My Voiceless Friends

Brother and Sister

Members of a country family react differently to the return of daughter Mon from a town factory.While the men are angry she is pregnant with no husband, the women show kindness.

Eternal Monument

A remake of the 1953 film of the same name.

If Indeed One Loves

The film consists of three short stories. Tomiko, the heroine of the first story, "The Flower Girl" (dir. Kozaburo Yoshimura), is a little girl who bears the unbearable burden of caring for her family. Tomiko's father has been unable to find work for a long time, and her older sister is terminally ill—it is unlikely that she will ever recover. To feed her family, Tomiko runs around the city from morning until late at night selling flowers... The second novella (dir. Tadashi Imai) also depicts the lives of the poor. An unfamiliar girl brings young Kavano a letter from his mother. It turns out that the girl's name is Kuniko, she is very hardworking, but her family is dying of hunger. Therefore, her mother decided to send Kuniko to her son so that he would marry her. The short story is called "The Unexpected Bride." The third short story, which gave the film its title, is particularly interesting: "When You Love" (dir. Satsuo Yamamoto). It shows the family of a young peace activist.

Revenge

An innocuous comment during a weapon inspection wounds the pride of low-ranking samurai Shinpachi, leading to an argument with his superior. The situation snowballs out of control, leading to a deadly duel and political fallout which threatens the entire clan. Declared mentally unstable by the corrupt authority, Shinpachi begins his descent into true insanity…

The Time of Reckoning

"The Time of Reckoning" transforms a screwball-comedy plot into a sober study of a successful businessman with serious relationship problems involving three women: his wife of ten years who announces she is pregnant by another man; a mistress who wants to have a baby with him; and an ex-lover who claims he fathered her son.

Yuki

Up in Heaven, Yuki’s grandparents decide that, having turned thirteen years old, she must go down to Earth to a village that is torn by bandits and intervene to save its people. However if she does not succeed within one year she will become as insubstantial as the wind. Down in the village, Yuki is befriended by a group of orphans whose parents have all been killed by the bandits and who now subsist by begging. Yuki amazes them by taming the wild horse Blizzard. She is instrumental in getting the orphans and farmers to stand up to first the warring bandits and then Goemon, the greedy lord that owns the region. But Yuki must face her greatest challenge yet when the displeased Demon God that lives in the volcano emerges to destroy those who live beneath.

A Story from Echigo

A sake factory worker on holiday returns to his home town, where he rapes the wife of one of his co-workers in the forest. The other man returns home to find his wife changed and suspects that she has been unfaithful.

The Blue Mountains: Part II

Continuation of The Blue Mountains: Part I. Released a week later.

Nippon no obaachan

Two obaachans become fast friends listening to music in front of a record store. They both boast about their loving sons but in reality, one had just escaped a retirement home and the other was looking for an escape from her son and daughter-in-law. With nowhere to go, the two wander around, befriending a cosmetics salesman and a kind waitress who give them beer. This biting social satire starring two memorable grandmothers, scripted by Yôko Mizuki, picked up on Japan’s aging population problem far ahead of its time.

The Possessed

Oshima, a rich girl married Shinzo, and her cousin girl Sawa has been jealous of Oshima deeply. Sawa cursed Oshima so Shinzo could not hold her and do anything at all. Shinzo hated Oshima, and he made love with Sawa.

Darkness at Noon

Police beat a murder confession out of four innocent men who are then sentenced to death. Based on a true story.

Bushido: The Cruel Code of the Samurai

After a salary-man's fiancée attempts suicide, he recounts his gruesome family history which saw generations of his ancestors suffer and sacrifice themselves for the sake of their cruel lords.

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.

Tower of Lilies

A group of Okinawan high school girls are drafted as nurses during the American invasion of the island. As the enemy army advances further, the situation for the girls becomes increasingly desperate as food and shelter run out and the number of injured climbs, leading to the film's tragic finale.

Till We Meet Again

Saburo and Keiko fall in love with each other but the tide of war separates them.

Special Boy Soldiers of the Navy

Japanese youngsters enduring hard training in Recruit Camp and then going to Iwo Jima in the last days of World War II.

House of Bamboo

Eddie Kenner is given a special assignment by the Army to get the inside story on Sandy Dawson, a former GI who has formed a gang of fellow servicemen and Japanese locals.

Early Spring

A young salaryman and his wife struggle within the confines of their passionless relationship while he embarks on an extramarital affair.

Remember the Night

Unexpected love blossoms when an assistant district attorney agrees to take a recidivist shoplifter home so she doesn't have to spend Christmas alone in jail.

Stray Dog

A bad day gets worse for young detective Murakami when a pickpocket steals his gun on a hot, crowded bus. Desperate to right the wrong, he goes undercover, scavenging Tokyo’s sweltering streets for the stray dog whose desperation has led him to a life of crime. With each step, cop and criminal’s lives become more intertwined and the investigation becomes an examination of Murakami’s own dark side.

Good Morning

A lighthearted take on director Yasujiro Ozu’s perennial theme of the challenges of inter­generational relationships, Good Morning tells the story of two young boys who stop speaking in protest after their parents refuse to buy a television set. Ozu weaves a wealth of subtle gags through a family portrait as rich as those of his dramatic films, mocking the foibles of the adult world through the eyes of his child protagonists. Shot in stunning color and set in a suburb of Tokyo where housewives gossip about the neighbors’ new washing machine and unemployed husbands look for work as door-to-door salesmen, this charming comedy refashions Ozu’s own silent classic I Was Born, But . . . to gently satirize consumerism in postwar Japan.

Madadayo

In postwar Tokyo, beloved writer-professor Hyakken Uchida retires and is buoyed through hardship by the fierce devotion of his former students, who honor him each year with a raucous “Not yet!” birthday toast. Told in warm, gently comic vignettes, Kurosawa’s farewell celebrates aging, friendship, and the sustaining ritual of teacher and pupils refusing to say goodbye.

Barefoot Gen 2

Three years after the Hiroshima bombing, a teenager helps a group of orphans to survive and find their new life.

Barefoot Gen

A story about the effect of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on a boy's life and the lives of the Japanese people.

Pigs and Battleships

In the city of Yokosuka, Kinta and his lover Haruko, both involved with yakuza, brave the post-occupation period with a goal to be together.

Early Summer

In postwar Tokyo, Noriko lives with her extended family. Although she enjoys her career and her social life, her more traditional family worries about her single marital status at the advanced age of 28. 40-year-old business associate Takako proposes, Noriko's family press her into accepting, but when her widowed childhood friend Kenkichi returns to the neighborhood, she finds her heart leading in another direction.

Street of Shame

Follows five sex workers employed at a Japanese brothel while the nation debates the passage of an anti-prostitution law.

A Geisha

Fleeing a distressing family situation, Eiko, a very young girl, becomes an apprentice to Miyoharu, a veteran geisha. Both, determined to preserve their professional integrity, must face the selfishness and ambition of several petty people.

One Wonderful Sunday

Two broke sweethearts wander war-scarred Tokyo on a single Sunday, stretching 35 yen as they chase housing, small pleasures, and a little hope.