Shin Tonomura

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.

Cantankerous Edo

It's fighting fires and swordsmen with a touch of music in this free-for-all of action and excitement combining the talents of Japan's most popular couple... Misora Hibari and Okawa Hashizo. Along with the great Otomo Rytaro as Tatsugoro the fire chief, they keep Edo safe as part of the famed Megumi Fire Squad.

His Highness Surabaya

Hisaya Morishige is Kyutaro, a nuclear physicist and his twin brother, Eiji, a con man. Eiji finally hits on his most elaborate scheme yet, to pretend to be a king of a remote, undiscovered island, and becomes a media sensation.

The Eleventh Hour

Based on a 1956 television feature on Japan’s national network, NHK, this is one of Uchida’s rarest films. A socially conscious drama with a contemporary backdrop, Dotanba focuses on the attempts to rescue a group of trapped miners. The title is a figure of speech — (essentially “last minute” or “eleventh hour”) — that refers to a situation of peril. The film boasts a script co-written by Uchida and Akira Kurosawa’s frequent screenwriter, Shinobu Hashimoto, and stars Kurosawa’s frequent star Takashi Shimura.

Nomugi Pass

The story of the silk industry and the young girls who worked as silk spinners in the early 1900s in Japan. The silk mills were located in Okaya which lies just beyond the Nomugi Pass. The women and girls worked in a hot, humid atmosphere without rest, and endured those conditions and sexual harassment to earn money for their poor families. Across the ocean, it was the great depression in America.

The Story of Pure Love

Junai Monogatari AKA Story of Pure Love is about two poor youths, Mitsuko and Kando, rebelling against society in various ways, who are desperately trying to be together despite tortuous circumstances. The film depicts their lives as thieves, menial laborers who can get little pay, society outcasts, and of course, lovers. Junai Monogatari depicts, mostly, their struggles within the Japanese reformatory system and Mitsuko's worsening sickness.

Police Precinct: The Pickpocket Killer

After discovering a slaughtered corpse, the investigating team of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department began canvassing the area around the crime scene. As a result, they found a wallet with bloodstains that seemed to belong to the victim, a woman's wallet that did not fit the field, earrings, and other valuable materials, which led them on a foot search. The woman's purse had been picked up by a male prostitute on the subway, and from the prostitute's testimony, they were able to identify the pickpocket's face, but the next day, the man was found dead in a road accident, apparently murdered.

Homicide

This film tells about the murder of Lieutenant Colonel Aikawa, the head of the Bureau of Military Affairs, about the beginning of the incident 2.26 and the execution of young officers.