Movies: Jun Tatara

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...

Set in a tavern, director Tomu Uchida depicts the joys and sorrows of the people who gather there in an experimental style, weaving in a variety of music in this ambitious ensemble drama....

Japanese comedy film....

Famous detective Kosuke Kindaichi follows a dying man's words to an enigmatic island, where he meets beautiful twin sisters and tragic events unfold....

A talent scout moves sharply, dead-set on signing a promising athlete to the baseball team the Toyko Flowers....

Ushinosuke returns broke to his hometown, where everyone believes he's rich and successful. Part two (of four) of the film adaptation of Bunroku Shishi's novel, Oban....

1961 Japanese movie...

Second part of the series where sex magic skills of female and Iga ninjas clash over enourmous treasure of the Toyotomi family, discovered in connection with the plot to overthrow the shogunate....

An ethical, young tax collector new to his area encounters increasingly absurd individuals and groups coping with their post-war woes....

Comedy drama film...

The legendary one-eyed one-armed swordsman Tange Sazen is back to aid a Magistrate in his efforts to steal bribe money on its way to Edo for the benefit to poor farmers....

A woman struggles to raise her young son on her own in postwar Japan, finding companionship with a kind laborer while still hoping for the return of her missing husband....

A young girl named Oichi is abandoned by her mother and blinded by a lightning strike. When her guardian is killed, she learns to wield a sword from a traveling ronin. As she develops into a master swordsman, her profession becomes that of a bounty...

A young man with a strong sense of justice is torn between two girls: the flighty Taneko and the serious Suzuko. With wisdom, courage and honor in a Japanese spirit of manliness he wins the day....

1953 Toho adaptation of Natsume's novel....

A President of the confectionery company announced his retirement, and his sixteen year old granddaughter, Madoka was ordered to be a new head. But Madoka wants to be a stage dancer, so she won't concentrate her office job. Madoka meets Akiyama, a st...

A con man sets up a consulting firm where he poses as a doctor specializing in curing people of their sexual problems and hang-ups....

It's a man's world. Shimamura, an artist, comes to this snowbound town to rejuvenate himself. He connects with Komako, a geisha he met on a previous trip, and it seems like love. She's the foster daughter of a local family, almost engaged to the fami...

The story is of two people. One is deaf, the other deaf and mute. They marry after meeting at a school reunion, and the film follows their trials and tribulations ... and joys....

Follows six male friends from elementary school whose career paths diverge—newspaper reporter, engineer, boxer, sushi restaurant owner—but whose romantic lives intersect. (MoMA)...