Hideo Takeda

Vermilion and Green

A businessman’s daughter falls in love with one of her father’s employees.

Notes of an Itinerant Performer

Uta’s mother died when she was six years old; her father she never met. She was forced to adopt a traveller’s life when her grandmother died, and now she is a dancer and part of a family of actors who travel from town to town, setting up street performances. A way of escape from this marginal existence arises when she gets the chance to move to tea merchant Hiramatsu’s place, where she is asked to teach his daughter to dance.

Shine, Japanese Women

Shigeko and Midori, star swimmers at the renowned Kirishima Girls’ School, are training relentlessly with their sights set on the Los Angeles Olympics. But for the past week, Shigeko has been absent from practice. Her father has fallen ill, and to support her family’s struggling finances, she has secretly taken a job at a trading company. When Masao discovers this, he asks Midori to convince her to return, but soon the school learns of her secret. The students rally to raise funds, though the principal refuses their help, promising instead to handle the situation himself. Shigeko resumes training and travels to Tokyo for the qualifying meet. She touches the wall first in the 100-meter freestyle—only to receive news of her father’s passing. Overcome with grief, she collapses, cared for by Midori, whose own exhaustion leaves her finishing fourth. Despite these hardships, their prior accomplishments earn them a place on Japan’s Olympic team.

The Golden Demon

A penniless orphan loses the woman he loves, when her family arranges a marriage to a wealthy playboy. He believes she was blinded by greed, and becomes a miser.

Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family

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.

The Loyal 47 Ronin

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.

Burden of Life

A middle-aged father has just married off his third daughter, but still has his nine year old son to raise whom he resents as he was unwanted.

Okoto and Sasuke

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.

Vermilion and Green

A businessman’s daughter falls in love with one of her father’s employees.

Notes of an Itinerant Performer

Uta’s mother died when she was six years old; her father she never met. She was forced to adopt a traveller’s life when her grandmother died, and now she is a dancer and part of a family of actors who travel from town to town, setting up street performances. A way of escape from this marginal existence arises when she gets the chance to move to tea merchant Hiramatsu’s place, where she is asked to teach his daughter to dance.

Shine, Japanese Women

Shigeko and Midori, star swimmers at the renowned Kirishima Girls’ School, are training relentlessly with their sights set on the Los Angeles Olympics. But for the past week, Shigeko has been absent from practice. Her father has fallen ill, and to support her family’s struggling finances, she has secretly taken a job at a trading company. When Masao discovers this, he asks Midori to convince her to return, but soon the school learns of her secret. The students rally to raise funds, though the principal refuses their help, promising instead to handle the situation himself. Shigeko resumes training and travels to Tokyo for the qualifying meet. She touches the wall first in the 100-meter freestyle—only to receive news of her father’s passing. Overcome with grief, she collapses, cared for by Midori, whose own exhaustion leaves her finishing fourth. Despite these hardships, their prior accomplishments earn them a place on Japan’s Olympic team.

The Golden Demon

A penniless orphan loses the woman he loves, when her family arranges a marriage to a wealthy playboy. He believes she was blinded by greed, and becomes a miser.

Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family

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.

The Loyal 47 Ronin

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.

Burden of Life

A middle-aged father has just married off his third daughter, but still has his nine year old son to raise whom he resents as he was unwanted.

Okoto and Sasuke

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.

The Dancing Girl of Izu

"The Dancing Girl of Izu" tells of the story between a young male student who is touring the Izu Peninsula and a family of traveling dancers he meets there, including their youngest girl. The student finds the naïve girl attractive even though he eventually has to part with the family after spending memorable time together.

The Trio's Engagements

Three men vying for the same job end up chasing the same girl in this comedy-drama from noted Japanese director Yasujiro Shimazu.

Where Now Are the Dreams of Youth?

When a young man inherits his father's lucrative business, he cheats the system to set up three of his college friends with jobs.

Pure Love

Directed by Mikio Naruse. It is presumed to be lost.

The Genealogy of Women

A melodrama by noted auteur and father of director Yoshitaro Nomura, Hotei Nomura. This is apparently the first adaptation of Izumi Kyoka's The Romance of Yushima.

Chûshingura - Zempen: Akahokyô no maki

Daphne

Japanese film from 1933, adapted from Masao Kume's serialized newspaper novel.

Love and Power

Directed by Mikio Naruse. It is presumed to be lost.

Marching On

A farmer’s boy, obsessed with his balsa-and-paper flying models and with dreams of real aircraft, develops a friendship with the daughter of the local squire, who introduces the lad to her pilot brother and his flying officer friends; through hard work, and despite the handicap of a lowly class status, he eventually succeeds in qualifying as a pilot and joining the air force.

Before the Wedding

Japanese home drama starring Kinuyo Tanaka.

Love, Be with Humanity: Part 1

The three-hour Ai yo jinrui to tomo ni are / Love, Be with Humanity (1931) starts as a satire of alienation in the world of money, develops into a lumberland epic with a forest fire on Sakhalin Island, turns into a tragedy of King Lear dimensions, and manages to amaze the blasé audience with a happy end in the Wild West.

The Lights of Asakusa

Pre-war Asakusa was a riotous district of cabarets, dance-halls and brothels - a striking backdrop for Shimazu's story of innocence and experience. Pretty, young Reiko is the new dancer in an infamous theatre troupe, and her fellow performers try to protect her virtue in a land of vice. Meanwhile, an ageing actor wants to be a hero off stage as well as on, and the troupe matriarch Marie has to keep them all together.

Young Master

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

Seven Seas: Chastity Chapter

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.

Warm Current

Adaptation of Kishida Kunio's novel. Set against the backdrop of a power struggle within a hospital, depicts the love lives of the director's daughter, the administrative director, a doctor, and a nurse.

The Spy Has Not Died Yet