Movies: Jun Hamamura

A Yokohama shoe executive faces a wrenching choice when kidnappers mistakenly seize his chauffeur’s son but demand the ransom anyway....

A youthful film depicting the sexual awakening of a boy who has just entered adolescence and his heartbreaking romance during the summer holidays with a young sprightly girl....

Taking its title from an archaic Japanese word meaning "ghost story," this anthology adapts four folk tales. A penniless samurai marries for money with tragic results. A man stranded in a blizzard is saved by Yuki the Snow Maiden, but his rescue come...

Jack Elliot, a one-time MVP for the New York Yankees is now on the down side of his baseball career. With a falling batting average, does he have one good year left and can the manager of the Chunichi Dragons, a Japanese Central baseball league find ...

A couple originally from Okinawa run an inexpensive restaurant in Kobe, with their grade-school daughter, Fuuchan. The movie depicts the warm interaction between her and adults that grew up with the rough history of Okinawa and discrimination from th...

Kaji is sent to the Japanese army labeled Red and is mistreated by the vets. Along his assignment, Kaji witnesses cruelties in the army and revolts against the abusive treatment against the recruit Obara. He also sees his friend Shinjô Ittôhei defect...

The mother of a feudal lord's only heir is kidnapped away from her husband by the lord. The husband and his samurai father must decide whether to accept the unjust decision, or risk death to get her back....

Hell manifests itself through the sins, shame and desires of an upper class rural family and a mother's grief from beyond the grave....

A semi-documentary story about the vicissitudes in the life of an elderly fisherman....

Tokyo engineer Kariya arrives on a primitive tropical island, where he interacts with the Futori clan, to drill a well to power a sugar mill....

The Americans are swiftly closing on Okinawa, an island just south of the Japanese mainland. The Imperial command sends top generals and several army divisions to defend it at all costs. The mission quickly degenerates as vital resources and troops a...

Set in Kawaguchi in the early 60s, this simple story chronicles the lives of foundry families and one girl's dreams of higher education....

When a lone traveler stumbles upon a remote, drought-stricken village, he finds himself engulfed in a whirlpool of myth, mystery, and magic: in a nearby pond reside spirits who hold the fate of the town’s inhabitants, including lovers Akira and Yuri,...

A runaway cat-loving girl begins a love triangle with a reckless older man and a young biker in high school. The film follows their subsequent chaotic relationships....

Taking the Chilean coup as an example, a group of young officers plan to overthrow the Japanese government on V-J Day. They aim to abolish the post-war constitution, restore the national army and revive the traditional spirit of Japan. As the conspir...

A greedy developer, in league with a corrupt Shrine Magistrate, brutally tries to drive people out of a tenement building and destroy the shrine in back. But he makes the fatal mistake of hosting a 100 Ghost Stories ceremony without the closing clea...

A harsh young man seduces a freeloading young woman and eventually takes advantage of her knack for hitchhiking to rob middle-class men....

In Burma during the closing days of WWII, a Japanese soldier separated from his unit disguises himself as a Buddhist monk to escape imprisonment as a POW....

Ogami Itto volunteers to be tortured by Yakuza in order to save a prostitute and is hired by their leader to kill an evil chamberlain....

This sensuously beautiful film chronicles the activities of four sisters who gather in Kyoto every year to view the cherry blossoms. It paints a vivid portrait of the pre-war lifestyle of the wealthy Makioka family from Osaka, and draws a parallel be...