Movies: Akiko Chihaya

The vast majority of the commercial films made by Kinugasa in the 1920s have, like almost all Japanese films of the period, been lost. Even a fragmentary survival such as Oni azami is to be celebrated – the more so since the film marked the first of ...

Kuruma Torajiro is discovered looking around Kyoto for someone special to him....

A 1930 silent film from director Eichi Koishi, following the adventures of Edo firefighter Sanji....

In the age of priests and warriors which the film denounces, a woman revolts after she is sold as a prostitute....

Kenji and Chuko travel to Hokkaido as migrant workers and enlist as miners under the strict leadership of Guzuyasu. On the boat journey to Hokkaido, Kenji attracts Ohama, who is travelling to Hokkaido to open a bar. When Kenji visits the bar, he chas...

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First film adaptation of the kabuki play Benten Kozo, about a thief who steals from the rich and gives to the poor......

A samurai returns to his homeland after a three year absence and finds his fiance is now one of the prince's concubines....

This 1932 adaptation is the earliest sound version of the ever-popular and much-filmed Chushingura story of the loyal 47 retainers who avenged their feudal lord after he was obliged to commit hara-kiri due to the machinations of a villainous courtier...

After falling in love with a courtesan, Rikiya is blinded by ash during a fight in a brothel. Believing the blindness permanent and his opponent dead, Rikiya goes back home to his sister. Okiku, desperate to protect her brother who thinks himself a m...

An onnagata (female impersonator) of a Kabuki troupe avenges his parents' deaths. Remade in 1963 as Yukinojô Henge....

Japanese horror movie from 1929....

A young samurai rescues his beloved from the clutches of a corrupt priest....

Japanese silent film from 1928, co-starring Chojiro Hayashi and up-and-coming actress Kinuyo Tanaka....

A film by Eiichi Koichi depicting peasant uprisings....