Jun Hamamura

A Yokohama shoe executive faces a wrenching choice when kidnappers mistakenly seize his chauffeur’s son but demand the ransom anyway.

Taking its title from an archaic Japanese word meaning "ghost story," this anthology adapts four folk tales. A penniless samurai marries for money with tragic results. A man stranded in a blizzard is saved by Yuki the Snow Maiden, but his rescue comes at a cost. Blind musician Hoichi is forced to perform for an audience of ghosts. An author relates the story of a samurai who sees another warrior's reflection in his teacup.

Kaji, sent to the Japanese army labeled Red, witnesses cruelties in the army and revolts against the abusive treatment against a fellow recruit. He also sees his friend Shinjô defecting to the Russian border, and he ends in the front to fight a lost battle against the Russian tanks division.

This sensuously beautiful film chronicles the activities of four sisters who gather in Kyoto every year to view the cherry blossoms. It paints a vivid portrait of the pre-war lifestyle of the wealthy Makioka family from Osaka, and draws a parallel between their activities and the seasonal variations in Japan.

The mother of a feudal lord's only heir is kidnapped by the lord. Her husband and his samurai father must decide whether to accept the unjust decision, or risk death to rescue her.

A youthful film depicting the sexual awakening of a boy who has just entered adolescence and his heartbreaking romance during the summer holidays with a young sprightly girl.

After surviving the slaughter of many Christians 350 years ago, a samurai denounces God for ignoring the pleas of believers. He sells his soul to Satan and receives the power to resurrect the dead to join him in a murderous rampage.

Two detectives are tasked to investigate the murder of an old man, found bludgeoned to death in a Tokyo rail yard.

A greedy developer, in league with a corrupt Shrine Magistrate, brutally tries to drive people out of a tenement building and destroy the shrine in back. But he makes the fatal mistake of hosting a 100 Ghost Stories ceremony without the closing cleansing ritual, opening the door for the Yokai Monsters to punish the wicked.

Successful and married with children, paper-mill owner Jihei knows better than to contradict the strict social and moral codes of 18th-century Japan. But when he meets the lovely courtesan Koharu, he becomes a man obsessed. Koharu returns his love, even foregoing other customers while Jihei schemes to somehow buy her freedom. His efforts yield ruinous consequences for his business and his family life, and Koharu is meanwhile purchased by another client.

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.

Ever since an accident in the mountains outside town, Takuji's slept in a coma; his neighbors care for him as new events occur every day.

Jack Elliot, a one-time MVP for the New York Yankees is now on the down side of his baseball career. With a falling batting average, does he have one good year left and can the manager of the Chunichi Dragons, a Japanese Central baseball league find it in him?

When a lone traveller stumbles upon a remote, drought-stricken village, he finds himself engulfed in a whirlpool of myth, mystery, and magic: in a nearby pond reside spirits who hold the fate of the town’s inhabitants, including lovers Akira and Yuri, in their hands.

The Americans are swiftly closing on Okinawa, an island just south of the Japanese mainland. The Imperial command sends top generals and several army divisions to defend it at all costs. The mission quickly degenerates as vital resources and troops are diverted to other islands. After a civilian evacuation ends in tragedy most of non-combatants are forced to remain on the island. Many convert to soldier status. Tokyo sends mixed messages that squander time and resources, as when they order the defenders to build an airstrip for aircraft that never come. The truth soon becomes obvious: the high command decides that the island cannot be held and effectively abandons the Okinawan defenders. When the Americans land many troops are deployed in the wrong places. As the slaughter mounts, a suicidal attitude takes hold. Okinawa becomes a death trap, for civilian volunteers and non-combatants as well.

In Burma during the closing days of WWII, a Japanese soldier separated from his unit disguises himself as a Buddhist monk to escape imprisonment as a POW.

A harsh young man seduces a freeloading young woman and eventually takes advantage of her knack for hitchhiking to rob middle-class men.

In the closing days of WWII, a Japanese soldier afflicted with tuberculosis is abandoned by his company and left to wander the Philippine island of Leyte.

Tokyo engineer Kariya arrives on a primitive tropical island, where he interacts with the Futori clan, to drill a well to power a sugar mill.

A mountain bandit abducts a woman who demands he kill his other wives to please her, leading to a cycle of violence and madness fueled by superstition and obsession.

Ogami Itto volunteers to be tortured by Yakuza in order to save a prostitute and is hired by their leader to kill an evil chamberlain.

Hell manifests itself through the sins, shame and desires of an upper class rural family and a mother's grief from beyond the grave.

A former Buddhist monk turned erotic filmmaker, Subuyan lives with hairdresser Haru and her two teenage children. Shooting two skin flicks per day, he somehow manages to stay out of the clutches of the yakuza, but real trouble starts when Haru discovers him lusting after her daughter.

A poignant love story between a 29-year-old woman, who has once been a prostitute but is now the mistress of a wealthy jewelry merchant, and a 19-year-old college student.

Inspired by American TV movies like "Hitchcock Theater" and "The Twilight Zone," the show features multiple works with Tamori as the storyteller and actors as the main characters. While horror and supernatural themes are predominant, a variety of genres like comedy and drama are also produced. Most episodes, however, have a bad ending.

NET Playhouse is an American dramatic television anthology series produced by National Educational Television. NET subsequently merged with WNDT Newark, New Jersey to form WNET and was superseded by the Public Broadcasting Service. American television anthology series of wide range of genres, from history and drama, to fantasy, and science fiction. Fiction novels, stories, stage plays, fairytales, and historic events are dramatized in each episode.

The 32nd NHK Asadora. Starring Takaaki Enoki as a young man who becomes a film director. The first Asadora with a male lead since 1967.

Based on the life of Hideyoshi Toyotomi (February 2, 1537 – September 18, 1598) a Sengoku period daimyo who unified Japan.

Centered around Masujiro Omura, who became a commander for the Choshu clan, and founded the modern Japanese millitary system.

The day before he leaves on a business trip to Europe, Shoji meets an old man named Ogawa while visiting his younger brother in the hospital. Ogawa lies to Shoji that he has a son and asks him to do something extraordinary for him...

Set in 1874 at the residence of an official of the Ministry of Education of Japan who was ordered with establishing a common national spoken language, this humorous drama focuses on how the national language used today was created.