Japanese domestic drama
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34 titles
- DirectorMinoru MurataStarsKaoru OsanaiHaruko SawamuraDenmei SuzukiA small town boy dreams of being a famous fiddler; meanwhile, two convicts escape from prison and hide in the woods
- DirectorHeinosuke GoshoStarsAtsushi WatanabeKinuyo TanakaMitsuko IchimuraA writer struggles to finish his story against many distractions, but the jazz party next door proves to be too much.
- DirectorYasujirô OzuStarsTatsuo SaitôTomio AokiMitsuko YoshikawaTwo young brothers throw a tantrum when they discover that their father isn't the most important man in his workplace.
- DirectorMikio NaruseStarsSumiko KurishimaTeruko KojimaJun AraiA single mother works tirelessly as a Ginza bar hostess to ensure a better life for her young son until--her long-lost husband returns.
- DirectorYasujirô ShimazuStarsYumeko AizomeRyôtarô MizushimaDen ÔhinataKeitaro (Obinata Den) is a law student and Yaeko (Aizome Yumeko) is a high school girl. They are neighbors, and their friendship is starting to develop into something more romantic. Then, Yaeko's sister Kyouko (Okada Yoshiko) has a breakup with her husband and returns home. Kyouko is clearly interested in Keitaro and Yae becomes anxious.
- DirectorMikio NaruseStarsSachiko ChibaYuriko HanabusaToshiko ItôWhen she reaches adulthood, a precocious young woman sets out to find her biological father, who, as her mother tells her, abandoned them for another woman.
- DirectorHiroshi ShimizuStarsMitsugu FujiiMitsuko YoshikawaYûkichi IwataThe story focuses on the widower Nemoto, ostensibly a businessman, who has one son, Kanichi, the hero of the title. Nemoto remarries; his new wife is a widow with a son and daughter of her own. However, Nemoto's business turns out to be out a shady scam, and he disappears, leaving his wife to raise the three children alone. In order to support the family, she is obliged to become a bar hostess. She conceals this shameful employment from the children, but the truth comes out years later, after her daughter is rejected by her husband's family when they investigate her background.
- DirectorKenji MizoguchiStarsIsuzu YamadaYôko UmemuraBenkei ShiganoyaTwo geisha sisters lead a hard life in the Gion district of Kyoto. After one of them feels obliged to support a bankrupt businessman, the other sister sets up various schemes to get rid of him.
- DirectorKenji MizoguchiStarsIsuzu YamadaYôko UmemuraChiyoko ÔkuraA young woman becomes a mistress of her boss in order to support her family.
- DirectorHiroshi ShimizuStarsReikichi KawamuraMitsuko YoshikawaMasao HayamaTwo young boys are usurped from being the head of their gang of children. Their father is fired and arrested for this, and they are sent to live with their uncle, only to spend their time thinking of ways to escape back home.
- DirectorHiroshi ShimizuStarsTeruo FuruyaMasao HayamaShin'ichi HimoriThe brothers of Children In The Wind deal with declining family fortunes: they must work when the father becomes sick, and eventually live with their grandfather, which means making new friends and struggling with a different environment.
- DirectorYasujirô OzuStarsChishû RyûShûji SanoShin SaburiA schoolteacher struggles to raise his son Ryohei by himself, having neither money nor future prospects.
- DirectorKeisuke KinoshitaStarsHaruko SugimuraToshinosuke NagaoShin TokudaijiA Japanese family weathers much hardship after their military uncle comes to live with them during WWII.
- DirectorAkira KurosawaStarsSetsuko HaraSusumu FujitaDenjirô ÔkôchiThe daughter of a politically disgraced university professor struggles to find a place for herself in love and life, in the uncertain world of Japan leading into WWII.
- DirectorYasujirô OzuStarsChôko IidaHôhi AokiEitarô OzawaA young boy follows Tashiro home to his tenement housing complex on the outskirts of Tokyo, the boy who was separated from his carpenter father somehow and somewhere in Kudan. All Tashiro knows is that the boy and his father came to town from Chigasaki that morning. Despite Tashiro's want to house the kid until they decide what to do more permanently, Tashiro's roommate, Tamekichi, the tenement's head, won't let the kid stay, not liking children and not wanting to get involved. So Tashiro foists the kid onto their neighbor, the widowed Tane, who too protests, she also not liking children and not wanting to get involved. Tane treats the boy with disdain, which only increases by the next morning due to an overnight incident. Amongst the tenement residents, Tane is charged with going to Chigasaki to see if she can find the father or find out what happened to him. On that trip, what she learns by putting the pieces of the story together is that the father purposefully abandoned the boy as he went off to look for work. This news does not change Tane's outlook or poor treatment of the boy. Nothing changes as the week progresses, however Tane's outlook takes a one hundred eighty degree turn when there is the possibility that she may never see the boy again.
- DirectorKeisuke KinoshitaStarsTsumasaburô BandôSachiko MuraseMasayuki MoriA tyrannical father (the broken drum) squashes the dreams of his family.
- DirectorYasujirô OzuStarsChishû RyûSetsuko HaraYumeji TsukiokaSeveral people try to talk 27-year-old Noriko into marrying, but all she wants is to keep on caring for her widowed father.
- DirectorMikio NaruseStarsKen UeharaSetsuko HaraYukiko ShimazakiMichiyo lives in a small home in Osaka and is not happy with her marriage; all she does is cook and clean for her husband.
- DirectorYasujirô OzuStarsSetsuko HaraChishû RyûChikage AwashimaA family chooses a match for their daughter Noriko, but she, surprisingly, has her own plans.
- DirectorMikio NaruseStarsKinuyo TanakaKyôko KagawaEiji OkadaA teenaged girl witnesses her widowed mother's attempt to sustain her family.
- DirectorMasaki KobayashiStarsAkira IshihamaChishû RyûKuniko MiyakeThe story of a father and two teen-aged sons, and the rivalry between the two siblings as they begin to discover the attraction of girls.
- DirectorMikio NaruseStarsMachiko KyôMasayuki MoriYoshiko KugaIn Older Brother, Younger Sister, director Mikio Naruse's adaptation of an oft-filmed popular novel by Saisei Murô, the eldest daughter (Machiko Kyô) of a rural family comes home pregnant, testing some already tenuous family bonds. Naruse shows his considerable skill at portraying household dynamics, filming Kyô in relaxed and/or reclining positions (indicative of her character's exhaustively maintained independence) that are then intruded upon by her ill-tempered older brother (Masayuki Mori), whose initially comic, brute-force presence grows increasingly menacing and treacherous as the film progresses.
- DirectorKeisuke KinoshitaStarsYûko MochizukiYôko KatsuragiMasami TauraAlternating in time, between the end of World War II and 1953, Haruko, a widow, does what she can to keep her daughter Utako and son Seiichi safe, fed, and sheltered. By 1953, it's clear that the children, as they enter adulthood, want little to do with their mother. They have a different view of their childhood and her sacrifices: in their eyes, she abandoned them to live a life of pleasure. The self-pitying Haruko is sure her life was one of pain and humiliation, for her children. As Seiichi, now a medical student, announces his plans to let a wealthy man adopt him, and as Utako considers the offer to go away with a married man who is her English teacher, what is left for Haruko?
- DirectorYasujirô OzuStarsChishû RyûChieko HigashiyamaSô YamamuraAn old couple visit their children and grandchildren in the city, but receive little attention.
- DirectorHeinosuke GoshoStarsKinuyo TanakaKen UeharaHideko TakamineWhere Chimneys Are Seen focuses primarily on the interconnected lives of two couples in a lower-middle-class neighborhood in Senju, a poor industrial section of Tokyo.
- DirectorKenji MizoguchiStarsKinuyo TanakaTomoemon OtaniYoshiko KugaHatsuko Umabuchi is a widow who runs a prosperous geisha house in present-day Kyoto. Her daughter Yukiko returns from Tokyo following a failed suicide attempt, after her lover found out about her mother's profession. Hatsuko is having a discreet love affair with the young Dr. Matoba, who looks after the geisha. The doctor is attracted to Yukiko, who initially despises him and everything connected with the geisha house. However, Yukiko gradually changes her views.
- DirectorMikio NaruseStarsSetsuko HaraSô YamamuraKen UeharaAn ingratiating bride develops warm ties to her father-in-law while her cold husband blithely slights her for another woman.
- DirectorMasaki KobayashiStarsHideko TakamineKeiji SadaYoshiko KugaA family in the city of Tokyo running a liquor store overcome their impotence and dysfunction as they induce an understanding through each other of how to deal with their individual problems.
- DirectorMikio NaruseStarsHideko TakamineMasayuki MoriMariko OkadaA tragic social drama set in post war Japan and concerns a lonely woman trying to find purpose and stability in a devastated Tokyo.
- DirectorShirô ToyodaStarsHisaya MorishigeIsuzu YamadaKyôko KagawaA timid and aimless man's love for his cat is his only solace in a life dominated by his mother and the two women she chooses for him to marry.
- DirectorYasujirô OzuStarsSetsuko HaraIneko ArimaChishû RyûTwo sisters find out the existence of their long-lost mother, but the younger cannot take the truth of being abandoned as a child.
- DirectorYasujirô OzuStarsKeiji SadaYoshiko KugaChishû RyûTwo boys begin a silence strike to press their parents into buying them a television set.
- DirectorYasujirô OzuStarsSetsuko HaraYôko TsukasaMariko OkadaA widow tries to marry off her daughter with the help of her late husband's three friends.
- DirectorKon IchikawaStarsRaizô IchikawaTamao NakamuraMitsuko KusabueKikuji is the scion of an Osaka merchant family whose traditional power is matrilineal. Instructed by his overbearing mother and grandmother to give them an heiress for the family business, he stands by helplessly as his wife is thrown out of the house for producing a son. Driven to a life of dissipation - his mistresses also fail to produce daughters - in the end he is just too tired to care. The film presages Ichikawa's The Makioka Sisters in its World War II nostalgia and visual sophistication.