Movies: Kindai Eiga Kyokai

Reform schools are a way of protecting society by ridding it of lawless juvenile delinquents. But who's protecting the juvenile delinquents from corrupt reform schools? Rica could be considered a bit of an expert on reform schools, having spent most ...

While her son, Kichi, is away at war, a woman and her daughter-in-law survive by killing samurai who stray into their swamp, then selling whatever valuables they find. Both are devastated when they learn that Kichi has died, but his wife soon begins ...

A gas leak explosion at a yakuza hideout provides a shy nurse and a rental car clerk with the opportunity to take a briefcase full of money. A cross-country chase ensues....

It is based on the story of The Ballad of Narayama updated to the present day, with the substitution of putting a parent into an old people's home for the abandonment of the original. The film won the Golden St. George and the FIPRESCI Prize at the 2...

A story of Japanese writer Kafu Nagai (1879-1959), a man about sixty with a huge reputation of seducer who falls madly in love for a young geisha named Oyuki. Meticulous and smartly dressed, Nagai patiently wrote in his diary his thoughts during many...

In the Sengoku period, a woman and her daughter are raped and murdered by soldiers during a time of civil war. Afterwards, a series of samurai returning from the war through that area are found mysteriously dead with their throats torn out. The gover...

A mother and daughter are stranded in small, isolated cabin, and are starving to death. In order to survive, they plan to entice men that happen to stray to their cabin with sex, and kill them. All goes well until a local cop shows up and, then, an o...

A family of four are the sole inhabitants of a small island, where they struggle each day to irrigate their crops....

Filmed in a documentary style, six patients in six wards of different ages and circumstances await death at a hospital in Japan. The sterile and dismal environment is contrasted against the emotional being of the patients, their visitors and relative...

“Quit working as a nurse!” “All right, I will!” thus began the married life of Yasuo and Keiko. But the reality is harsh. Keiko even had to work on the first night after her marriage. Ten years later, the married couple is still at it. Yauso tends to...

Shows the devastation caused by the atomic bomb, and by use of a fictional storyline, portrays the struggle of the ordinary Japanese people in dealing with the aftermath....

A documentary about the lives of actors in the Sakura-tai theatrical troupe, which had arrived in the island of Hiroshima to begin preparations for the staging of a play just before the atomic bombing....

The ship Kaijin Maru is left adrift after losing all means of navigation in a storm. The four people on the ship are becoming increasingly desperate as food and water run out....

A retired actress whose husband has recently died visits her summer home. There she has encounters with old friends and acquaintances who bring various stories and news of death and the past...

Based on "Une vie" by Guy de Maupassant...

The film is a series of vignettes from Taiji Tonoyama's life and film clips, interspersed with a dialogue to camera by Nobuko Otowa, addressing the camera as if she is addressing Tonoyama himself, recollecting events in his life. The film focuses on ...

8-year old boy, Shimpei, who loves fishing and painting, lives with his beautiful mother, surrounded by nature. His mother, Satsuki, has a weak constitution and lost her husband years ago. She takes care of her son lovingly but sometimes strictly, on...

In 39 interviews with actors and actresses, writers, producers and staff members, interspersed with film excerpts and stills, Shindō recounts the life and career of his friend and mentor Mizoguchi....

An ageing fishing boat, Dai-go Fukuryu Maru ("Lucky Dragon No. 5") sets out from the port of Yaizu in Shizuoka Prefecture. It travels around the Pacific line fishing. While the ship is near Bikini Atoll, the ship's navigator sees a flash. All the cre...

Based on Kakuko Mori's autobiography, about her life and retirement from acting due to her increasing blindness....