91% (2) When a Woman Ascends the Stairs 111 min, Not Rated, [Drama] [Mikio Naruse] [25 Jun 1963]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 82%, Rotten Tomatoes: 100%, External Reviews
Actors: Hideko Takamine, Masayuki Mori, Reiko Dan, Tatsuya Nakadai
Writer: Ryûzô Kikushima
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: Japanese Country: Japan
Plot: This is the story of Mama, a.k.a. Keiko, a middle-aged bar hostess who must choose to either get married or buy a bar of her own. Her family hounds her for money, her customers for her attention, and she is continually in debt. The life of a bar hostess is examined as well as the way in which the system traps and sometimes kills those in it.
Rotten Tomatoes: Filmmaker Mikio Naruse takes a characteristic dour look at life in When A Woman Ascends the Stairs. The central character is a barmaid, who works day and night to avoid being thrown out into the street. She knows that, if she loses her job, the only profession open to her is the World's Oldest. But when the worst happens, the barmaid learns to live with herself while compromising her values. The film's original title was Onna Ga Kaidan O Agaru Toki. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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78% (1) Floating Clouds 123 min, [Drama, Romance] [Mikio Naruse] [06 Jun 1980]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 78%, External Reviews
Awards: 9 wins.
Actors: Hideko Takamine, Isao Yamagata, Mariko Okada, Masayuki Mori
Writer: Fumiko Hayashi (novel), Yôko Mizuki (adaptation)
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: Japanese Country: Japan
Plot: A tragic social drama set in post war Japan and concerns a lonely woman trying to find purpose and stability in a devastated Tokyo.
Rotten Tomatoes: Floating Clouds is set in the dissolution of Japanese society after the war. Yukiko wanders figuratively and literally through a devastated Tokyo searching for a means of existence and comfort. At all turns, she is manipulated by men and forced to submit to their manipulations when she is unable to support herself. Returning to Tokyo at the end of the war, Yukiko tries to get a number of jobs but none of her attempts are successful. As a result she turns to prostitution, catering to American occupation forces. During this time a number of men, including her brother-in-law and her former lover Tomioka, come forward to help her, but their generosity is only a mask for their sexual desires. Eventually Tomioka's wife dies and he takes Yukiko to an island where he is to begin a new job. Their happiness is forestalled when Yukiko, sorely tried by her life, falls ill and dies. ~ Brian Whitener, Rovi
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76% (1) Where Chimneys Are Seen 108 min, [Drama] [Heinosuke Gosho] [05 Mar 1953]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 76%, External Reviews
Awards: 4 wins.
Actors: Hideko Takamine, Hiroshi Akutagawa, Ken Uehara, Kinuyo Tanaka
Writer: Hideo Oguni, Rinzo Shiina (novel)
External Links: IMDb Language: Japanese Country: Japan
Plot: Where Chimneys Are Seen focuses primarily on the interconnected lives of two couples in a lower-middle-class neighborhood in Senju, a poor industrial section of Tokyo.
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76% (1) The Rickshaw Man 103 min, [Comedy, Drama] [Hiroshi Inagaki] [03 May 1960]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 76%, External Reviews
Awards: 1 win.
Actors: Chishû Ryû, Hideko Takamine, Hiroshi Akutagawa, Toshirô Mifune
Writer: Hiroshi Inagaki, Mansaku Itami, Shunsaku Iwashita (story)
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: Japanese Country: Japan
Plot: In the turn of the Twentieth Century, the rickshaw driver Matsugoro "Matsu" is a happy man and a troublemaker well-known by everyone in his village. One day, Matsu sees an injured boy, Toshio, and brings him home. His mother Yoshiko Yoshioka asks Matsuo to take the boy to the doctor and then her husband Capt. Kotaro Yoshioka asks her to reward Matsu. However the rickshaw man refuses the money and becomes a friend of the family. When Kotaro unexpectedly dies, Matsuo helps Yoshiko to raise her son. Soon he falls in love with her, but he does not dare to open his heart to Yoshiko since they belong to different social classes.
Rotten Tomatoes: Toshiro Mifune trades samurai garb for sun-hat and sandals in Rikisha-Man. Mifune plays an impoverished, illiterate rickshaw puller in the Japan of the early 20th century. Preferring to stay aloof from the rest of humanity (he has been knocked around rather badly in life), Mifune is nonetheless touched by the plight of a young boy whose soldier father has been killed. In acting as surrogate father to the boy, Mifune falls in love with the lad's mother (Hideko Takamine). But the woman is far, far above the rickshaw man's social class, and Mifune is tragically denied the happiness he so richly deserves.
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74% (1) Immortal Love 103 min, [Drama] [Keisuke Kinoshita] [01 Jan 1961]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 74%, External Reviews
Awards: Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 2 wins.
Actors: Hideko Takamine, Keiji Sada, Nobuko Otowa, Tatsuya Nakadai
Writer: Keisuke Kinoshita
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: Japanese Country: Japan
Plot: The year is 1932, and a woman, whose tenant-farmer fiancé is fighting in China, is raped by the landowners son(Nakadai)...
Rotten Tomatoes: Slow-paced but endowed with understanding, characters of some depth and complexity, and good direction, this slice-of-drama by Keisuke Kinoshita is taken from a bitter confection. The tale begins when Sadako (Hideko Takamine) finds that she will not be able to marry the man she loves after all. The son of one of the town's biggest landowners, partially physically disabled from the war, decides that Sadako is the woman he wants to marry. Given his position and the fact that her father is a lowly peasant, she has little choice. But what little she has, she decides to take it when the man she loves returns and they come to the conclusion that they should run off together. Even then, Sadako's future is far from certain. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
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74% (1) Tokyo Chorus 90 min, [Comedy, Drama] [Yasujirô Ozu] [01 Dec 1982]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 74%, External Reviews
Actors: Emiko Yagumo, Hideko Takamine, Hideo Sugawara, Tokihiko Okada
Writer: Komatsu Kitamura (original story), Kôgo Noda (original story), Kôgo Noda (screenplay)
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: N/A Country: Japan
Plot: Mr. Omura, a teacher, leads a group of male students in an outdoor drill. One slight, comic young man, Shinji Okajima, has no shirt under his jacket; he scratches at fleas and makes faces behind Omura's back. Jump ahead several years, Shinji is married with three children. He sells insurance, and on the company's annual bonus day, he protests when an older worker is fired. Shinji loses his own job as a result, and he and his wife must find ways to cope. Lassitude, pride, the demands and needs of young children, and relationships from bygone school days all play a part in the outcome of their struggle.
Rotten Tomatoes: Tokyo Chorus is a dark comedy about unemployment and family in prewar Japan. The film opens with a group of young men at their school graduation. After saying goodbye to their teacher, they are off into the working world. The story follows a single man and his difficulties at his job. He cannot avoid annoying his boss, a tempestuous man, and he's summarily fired. The remainder of the movie concerns his descent into unemployment and the pressure it puts on his family. In a wonderful scene, his wife discovers that he's sold her kimonos to buy food. She approaches him crying while he's playing with their children and the children draw her into their game which dries her tears. After a series of adventures, he finds another job and calm is restored to the family and their lives. Tokyo Chorus is famous for being the first film where Ozu consistently utilized a low-angle camera. ~ Brian Whitener, Rovi
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66% (1) Those Who Make Tomorrow 82 min, [Drama] [Akira Kurosawa, Hideo Sekigawa, Kajirô Yamamoto] [02 May 1946]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 66%, External Reviews
Actors: Hideko Takamine, Kenji Susukida, Masayuki Mori, Susumu Fujita
Writer: Yûsaku Yamagata, Kajirô Yamamoto
External Links: Wikipedia IMDb Language: Japanese Country: Japan
Plot: Two sisters, one a dancer and the other a script supervisor at a big movie studio, become embroiled in union activities when a strike is called in sympathy with striking railroad workers, one of whom boards with the sisters and their parents. The girls' father argues with them about their strike, but finds his views changing when he himself loses his job.
Scroll To: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% [ / 7]