Movies: Kaneto Shindō

A well-respected drama teacher confesses to his housekeeper that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima has left him impotent. With the coming of spring, the sympathetic housekeeper suggests that the Master observe the Yobai , a custom in which the young me...

Set in the late 1950s, when geisha culture was threatened by moral crusades, it tells the story of Omocha (Miyamoto Maki), a young girl who sees the geisha life as a way to lift her poverty-stricken family from their hand-to-mouth existence. Through ...

A television drama aired on November 3, 1983 as a special project to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the founding of Yomiuri Television and the 30th anniversary of the founding of Nippon Television....

First film of a trilogy following the dramatic life of Rika, a half-Japanese/half-American woman who becomes the tough-as-nails leader of an all-girl crime gang....

A historical drama that depicts the touching beauty of world obsession and human love in the style of light comedy, in the center of which is a young man who has a master license menkyo kaiden in the art of swordsmanship, but weak against lies and wo...

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The story opens with Yukiko and her business partner in Moscow searching for Russian items for their store in Tokyo. There they meet a Russian translator, Nicholai, played by Sergei Nakariakov - a trumpeter from Russia. Some months later after they ...

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In Edo-period Japan, Shingo is born the son of an assassin who was executed for murdering her lord’s concubine. Decades later, his adoptive family is massacred for keeping the secret. Armed with an unbeatable swordfighting technique, Shingo embarks o...

The film consists of three short stories. Tomiko, the heroine of the first story, "The Flower Girl" (dir. Kozaburo Yoshimura), is a little girl who bears the unbearable burden of caring for her family. Tomiko's father has been unable to find work for...

Kabuki adaptation: A princess, a figure from the literary past who anticipates a modern woman, tempts a self-righteous priest....

Kazuo Miyagawa’s prizewinning black-and-white cinematography draws out the moral shadings of Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata’s 1952 novel Thousand Cranes, a quietly devastating story of a young man, orphaned during the war, who stumbles into a passi...

The story of two sisters in post-war Japan. One is a geisha and the other works for the tourist board....

A fishing village is terrorized by a giant whale, and the fishermen are determined to kill it....

Satsuo Yamamoto's filmic depiction of the famous 1949 Matsukawa Incident....

Based on the original novel by Tokuda Shusei, adapted by frequent Masumura scribe Kaneto Shindo, this downbeat melodrama features a battle of women for the affections and commitment of the same man, a handsome car salesman. Masuko is the number one h...

Toward the end of World War II, middle-aged soldier Keita is entrusted with a postcard from a comrade who is sure he will die in battle. After the war ends, Keita visits his comrade's wife Yuko and bears witness to the tragic life she has led....

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 provincial bus driver plans to marry his conductress, but one night he glimpses the woman he once loved, which throws him into turmoil....

Based on a true story, an elderly woman resiliently spends nine months attempting to retrieve her husband's dead body, fighting government bureaucracy and indifference all along the way....