Movies: Yūko Mochizuki

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 family of an older man who runs a small sake brewery become concerned with his finances and his health after they discover him visiting an old mistress from his youth....

In Kabuki style, the film tells the story of a remote mountain village where the scarcity of food leads to a voluntary but socially-enforced policy in which relatives carry 70-year-old family members up Narayama mountain to die. Granny Orin is approa...

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

A coming-of-age story portrayed as the loss of all youthful illusions. Sixteen-year-old Yoichi dreams of becoming a sailor. His parents are fishmongers, and Yoichi lives together with them and his four siblings in cramped living conditions. His belov...

Japan, February 1868. As the Tokugawa shogunate declines and the power of Emperor Meiji grows, Gonzo, a soldier of the Restoration Army, returns to Sawando, his hometown, to announce the end of tyranny....

With delicate, unobtrusive strokes, Naruse evokes both the humor and bitterness of his characters’ dilemmas, in this bleak, compelling poignant portrait of a quartet of aging geishas contemplating their troubles with men and money....

A rural village elder plans an event on the return of a farmer's daughter from the city, unaware that she has become a Westernized burlesque artist....

At the close of the war in Japan, a widowed mother makes every possible sacrifice to bring up her ungrateful son and daughter who are unimpressed with their poor standard of living at home. They gradually reject her in search of the material comforts...

A group of rank-and-file Japanese soldiers are jailed for crimes against humanity, themselves victims of a nation refusing to bear its burdens as a whole....

Strip dancer Carmen falls in love with Hajime, who is engaged to the daughter of a right-wing politician....

A young man runs a scam selling pigeons that always return to his home. He falls under the wing of Kyoko, an older student whose heart is touched after Masuo sells his pigeons to her. However, after his scam is revealed, can these feelings truly rema...

1961 Japanese movie...

Three beautiful daughters grew up in a dog and cat care clinic. The eldest was named Takako (Keiko Tsushima), the second was Tsugumi (Keiko Awaji), and the third was Mihato (Hibari Misora). Mihato was still a pretty seventeen-year-old girl, but she c...

A touching story depicting the harsh lives of farmers in Kasumigaura. An attempt to start a fishery business to revive an ailing farming community creates friction amongst the proud residents....

It was the first time in six years that I was able to step on the land of my homeland, the land of my nostalgia. It was Tokyo that had turned to burnt earth. A Tokyo with no one to rely on....

A section chief at the Bureau of Construction is in a shady relationship with a construction company. Then a new, young and honest subordinate is assigned to work under the section chief. Once he learns about the shady relationship, however, the new ...

The fourth instalment in the Life's Simple Pleasures (Salaryman Mejiro Sanpei) series....

A lifetime story of a woman who stubbornly lives in a poor mountain village in post-war Japan....

A student at a woman's university takes a controversial action against the school's old-fashioned doctrines....