Movies: Takashi Shimura

A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers...

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

Four people recount different versions of the story of a man's murder and the rape of his wife....

Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life....

A nameless ronin, or samurai with no master, enters a small village in feudal Japan where two rival businessmen are struggling for control of the local gambling trade. Taking the name Sanjuro Kuwabatake, the ronin convinces both silk merchant Tazaemo...

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...

The story is set in a rural village, where the village mayor gives a speech at the local community center as a theater troupe visits the village for the first time in several years....

Caught in a corporate power struggle, a man uses betrayal and strategy to expose corruption and settle personal scores—only to find true support where he least expects it....

Akira Kurosawa's lauded feudal epic presents the tale of a petty thief who is recruited to impersonate Shingen, an aging warlord, in order to avoid attacks by competing clans. When Shingen dies, his generals reluctantly agree to have the impostor tak...

Returning to their lord's castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the spirit's prophecy comes true, Washizu's scheming wife, Asaji, presses him to speed up the rest of the s...

1945 Japanese movie...

In feudal Japan, during a bloody war between clans, two cowardly and greedy peasants, soldiers of a defeated army, stumble upon a mysterious man who guides them to a fortress hidden in the mountains....

...

A resolute young man searching for his mother, whom he was separated from as a child, defies a family who mistreat the poor and homeless....

The tale of Nakayama Yasubei’s duel is famous, even if he in reality probably did not cut down 18 opponents. The story has been related in film, rakugo, kodan and on stage many times, in part because Nakayama later joined the famous 47 Ronin (Chushin...

This is Kanjûrô Arashi's first film with Nikkatsu after his independent production company went bankrupt (many of these independent companies went bankrupt shortly after the transition to sound). As he is mostly famous for his portrait of Kurama teng...

Japan is thrown into a panic after several ships are sunk near Odo Island. An expedition to the island led by Dr. Kyohei Yamane soon discover something far more devastating than imagined in the form of a 50 meter tall monster whom the natives call Go...

A man is brutally murdered and his famed shamisen (a three-stringed musical instrument) called the "Yamabiko" stolen. Prince Kogenta swears to avenge his father-in-law's death and retrieve the family heirloom....

Shiro Yabe, a young gangster who boarded the second class on the Tokaido Line after finishing a dangerous smuggling transaction in Kobe, is next to a beautiful woman with a sad face....

A suspense drama about a thief who sneaks onto a late-night ski bus heading from Tokyo to Joshinetsu and the detective who rides with him to arrest him. Each of the passengers acts independently, and the incident takes an unexpected turn that goes be...