he can’t escape.

After being discredited as a coward, a 19th century seaman lives for only one purpose: to redeem himself. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2000.

Setsuko is in an unhappy marriage to Mimura, an unemployed, alcoholic engineer. She had always been in love with Hiroshi but both failed to propose when Hiroshi left for France a few years ago. But now he's back and Mariko tries to reunite them, although she too is secretly in love with Hiroshi.

Tokiko patiently awaits her husband's return from WWII when her four-year old son falls ill. She takes him to the doctor but has no means of paying, so she resorts to prostitution. A month later, her husband returns to find his desperate wife, who tells him the truth. Together, they must deal with the consequences.

An aging actor returns to a small town with his troupe and reunites with his former lover and illegitimate son, a scenario that enrages his current mistress and results in heartbreak for all.

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.

Centered on a young college student who puts his youthful passion into developing true judo and the fiery mentor he admires and studies under.

About the struggles of day labourers to achieve dignity and a standard of living above the starvation level. Utilising the Zenshinza theatrical troupe.

A rural widow sends her only son to Tokyo to receive a better education. Years later, she visits him and finds he has become a night school teacher struggling to support his wife and son.

A woman marries, gives birth to a stillborn child, and divorces, falls in love with a hotel-keeper, only to find herself subordinated to his drive for success, takes up with a tailor who cannot console himself with her strong personality.

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

A beautiful dancer who lost her mother and was raised abroad searches for her long-lost father in the homeland she has always longed for.

Police beat a murder confession out of four innocent men who are then sentenced to death. Based on a true story.

A young man discovers that the woman who raised him is his stepmother. His stepbrother, who is unaware of the revelation, resents his mother for always punishing him more severely than his stepsibling.

Eiko is an innocent young lady born into a wealthy family with nothing to offer. She was good at singing, and lived her life playing around with her cronies, organizing music concerts and so on. However, things change when her father's business fails and she was suddenly thrown out into the world without any foundation. Eiko has no one to support her after she loses her social status, and her only tutor, Shinnosuke (Natsukawa Daijiro) was the only one who was sincere. Eiko is a stickler for using everything she can get her hands on, and she quickly moves into Shinnosuke's house.

Part two of Shimizu's major silent Seven Seas, a family drama of the intertwining fates of the rich, decadent Yagibashis and the far less prosperous Sone family.

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.

This 1932 adaptation is the earliest sound version of the ever-popular and much-filmed Chushingura story of the loyal 47 retainers who avenged their feudal lord after he was obliged to commit hara-kiri due to the machinations of a villainous courtier. As the first sound version of the classic narrative, the film was something of an event, and employed a stellar cast, who give a roster of memorable performances. Director Teinosuke Kinugasa was primarily a specialist in jidai-geki (period films), such as the internationally celebrated Gate of Hell (Jigokumon, 1953), and although he is now most famous as the maker of the avant-garde silent films A Page of Madness (Kurutta ichipeji, 1926) and Crossroads (Jujiro, 1928), Chushingura is in fact more typical of his output than those experimental works. The film ranked third in that year’s Kinema Junpo critics’ poll, and Joseph Anderson and Donald Richie noted that 'not only the sound but the quick cutting was admired by many critics.

An actress returns to Tokyo after a successful stint in Hollywood to reclaim—with the help of her gangster brother—the daughter she abandoned years before.

Japanese silent film from 1928, ranked as Kinema Junpo's second-best Japanese movie of the year.

A modern girl suddenly intrudes into a widower's family home.

A blacksmith is chased out of the village by the sinister village chief and forced to move to the forest with his wife and two sons. The blacksmith's younger son is disabled, and the other children in the village tease him. The older son aspires to become a doctor in order to fix his brother's leg. The film depicts the bond between a father and his sons. Only 18 minutes survive.

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.

A group of bandits flee to the mountains after killing an evil moneylender. Remake of Hiroshi Inagaki's Jigoku no mushi (1938).

A married man falls for a dancer and his wife's uncle hires a private detective to spy on him. Considered to be a lost film.

Japanese silent film from 1926. (Obo-chan meaning "Young Master.") Written by Ayame Mizushima, the first female screenwriter in Japan.

Jyuta, an honest owner of a taxi company, has a younger half-brother who is involved in the yakuza world and doesn’t get along well with his mother. Jyuta tries to correct him…

Domestic comedy involving a strong wife and a "henpecked" husband taking place in a family-run judo school.