A Son of the Good Earth

The movie depicts the strength and resilience of a woman who spent her entire life as a merchant in Semba, Osaka.

The story contrasts the life of two doctors, former classmates and now both assistant professors at Naniwa University Hospital in Osaka. The brilliant and ambitious surgeon Goro Zaizen stops at nothing to rise to a position of eminence and authority, while the friendly Shuji Satomi busies himself with his patients and research.

Two surgeons with contrasting objectives are asked to work together in a city hospital. While one of them strives to achieve fame and power through his work, the other wants to save human lives.

Set in the post-World War II climate of the 1960s in Kobe, the movie explores the struggle for power within the powerful Manpyo family.

WOWOW brings acclaimed author Toyoko Yamasaki's 1999 literary tour de force to life on the small screen for the very first time. Audiences have already received television adaptations of Yamasaki's other works – The Ivory Tower (白い巨塔), The Grand Family (華麗なる一族), The Waste Land (不毛地帯), A Son of the Good Earth (大地の子), and My Destiny (運命の人) – and can now add The Unbroken (沈まぬ太陽) to that list with this long-awaited production. Features a star-studded cast and additional filming on location in Africa and the Middle East.

The lives of a family of kelp (kombu) merchants in Osaka across three generations, spanning from the Meiji era through the aftermath of World War II.

The three Amaba brothers are second-generation Japanese Americans, whose allegiances are torn by the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Determined to show his loyalty to his adopted country, Isamu volunteers for the U.S. Army and is shipped off to fight in Europe. A second brother, studying in Japan at the outbreak of hostilities, is conscripted to fight against the Americans as a Japanese soldier. The third brother Kenji (Matsumoto) avoids conflict by enlisting as a military interpreter, in which capacity he witnesses the war crimes trials that followed Japan's defeat.

Daisuke Manpyō is the owner and president of the successful Hanshin Bank. He also owns several other companies and some real estate. His son-in-law is a bureaucrat at the Ministry of the Treasury, who tips him off that there is a move afoot to reorganize commercial banks. Manpyō is in for difficult times as he attempts to block the merger between his bank and another.

The Family, the program commemorating the 55th anniversary of the launch of the TBS TV station, is a social drama depicting the inside story between bureaucrats, politicians, and big businesses over a bank merger revolving around the family discord between Daisuke Manpyō, the owner and president of Hanshin Bank, and his eldest son, Teppei.

Kikuji is the scion of an Osaka merchant family whose traditional power is matrilineal. Instructed by his overbearing mother and grandmother to give them an heiress for the family business, he stands by helplessly as his wife is thrown out of the house for producing a son. Driven to a life of dissipation - his mistresses also fail to produce daughters - in the end he is just too tired to care.

AKA Family of Women. A story about a wealthy family and the greed and selfishness of three daughters and relatives, after the passing of their old father.

The story contrasts the life of two doctors, former classmates and now both assistant professors at Naniwa University Hospital in Osaka. The brilliant and ambitious surgeon Goro Zaizen stops at nothing to rise to a position of eminence and authority, while the friendly Shuji Satomi busies himself with his patients and research.

Onchi was exiled to posts around Asia and Africa due to his work as head of a labor union for National Air Line. He is ordered to return to head office after ten years, and continues to struggle. When a National Air Line plane is involved in the worst air disaster in Japanese history, he is assigned to console and provide restitution to the families of the victims.

In memory of the Japanese earthquake on 3.11, each director presents a 3 minute and 11 second short film in tribute to those who were lost that day.

Shikiko Oba is nimble with her fingers and teaches dressmaking and designing. Among her pupils are Rinko, Katsumi and Tomie. Ginshiro, who is as shrewd as the shrewdest of the older generation of dyed-in-the-wool Osaka businessmen, steps into picture and Shikiko soon feels that he is indispensable to her. But the advent of a man in their midst breaks up the harmony that has existed among the four women, as gradually he forces himself on them with promises of love.