Misao Seki

An elderly man visits his mentally ill wife in a psychiatric hospital. Years earlier, she had tried to drown their child and then take her own life. Crushed by guilt and powerless to change what has happened, he stays on at the clinic as a janitor. Soon, their daughter comes to tell him she is getting married, and with her arrival come painful memories and tormenting visions.

While attending college in Washington, D.C., Yuki Onda, the daughter of a Japanese samurai, meets and falls in love with Pierre Le Beau, a diplomatic attaché. At the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, Pierre is sent to Japan as attaché to the Australian ambassador. When Yuki's father discovers his daughter's romance with a foreigner, he becomes enraged and betroths her to Prince Hagane for political reasons.

Tai Leung, a young man who dreams of love and carves ivory images, falls in love with the pretty Kao Ai. Her cruel foster father owns a restaurant where she works, and he overworks and mistreats her. She blossoms when she meets Tai Leung, who is determined to rescue her from her hard life. Her foster father agrees to let her go, but only if Tai pays him a large sum of money. Desperate for money, Tai learns of a condemned pirate, "The Wolf," who has been sentenced to hang and will pay a lot of money for a substitute, and Tai agrees to take The Wolf's place on the gallows to ensure Ko Ai's happiness. However, things don't work out quite the way Tai planned.

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.

The Chinese prince T'Su Wong Shih loves Quan Yin, the daughter of a gardener, but his uncle wants him to marry a girl of his own class. Leaving to study in the United States, the young man promises his beloved that they two will be together soon. Having finished university, one day T'Su Wong Shih visits the market of San Francisco, and at an auction of slaves, he finds Quan Yin auctioned. To save her, he agrees to pay a price of five thousand dollars but, not possessing the full amount, he makes a deal with the auctioneer for a three-year extension in which he must work to raise the money needed to rescue the girl. T'Su Wong Shih has no great success until he manages to win a large sum in a lottery. However, Quan Yin is now in danger because a Chinese gangster wants to have it and, to do that, goes to threaten the auctioneer who is forced to comply. T'Su Wong Shih is then engaged in a struggle to liberate his beloved: he defeats the gangster, rescues Quan Yin and claims her as his...

A samurai is ordered by his lord to go to Edo and investigate the truth behind the rumor of a rebellion against him.

Yano is a small delivery boy for his uncle, who keeps a curio shop in Chinatown. His loves are Tama, his sweetheart, and Bengi, his dog. Bengi is seized by dog catchers, but is rescued by Letty Stanford, for which Yano promises his fealty. Later Letty is kidnapped by Germans because of her war activities, and it is Yano who goes to her rescue and gets her free in spite of his diminutive size. The Little Japanese has paid his debt.

This is the story of a samurai who falls on hard times due to misunderstandings and follows the plots of his enemies.