1940s Japanese-language Movies

32 movies found (page 1/2):

The 47 Ronin(1941)

3.5/5 (with 27 votes)

In 1701, Lord Takuminokami Asano has a feud with Lord Kira and he tries to kill Kira in the corridors of the Shogun's palace. The Shogun sentences Lord Asano to commit suppuku and deprives the palace and lands from his clan, but does not punish Lord Kira. Lord Asano's vassals leave the land and his samurais become ronin and want to seek revenge against the dishonor of their Lord. But their leader Kuranosuke Oishi asks the Shogun to restore the Asano clan with his brother Daigaku Asano. One year later, the Shogun refuses his request and Oishi and forty-six ronin revenge their Lord.

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi - With Daisuke Katō, Masao Shimizu, Ichikawa Utaemon, Isamu Kosugi, Mitsuko Miura, Seizaburō Kawazu, ...

Late Spring(1949)

1h 50min | Drama

4.0/5 (with 155 votes)

Noriko is perfectly happy living at home with her widowed father, Shukichi, and has no plans to marry -- that is, until her aunt Masa convinces Shukichi that unless he marries off his 27-year-old daughter soon, she will likely remain alone for the rest of her life. When Noriko resists Masa's matchmaking, Shukichi is forced to deceive his daughter and sacrifice his own happiness to do what he believes is right.

Directed by Yasujirō Ozu - With Chishū Ryū, Setsuko Hara, Sugimura Haruko, Yumeji Tsukioka, Kuniko Miyake

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Stray Dog(1949)

2h 2min | Crime, Drama, Thriller

3.7/5 (with 120 votes)

A bad day gets worse for young detective Murakami when a pickpocket steals his gun on a hot, crowded bus. Desperate to right the wrong, he goes undercover, scavenging Tokyo’s sweltering streets for the stray dog whose desperation has led him to a life of crime. With each step, cop and criminal’s lives become more intertwined and the investigation becomes an examination of Murakami’s own dark side.

Directed by Akira Kurosawa - With Toshirō Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Awaji, Minoru Chiaki, Ichirō Sugai, Isao Kimura, ...

Sanshiro Sugata(1943)

1h 20min | Drama

3.3/5 (with 48 votes)

The story of Sanshiro, a strong stubborn youth, who travels into the city in order to learn Jujutsu. However, upon his arrival he discovers a new form of self-defence: Judo. The main character is based on Shiro Saigo, a legendary judoka.

Directed by Akira Kurosawa - With Takashi Shimura, Ranko Hanai, Denjirō Ōkōchi, Susumu Fujita, Yukiko Todoroki, Ichirō Sugai, ...

One Wonderful Sunday(1947)

1h 48min | Drama, Comedy, Romance / Love

3.7/5 (with 34 votes)

Yuzo and his fiancée Masako spend their Sunday afternoon together, trying to have a good time on just thirty-five yen. They manage to have many small adventures, especially because Masako's optimism and belief in dreams is able to lift Yuzo from his realistic despair.

Directed by Akira Kurosawa - With Ichirō Sugai

No Regrets for Our Youth(1946)

1h 50min | Drama

3.5/5 (with 29 votes)

Yukie, the well-bred daughter of a university professor, is shocked when her father is relieved of his post for his political teachings during a purge of anti-militarism in pre-war Kyoto. Years go by as she is courted by two of her father's former students; one a fiery leftist, the other more moderate and equable.

Directed by Akira Kurosawa - With Setsuko Hara, Takashi Shimura, Susumu Fujita, Denjirō Ōkōchi, Sugimura Haruko, Kokuten Kōdō, ...

Drunken Angel(1948)

1h 38min | Drama

3.8/5 (with 106 votes)

Doctor Sanada treats gangster Matsunaga after he is wounded in a gunfight, and discovers that he is suffering from tuberculosis. Sanada tries to convince Matsunaga to stay for treatment, which would drastically change his lifestyle. They form an uneasy friendship until Matsunaga's old boss Okada returns from prison.

Directed by Akira Kurosawa - With Takashi Shimura, Toshirō Mifune, Yoshiko Kuga, Noriko Sengoku, Masao Shimizu, Michiyo Kogure, ...

A Hen in the Wind(1948)

1h 24min | Drama

3.6/5 (with 11 votes)

Tokiko is a mother patiently waiting for her husband's return from the war when her 4-year old son becomes ill. She takes him to the doctor for treatment but has no way of paying. She resorts to prostitution. One month later her husband returns from WWII to find his desperate wife, who tells him the truth. Together they must deal with the consequences.

Directed by Yasujirō Ozu - With Kinuyo Tanaka, Chishū Ryū

Women of the Night(1948)

1h 14min | Romance / Love, Drama, Thriller

3.6/5 (with 11 votes)

Fusako, a drug dealer's young mistress in postwar Japan, loses her tenuous grasp on life upon learning about her lover's affair.

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi - With Kinuyo Tanaka

Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family(1941)

1h 45min | Drama

3.4/5 (with 11 votes)

After the death of her husband, Mrs Toda and her youngest daughter receive a frosty welcome from the extended family.

Directed by Yasujirō Ozu - With Chishū Ryū, Shin Saburi, Mitsuko Yoshikawa, Tatsuo Saitō, Kuniko Miyake

Army(1944)

1h 27min | Drama

3.6/5 (with 5 votes)

A widow raises her sickly son to be strong enough to join the army and fight on the front lines.

Directed by Keisuke Kinoshita - With Chishū Ryū, Kinuyo Tanaka

Record of a Tenement Gentleman(1947)

1h 12min | Comedy, Drama

3.6/5 (with 17 votes)

An errant salaryman's son gets lost until a man from the Tokyo tenements brings him to vendor Tane, who's reluctant to let the kid board.

Directed by Yasujirō Ozu - With Chishū Ryū, Eitarō Ozawa, Mitsuko Yoshikawa, Taiji Tonoyama

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The Most Beautiful(1944)

1h 25min | Drama, War

2.8/5 (with 18 votes)

The stories of several young women who work in a 'precision optical instruments' factory during the second World War. Despite illness, injury, and tremendous personal hardship, the women persevere in their tasks, devoted to their work and their country's cause.

Directed by Akira Kurosawa - With Takashi Shimura, Ichirō Sugai, Yōko Yaguchi, Takako Irie, Sayuri Tanima, Mineko Yorozuyo, ...

Apostasy(1948)

1h 39min | Drama

2.9/5 (with 2 votes)

A teacher at a Japanese school tries to hide his outcast upbringing.

Directed by Keisuke Kinoshita

Utamaro and His Five Women(1946)

1h 34min | Drama

3.6/5 (with 14 votes)

Utamaro, a great artist, lives to create portraits of beautiful women, and the brothels of Tokyo provide his models. A world of passion swirls around him, as the women in his life vie for lovers. And, occasionally, his art gets him into trouble.

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi - With Kinuyo Tanaka

The Ball at the Anjo House(1947)

1h 29min | Drama

3.3/5 (with 7 votes)

After Japan's loss in the war, the wealthy, cultured, liberal Anjo family have to give up their mansion and their way of life. They hold one last ball at the house before leaving. The seemingly cold, cynical son secretly grieves for his defeated father and the values that the war destroyed, while the daughter tries to prevent father from taking his life and to find her own place in the new Japan.

Directed by Kōzaburō Yoshimura - With Masayuki Mori, Osamu Takizawa, Setsuko Hara, Masao Shimizu, Keiko Tsushima

Flame of My Love(1949)

1h 24min | Drama, Romance / Love

3.0/5 (with 3 votes)

A woman's struggle for equality in Japan in the 1880s. Eiko Hirayama leaves Okayama for Tokyo, where she helps the fledgling Liberal Party and falls in love with its leader Kentaro Omoi, just as the party is being disbanded by the government.

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi - With Kinuyo Tanaka, Eitarō Ozawa, Ichirō Sugai, Sadako Sawamura, Mitsuko Mito, Kuniko Miyake, ...

Behind the Rising Sun(1943)

| 1h 28min | War, Drama

2.8/5 (with 3 votes)

A Japanese publisher urges his American-educated son to side with the Axis.

Directed by Edward Dmytryk - With Margo, Tom Neal, J. Carrol Naish, Robert Ryan, Gloria Holden, Abner Biberman, ...

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Travelling Actors(1940)

1h 10min | Comedy

3.1/5 (with 4 votes)

This film depicts a troupe of wandering kabuki players traveling through rural Japan.

Directed by Mikio Naruse

Hideko the Bus Conductor(1941)

54min | Drama, Comedy

3.5/5 (with 3 votes)

Okoma, a witty young woman working as a conductor in an old, rickety bus in Kōfu, Yamanashi (rural Japan), has a creative idea that could avert the dwindling number of passengers when her job and the bus company itself are at stake.

Directed by Mikio Naruse - With Hideko Takamine

Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors(1945)

1h 14min | Animation

2.1/5 (with 6 votes)

The first Japanese feature-length animated film. It was directed by Mitsuyo Seo, who was ordered to make a propaganda film for the war by the Japanese Naval Ministry. Shochiku Moving Picture Laboratory shot the 74-minute film in 1944 and screened it on April 12, 1945. It is a sequel to Momotarō no Umiwashi, a 37-minute film released in 1943 by the same director. It is black and white. The whole movie also depicts the Japanese "liberation of Asia", as proclaimed by the Government at the time. Seo tried to give dreams to children, as well as to instill the hope for peace, with hidden movie's hints of dreams and hopes, under the appearance of war propaganda.

Directed by Mitsuyo Seo

Woman(1948)

1h 7min | Drama

3.3/5 (with 2 votes)

Like many women after the war, Toshiko works as a chorus girl; her boyfriend Tadashi wishes she'd join him more frequently, but she detests his criminal involvement.

Directed by Keisuke Kinoshita

The Song Lantern(1943)

1h 33min | Drama

3.2/5 (with 3 votes)

A self-absorbed young actor humiliates an elderly Noh performer, who then commits suicide. His act of cruelty compels his father to disown him, leading the once promising actor to a life on the streets. But his desire to win back the respect of his father and the affection of the dead actor's daughter pushes him toward a more noble existence. Naruse employed a delicately structured mise-en-scene in this family melodrama, which evokes the work of Josef von Sternberg.

Directed by Mikio Naruse

Signal Fires of Shanghai(1944)

1h 7min | Drama, History

4.4/5 (with 2 votes)

During the Taiping Rebellion of the mid-19th century, anti-Qing (Manchu) Chinese forces led by Taiping commander Li Xiucheng march on Shanghai. Although the Western powers are officially neutral, the British consul in Shanghai sides with the Qing imperial government, and counter to his own government's policy he retains American adventurer Frederick Townsend Ward to raise a mercenary force of foreigners in Shanghai and oppose the Taipings. Ward's force is routed, with heavy casualties, but since many of the casualties are British, the British army soon is drawn in on the side of the Qings. The only support for the Chinese comes from Japanese in Shanghai and anti-imperialist demonstrations in Japan. A family drama plays out against this historical background. After a Chinese home is destroyed by careless British shelling, killing the father and crippling a daughter, the surviving son vows revenge but begins to see that his true friends may be the Japanese.

Directed by Hiroshi Inagaki - With Tsumasaburō Bandō, Ryūnosuke Tsukigata, Tatsuya Ishiguro, Ryōsuke Kagawa

Súkromná vojna(1978)

1h 40min | Drama

- No description / details available yet. -

Directed by Satsuo Yamamoto - With Ryō Ikebe

An Enemy of the People(1946)

Tadashi Imai 1946 movie.

Directed by Tadashi Imai

The Opium War(1943)

1h 55min | War, Drama

The Opium War is a 1943 black-and-white Japanese film directed by Masahiro Makino. "Ahen senso" in Japan refers to the First Opium War. The story of the film concerns this war.

Directed by Masahiro Makino - With Setsuko Hara, Hideko Takamine, Denmei Suzuki

The Love of the Actress Sumako(1947)

1h 36min | Drama

3.5/5 (with 2 votes)

The stage director Shimamura, who is bringing western theatre to Japan, falls in love with the outspoken actress Sumako Matsui, and leaves his family to be with her, while trying to keep his Art Theatre solvent.

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi - With Chieko Higashiyama, Eitarō Ozawa, Kinuyo Tanaka, Sō Yamamura, Eijirō Tōno

The Story of Tank Commander Nishizumi(1940)

2h 16min | War

3.0/5 (with 1 vote)

Following a young man through his childhood ambition to follow his father into the military to losing his life in combat in China.

Directed by Kōzaburō Yoshimura - With Ken Uehara, Shin Saburi, Chishū Ryū, Takao Saito, Takeshi Sakamoto, Michiko Kuwano, ...

The Day England Falls(1942)

1h 41min | War