Movies: Shōwa era 1926 89

A passionate telling of the story of Sada Abe, a woman whose affair with her master led to an obsessive and ultimately destructive sexual relationship....

Two brothers start working as benshi narrators of silent films in a cinema in the early 20th century. This premise is the jumping-off point for an epic family saga that follows the protagonists and their descendants through wars and technological dev...

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

Just 80 years ago, the peaceful sea was a battlefield. Soldiers continued to fight, dreaming of returning home, and their families continued to pray and wait for their safety. What stories were there in each of their lives, and what were they each th...

Would-be writer Ryunosuke Chagawa is still living across the street from Norifumi Suzuki and his auto repair shop, though now he shares his home with Junnosuke, an orphan he's taken under his wing at the urging of pretty Hiroi, who continues to manag...

The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with th...

Teenage Mutsuko comes to Tokyo for work but ends up at a repair shop. She befriends the owner's family. Neighbors Hiromi, writer Chagawa with admirer Junnosuke strive alongside them in postwar Tokyo's evolution....

The Tokyo Olympics are about to open, and Rynosuke Chagawa is excited to receive a new TV set to watch the upcoming events. His wife Hiromi is pregnant and he has built a second level on his shop to provide his adopted son Junnosuke with a private sp...

Noriko is perfectly happy living at home with her widowed father, Shukichi, and has no plans to marry -- that is, until her aunt Masa convinces Shukichi that unless he marries off his 27-year-old daughter soon, she will likely remain alone for the re...

Japan, 1943, during World War II. Young Suzu leaves her village near Hiroshima to marry and live with her in-laws in Kure, a military harbor. Her creativity to overcome deprivation quickly makes her indispensable at home. Inhabited by an ancestral wi...

It is the early 1930s and the command of the Japanese Imperial Navy determines to construct the world's biggest and most formidable battleship, Yamato. One of the admirals, Yamamoto Isoroku, disagrees. He recruits the upstart and mathematics' expert ...

Shuhei Hirayama is a widower with a 24-year-old daughter. Gradually, he comes to realize that she should not be obliged to look after him for the rest of his life, so he arranges a marriage for her....

From a true incident that happened in 1960's Japan. This drama is contemporary in setting but medieval in its characters and emotions as it focuses on a tangled web of murder and deceit encountered by a beautiful woman, Kayo after her abusive husband...

Keiko, whom everyone calls Mama, narrates her story: she's a hostess on the Ginza, 30, a widow. She describes life's vicious cycle: acting cheerful around drunks, dressing and living well to convey confidence, needing money for these expenses and for...

Terajima Mikako became a boys volleyball team coach at a junior high school she has been assigned to. As an incentive for the team members who do not show the slightest enthusiasm, she promises to show them her boobs if they win a game....

In the shady black markets and bombed-out hovels of post–World War II Tokyo, a tough band of prostitutes eke out a dog-eat-dog existence, maintaining tenuous friendships and a semblance of order in a world of chaos. But when a renegade ex-soldier stu...

A sendup of the stereotypical Japanese family: dad is a salaryman jerk, unable to relate to anyone; mom is a hopeless housewife; the older son is a moderate academic success; but the younger son is a rebellious goof-off for whom a tutor must be hired...

Before he hit it big, Takeshi Kitano got his start apprenticing with comedy legend Fukami of Asakusa. But as his star rises, his mentor's declines....

The arranged marriage between a capricious woman from Tokyo high society and a quiet and rustic man is tested by a marital crisis....

Young women in a small Japanese town look to revive their home's declining fortunes by building a Hawaiian village tourist attraction....