Michio Hino

Rope Hell

Akiko is the heir to a yakuza clan. Hitoshi, who has been kicked out of the rival Hono Clan after attempting to seduce Akiko, kidnaps her at the behest of Hanamura. Hanamura has formed a new gang and intends to use Akiko as a hostage to take over her clan's territory. During the torture and abuse sessions which follow, Akiko comes to enjoy the treatment and forsakes her gangland empire.

Dreams

Eight visually rich vignettes drawn from Kurosawa’s own dreams—fox weddings and vanished orchards, a soldier’s ghosts, a walk through Van Gogh’s canvases, nuclear nightmares, and a water-mill utopia—meditate on childhood, art, mortality, and humanity’s uneasy bond with nature.

Dodes'ka-den

On a Tokyo dump’s shantytown edge, interwoven vignettes follow residents scraping by: a boy who “drives” an imaginary trolley, a homeless father and son designing a dream house, a young woman brutalized at home, drunks, schemers, and saints of small kindnesses. Kurosawa crafts a ragged mosaic of hardship, fantasy, and flickers of grace that keep people moving forward.

Tokyo Drifter

After yakuza boss Kurata dissolves his own criminal empire, a rival kingpin offers a position to Kurata's top operative, Tetsuya "Phoenix Tetsu" Hondo. When the fiercely loyal Tetsu declines, Otsuka taps unstoppable Tatsuzo the "Viper", a ruthless gun-for-hire, to assassinate him. As the Viper trails his target through the countryside, the agile Phoenix Tetsu grows concerned that one of his former associates has betrayed him.

The Will to Live

涙でいいの

1969 Japanese movie

Erotic Diary of an Office Lady

Asami Ogawa in her first leading role as an office lady with a healthy sexual appetite who grows bored with the limited choices that society offers her.

Fighting Elegy

Kiroku boards with a Roman Catholic family and falls for the daughter Michiko. He ignores his feelings, joins a gang, gets in fights and, eventually, becomes involved with the radical Kita Ikki group.

Rope Hell

Akiko is the heir to a yakuza clan. Hitoshi, who has been kicked out of the rival Hono Clan after attempting to seduce Akiko, kidnaps her at the behest of Hanamura. Hanamura has formed a new gang and intends to use Akiko as a hostage to take over her clan's territory. During the torture and abuse sessions which follow, Akiko comes to enjoy the treatment and forsakes her gangland empire.

Dreams

Eight visually rich vignettes drawn from Kurosawa’s own dreams—fox weddings and vanished orchards, a soldier’s ghosts, a walk through Van Gogh’s canvases, nuclear nightmares, and a water-mill utopia—meditate on childhood, art, mortality, and humanity’s uneasy bond with nature.

Dodes'ka-den

On a Tokyo dump’s shantytown edge, interwoven vignettes follow residents scraping by: a boy who “drives” an imaginary trolley, a homeless father and son designing a dream house, a young woman brutalized at home, drunks, schemers, and saints of small kindnesses. Kurosawa crafts a ragged mosaic of hardship, fantasy, and flickers of grace that keep people moving forward.

Tokyo Drifter

After yakuza boss Kurata dissolves his own criminal empire, a rival kingpin offers a position to Kurata's top operative, Tetsuya "Phoenix Tetsu" Hondo. When the fiercely loyal Tetsu declines, Otsuka taps unstoppable Tatsuzo the "Viper", a ruthless gun-for-hire, to assassinate him. As the Viper trails his target through the countryside, the agile Phoenix Tetsu grows concerned that one of his former associates has betrayed him.

The Will to Live

涙でいいの

1969 Japanese movie

Erotic Diary of an Office Lady

Asami Ogawa in her first leading role as an office lady with a healthy sexual appetite who grows bored with the limited choices that society offers her.

Fighting Elegy

Kiroku boards with a Roman Catholic family and falls for the daughter Michiko. He ignores his feelings, joins a gang, gets in fights and, eventually, becomes involved with the radical Kita Ikki group.

The Debt of Blood

1967 Nikkatsu film.

W's Tragedy

A young theatre actress fights for her uncertain career while having to confront the personal sacrifices that will arise from it.

Only on Mondays

Yuka is a “good-time girl” from Yokohama who is persuaded by her papa to sleep with a foreign business executive so that he can close an important deal. Nakahira presents a shrewdly observed portrait of a modern, sexually assertive woman—an unsettling character for a changing but still patriarchal society.

Wet Vase

Naomi Tani plays bar-owner Aki, whose entire world appears to be crumbing whenever she discovers her husband is having an affair along with her own mama. Truly the only individual she can trust is Iwasaki, the woman club supervisor. One time, she asks Iwasaki to accompay her to a company meeting with a trader Hanamatsu, the owner of a mannequin factory. At the warehouse, Miss Aki is abnormally aroused when she sees Hanamatsu toching the mannequins. She allows by herself to be seduced by the businessman…

A Chain of Islands

When a US army sergeant is found drowned in Tokyo Bay, an investigation is launched to determine how and why he lost his life. The investigation uncovers a black market scheme involving counterfeit money, murder, and conspiracy.

A Secret Rendezvous

After witnessing a murder, a married woman and a student agree not to meet and see each other out of fear of exposing their affair.

Greatest Boss of Japan

A man who became the third boss faces off against delinquent foreigners and villains vying to rule the underworld in order to develop the port city.

Rinbu

Inspired by Arthur Schnitzler's novel, "La Ronde", many people are having sex in a variety of ways. A girl and her boyfriend go to a pool bar where she is served a free cocktail drink courtesy of a man who wants to date her. Another guy challenges her boyfriend to a game with the girlfriend being the prize. Three men are fighting over the young woman and a winner takes the girl. It ends up as four guys and the woman in a hotel room.

The Sands of Kurobe

Kitagawa is an engineer charged with construction of a gigantic tunnel through the Japan Alps for the transportation of equipment in the building of the massive Kurobe Dam. The tunnel crosses an earthquake fault and Kitagawa is beleaguered not only by cave-ins and flooding, but by strife between management and the workers's union. Adding to Kitagawa's stress is the knowledge that as his attention is pulled inexorably toward the tunnel construction, his youngest daughter is dying from leukemia.

Spring Dreams

When a wealthy, selfish family decides to take care of an elderly hobo who collapsed near their home, they are beset by visits from his numerous friends.

Wakai hito-tachi

Wind and waves of the South

Little dark-eyed boy Kazuo. Yes, he dreamed of the sea. However, like everyone here in the village. Kazuo only wanted to study first, to finish school... But he failed. Mother died. The woman who replaced her brought with her affection, comfort, and warmth of mother's hands. It seemed that joy settled in their house again. But one day a storm caught the fishermen at sea. Father did not return... Father's friends, fishermen, tried to help the widow, who was left with two children. But the money was still not enough. And then Kazuo decided to become a fisherman. After all, he was now the eldest in the family...

Carmen from Kawachi

Like a girl runaway, Tsuyu moves to Osaka to work as a bar hostess. She meets the owner of a model school, Yoko, and seriously thinks about becoming a fashion model. Yoko tells her that she can move in to Yoko’s house to take lessons, while making a living at the same time.

Temptation

Shokichi, the owner of the clothing store, lives with his daughter Hideko and plans to open an art gallery. One day, Hideko led a handsome art student, Shohei and a poor painter, Sohei. Sohei’s painting was praised by a great printer at the completion ceremony of the art gallery. Since he became successful as a painter, but he looked quite indifferent. Around the same time, Shohei’s sister brought Sohei’s pictures to the gallery and Shokichi noticed that she was a daughter of his first love.

Miniature

Ginko, a poor cobbler's daughter, becomes a geisha to support her family. She passes from one geisha house to the next, trying to find love and hope in the process. No matter how hard she tries, she just can't escape her sad fate.

The Mud-Spattered Pure Heart

Jiro, a young yakuza, and Mami, a diplomat’s daughter, are two young lovers from different worlds. Having met by accident, they soon discover a new life together. But their love is ill-fated. Mami's family will not accept her choice, while leading an honest life seems like an unattainable goal for Jiro. Can there be anything else but a tragic ending?