Acting

Bokuzen Hidari

Born February 20, 1894 · Tokorozawa, Saitama, Japan

Died May 26, 1971 · aged 77

Bokuzen Hidari (左卜全 Hidari Bokuzen, 20 February 1894 - 26 May 1971) was a Japanese actor and comedian born in Kotesashi Village (now part of Tokorozawa), Iruma District, Saitama Prefecture, Japan. He appeared in such films as Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, The Lower Depths and Ikiru. Hidari was famous among Japanese audiences for his portrayals of meek, downtrodden men, and although a teetotalle…

Known For

Seven Samurai

Seven Samurai · 1954

MovieActionDrama

A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food.

Ikiru

Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.

Red Beard

Red Beard · 1965

Aspiring to an easy job as personal physician to a wealthy family, Noboru Yasumoto is disappointed when his first post after medical school takes him to a small country clinic under the gruff doctor Red Beard. Yasumoto rebels in numerous ways, but Red Beard proves a wise and patient teacher. He gradually introduces his student to the unglamorous side of the profession, ultimately assigning him to care for a prostitute rescued from a local brothel.

The Idiot

The Idiot · 1951

MovieDramaRomance

A gentle, war-shattered ex-soldier, Kinji Kameda, arrives in wintry Hokkaidō and is pulled into a volatile tangle of love and pity between the disgraced Taeko Nasu, the proud Ayako, and his possessive friend Akama. Kameda’s saintly compassion exposes everyone’s wounds, steering the quartet toward jealousy, violence, and inexorable tragedy. Adapted from Dostoevsky’s novel.

Gamera, the Giant Monster

Gamera, the Giant Monster · 1965

Gamera, the Giant Monster

MovieActionHorror

A nuclear explosion in the far north unleashes Gamera, the legendary flying turtle, from his sleep under the ice. In his search for energy, Gamera wreaks havoc over the entire world, and it's up to the scientists, assisted by a young boy with a strange sympathic link to the monster, to put a stop to Gamera's rampage.

The Bride Carries On

The Bride Carries On · 1956

The Bride Carries On

Keita, who had been taken along as a cover for his father-in-law’s affair, was discovered by his new wife when she unexpectedly showed up while he was sharing a room with a geisha.

Three Outlaw Samurai

Three Outlaw Samurai · 1964

Three Outlaw Samurai

MovieActionDrama

Shiba, a wandering ronin, encounters a band of peasants who have kidnapped the daughter of their dictatorial magistrate, in hopes of coercing from him a reduction in taxes. Shiba takes up their fight, joined by two renegades from the magistrate's guard, Sakura and Kikyo. The three outlaws find themselves in a battle to the death.

I Live in Fear

I Live in Fear · 1955

An aging foundry patriarch, gripped by terror of nuclear annihilation, tries to uproot his family to Brazil. When they petition to have him declared incompetent, a family-court counselor witnesses his obsession slide into ruin—and asks whether ignoring the atomic threat is any saner.

Filmography

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Seven Samurai

Seven Samurai · 1954

MovieActionDrama

A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food.

Yohei

Ikiru

Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.

Ohara

Red Beard

Red Beard · 1965

Aspiring to an easy job as personal physician to a wealthy family, Noboru Yasumoto is disappointed when his first post after medical school takes him to a small country clinic under the gruff doctor Red Beard. Yasumoto rebels in numerous ways, but Red Beard proves a wise and patient teacher. He gradually introduces his student to the unglamorous side of the profession, ultimately assigning him to care for a prostitute rescued from a local brothel.

Patient A

The Idiot

The Idiot · 1951

MovieDramaRomance

A gentle, war-shattered ex-soldier, Kinji Kameda, arrives in wintry Hokkaidō and is pulled into a volatile tangle of love and pity between the disgraced Taeko Nasu, the proud Ayako, and his possessive friend Akama. Kameda’s saintly compassion exposes everyone’s wounds, steering the quartet toward jealousy, violence, and inexorable tragedy. Adapted from Dostoevsky’s novel.

Karube

Gamera, the Giant Monster

Gamera, the Giant Monster · 1965

Gamera, the Giant Monster

MovieActionHorror

A nuclear explosion in the far north unleashes Gamera, the legendary flying turtle, from his sleep under the ice. In his search for energy, Gamera wreaks havoc over the entire world, and it's up to the scientists, assisted by a young boy with a strange sympathic link to the monster, to put a stop to Gamera's rampage.

Old Farmer

The Bride Carries On

The Bride Carries On · 1956

The Bride Carries On

Keita, who had been taken along as a cover for his father-in-law’s affair, was discovered by his new wife when she unexpectedly showed up while he was sharing a room with a geisha.

Three Outlaw Samurai

Three Outlaw Samurai · 1964

Three Outlaw Samurai

MovieActionDrama

Shiba, a wandering ronin, encounters a band of peasants who have kidnapped the daughter of their dictatorial magistrate, in hopes of coercing from him a reduction in taxes. Shiba takes up their fight, joined by two renegades from the magistrate's guard, Sakura and Kikyo. The three outlaws find themselves in a battle to the death.

Sakusan

I Live in Fear

I Live in Fear · 1955

An aging foundry patriarch, gripped by terror of nuclear annihilation, tries to uproot his family to Brazil. When they petition to have him declared incompetent, a family-court counselor witnesses his obsession slide into ruin—and asks whether ignoring the atomic threat is any saner.

Landowner

The Bell of Love

The Bell of Love · 1959

The Bell of Love

The Rickshaw Man

The Rickshaw Man · 1958

The Rickshaw Man

MovieDramaComedy

A poor rickshaw driver finds himself helping a young woman and her son after the woman's husband dies suddenly.

The Human Vapor

The Human Vapor · 1960

The Human Vapor

MovieScience FictionCrime

A failed science experiment gives a librarian the ability to turn into a gaseous substance. He goes on to rob banks to fund his dancer girlfriend's career, killing those who interfere. Now Tokyo's most wanted criminal, can authorities stop him?

Jiya

Scandal

Scandal · 1950

A celebrity photograph sparks a court case as a tabloid magazine spins a scandalous yarn over a painter and a famous singer.

Drunk

Hanayome no tameiki

Hanayome no tameiki · 1956

Hanayome no tameiki

The Lower Depths

The Lower Depths · 1957

The Lower Depths

Residents of a rundown boardinghouse in 19th-century Japan, including a mysterious old man and an aging actor, get drawn into a love triangle that turns violent. When amoral thief Sutekichi breaks off his affair with landlady Osugi to romance her younger sister, Okayo, Osugi extracts her revenge by revealing her infidelity to her jealous husband.

Kahei the Pilgrim

Forever a Woman

Forever a Woman · 1955

Forever a Woman

MovieDramaRomance

Fumiko, mother of two and wife to an unfaithful man, shares her family life with her budding vocation as a poet. The beginning of her successful literary career coincides with her divorce and her breast cancer diagnosis. In her final stages, Fumiko meets a young journalist from Tokyo who wants to write a story on her experiences.

Hide's Husband

Two in the Shadow

Two in the Shadow · 1967

Two in the Shadow

MovieRomanceDrama

A man is involved in a fatal car accident, and though he is blameless, his company transfers him to a remote branch in a small town. Before he leaves, he gives the man's widow a large sum of money that she uses to move back to her hometown.

Tora-san, His Tender Love

Tora-san, His Tender Love · 1970

Tora-san, His Tender Love

Traveling salesman Kuruma Torajirō falls in love with an inn manager as New Year's approaches.

德爷

The Age of Lawless Moneymaking

The Age of Lawless Moneymaking · 1961

The Age of Lawless Moneymaking

Contemporary comedy.

Otora-san's Ghostly Rascals

Otora-san's Ghostly Rascals · 1958

Otora-san's Ghostly Rascals

The fourth "Otora-san" feature.

The Blue Pearl

The Blue Pearl · 1951

MovieDramaRomance

The Blue Pearl depicts the interplay between a young man from Tokyo and two ama (pearl divers; literally “women of the sea”) in a superstitious coastal town. Though raised within the same tradition-bound crucible, the two women – Noe and Riu – are portrayed as diametric opposites; the former meek but affectionate, the latter strong-willed but jaded by a tryst with metropolitan life.

Riu's father

Fancy Talker

Fancy Talker · 1958

Comedy about a car salesman delivering a late model station wagon from Tokyo to Izumo to a representative of the Japanese Diet, who plans to use the car in a bribe.

The Sun's Burial

The Sun's Burial · 1960

The Sun's Burial

MovieDramaCrime

In Osaka's slum, capricious folks without futures engage in pilfering, assault and robbery, prostitution, and the trading of ID cards and blood.

Shinkon noroke bushi

Shinkon noroke bushi · 1953

Shinkon noroke bushi

A comedy about newlyweds.

Easy-Going Married Couple

Easy-Going Married Couple · 1956

Easy-Going Married Couple