The Hopeful Family

A kind of modern dress "Donzoko" "The Lower Depths", about slum life in Osaka, where a greedy widow (Mimasu) takes advantage of her poor roomers, including her own son, who makes a meagre living stripping taxicabs.

Young Setsuko Fujino begins a new job at Tokyo Chemical Company. She likes her boss, Ippei Hitachi, and enjoys serving him tea, despite the fact that her fellow workers think the women employees should not have to act in such a servile manner. When the women go on strike over the issue, Setsuko finds herself caught in the middle. When the heir to the company, Ryosuke Tanabe, proposes marriage to Setsuko, she is honored, but realizes that her real affection is for Hitachi.

A young country boy leaves his village for Tokyo, where he begins to work as a stock trader. First part (of four) of the film adaptation of Bunroku Shishi's novel, Oban.

The executive director of the «Chuo Shoji» company, Hidaka Shiro, is called a "demon of work", but the hostess of the bar calls him "the loneliest person in Japan." He lost his wife ten years ago and has been living as a widower ever since. He plotted to marry off his 22-year-old daughter Keiko for political gain, but Keiko is in love with Okuda, who is her father's subordinate. A story full of sadness and joy, depicting a man gripped by different thoughts, as an employee of the company and a father.

Once an average and seemingly ordinary Tokyo girl, she suddenly finds herself as a TV star owing to her discovery by a casting company, which noticed photographs that her cousin had sent. When another actress falls ill she is given the role instead. Her first film is a success propelling the young actress to popularity, her own fans, money and a house. While everything looks dandy from the outside not all is well within the family however.

Shuichi, a young doctor working at a hospital in Bangkok, falls in love with the daughter of a wealthy Chinese trader.

A group of hustling peddlers swindle rural towns with fake goods, facing betrayals, close calls, and constant setbacks as they chase survival and dream of a better future.

A dark family secret sends a 21-year-old French student (Hoshi) on a journey of self-discovery.

Following the Second World War, the lives of various people in a poverty-stricken area of Tokyo are entertwined. Pachinko parlor girls, shoeshine boys, a maker of costume jewelry, and a streetcorner artist all struggle to make their livings and to find happiness in difficult surroundings.

Ushinosuke returns to his hometown to become a farmer. Part three (of four) of the film adaptation of Bunroku Shishi’s novel, Oban.

Wang Xinglian returns from her studies in Japan to visit her father in Hong Kong where she has an encounter with the young Japanese Hasegawa Toru. The two meet again and fall in love in Hokkaido when Wang and her best friend Sugimoto Kanako are going on a holiday. Urged by her friend Zhang Yingming to concentrate on her studies, Wang remains ambivalent about the relationship, and is even more upset to realise that Sugimoto is in love with her fellow countryman. Feigning an engagement with Zhang, Wang initiates a break-up with Hasegawa and finds work in Singapore after graduation. Hasegawa learns the real cause of the break-up from Sugimoto in Hong Kong. A frenzy search finally leads to a reunion and a proposal in Kuala Lumpur. However, their love is doomed by a twist of fate as Wang must leave to see her desperately ill father in Hong Kong while Hasegawa has to leave for America to pursue his career.

A new third-class president wins an appointment thanks to his marriage with the former president's daughter.

1958 Japanese movie

In the middle of the period of high economic growth in Japan, a family is thrown into disarray over work, money, and romance. Their father's sudden unemployment later in life causes friction among the siblings of the Akagi family. Kensuke, a salaryman at a top company, refuses to support his parents while his brother, Shoji, determines to care for them despite only working as a taxi driver. The concern over money affects Noriko's own love life as she courts a wealthy salaryman to the chagrin of her mechanic boyfriend.