Movies: Chōko Iida

After the death of her husband, an elderly woman and her youngest, unmarried daughter are forced to sell their house to cover his debts and decide to move in with one of the former's children, each of whom is scarcely happy to accommodate....

An aging actor returns to a small town with his troupe and reunites with his former lover and illegitimate son, a scenario that enrages his current mistress and results in heartbreak for all....

Doctor Sanada treats gangster Matsunaga after he is wounded in a gunfight, and discovers that he is suffering from tuberculosis. Sanada tries to convince Matsunaga to stay for treatment, which would drastically change his lifestyle. They form an unea...

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 lif...

A silk factory worker is persuaded to support her son's education up to a college level despite their poverty. Many years later, she travels to Tokyo to visit her son....

When a young man inherits his father's lucrative business, he cheats the system to set up three of his college friends with jobs....

Fumiko, mother of two children and wife of an unfaithful man, shares her family life with her budding vocation as a poet. The beginning of her successful literary career coincides with her divorce and her breast cancer diagnosis. In the last stage of...

Considered one of the finest late Naruses and a model of film biography, A Wanderer’s Notebook features remarkable performances by Hideko Takamine – Phillip Lopate calls it “probably her greatest performance” – and Kinuyo Tanaka as mother and daughte...

An errant salaryman's son gets lost until a man from the Tokyo tenements brings him to vendor Tane, who's reluctant to let the kid board....

In Depression-era Tokyo, a young man struggles to provide for his family after he is fired from his job....

A poor rickshaw driver finds himself helping a young woman and her son after the woman's husband dies suddenly....

An aging geisha, whose angry teenage son is ashamed of her profession, works alongside a young geisha, resentful of her family for forcing her into a life of ignominy....

In Depression-era Tokyo, a struggling middle-aged single father with a young son comes across a homeless young lady and convinces a bar owner to take her in....

Part 2 starts where the first film ended, with Iemon disposing of the bodies of his wife and Kohei, marrying upward, and being blackmailed by the evil Naosuke....

A professor, Komiya, and his bossy wife, Tokiko, are to look after Setsuko, their high-spirited niece from Osaka. Despite being a minor, Setsuko is a liberated woman who does whatever she wants, including smoking. She even convinces Koyima to take h...

A war widow with a young boy manages a farm with her bossy mother-in-law. When a reporter comes to interview her, the two begin an affair. He turns out to be married and won't leave his wife. Her older brother tries to marry off his children and hang...

Iemon Tamiya is an impoverished masterless samurai who craves a better life, which he cannot have because of his marriage to Oiwa, who is completely devoted to her husband....

Three humorous love stories set in rural Japan....

Alongside Tokyo's Sumida River is a ragpickers' settlement known as Ant Village. One night, a young Catholic girl, Satoko Kitahara, who has been baptized under the name of Maria, comes to offer her services. However, Ant Village is not just an ordina...

A middle-aged father has just married off his third daughter, but still has his nine year old son to raise whom he resents as he was unwanted....