Tomotaka Tasaka

A touching story about a young boy, Genta, who bravely takes on life's challenges in hopes of finding a better life for himself and his sickly mother.

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Continuation of the biographical film about the monk Shinran, based on the novel by Eiji Yoshikawa. Shinran, born of the fading aristocratic class, was placed in a monastary on Mount Hiei when still a child. He did not come down for twenty years, when his wanderings begin as he spreads his ideas for achieving enlightenment through the Pure Land sutra. Because his teachings contradict the powerful Tendai sect, he comes to grief with the government, his followers persecuted, himself exiled to far coastal Echigo where he married & began raising a family but soonafter was wandering & teaching again. He lived to be ninety.

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A biographical movie about Shinran

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The young Takako Kuramoto has come to Tokyo to study and starts working for the rich Tashiro family as tutor of the daughter, Kumiko, while she receives attention from her two older brothers, Yukichi and Shinji. Meanwhile, the exact parentage of Shinji comes to light.

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Upon discovering that her father has a mistress, a young girl befriends the "other woman" and her child. Realizing that her half-sister is doomed to being regarded as an outcast, the heroine sets about to spiritually legitimize the girl.

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In order to pay back Mrs. Kajiki for her good deed in the past, Hatsu moves from her village in Akita to Tokyo to start working as a maid for her family. She grows close to their youngest son Katsumi, experiencing things that will change her view on life.

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A Japanese soldier who died in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Hawaii entrusted Henry Gray with an unfinished score and promised to complete it.

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A film by Tomotaka Tasaka.

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Tomoraka Tasaka's first postwar work.

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An anthology of thirteen patriotic stories about Japanese citizens contributing to the war effort.

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Japanese war film.

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A group of Japanese soldiers land in Chinese territory. They advance on a village ; one soldier, Norimoto, is killed in the attack, but the village is captured. Norimoto’s body is recovered and buried. Over the next two days, the soldiers advance inland. Two more soldiers, Naito and Takahashi, are injured. They remain behind to recover, but vow to catch up. Their comrades march on...

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"Around the time he made such remarkably ambivalent war films as Mud and Soldiers and Five Scouts, Tasaka directed this 'home front' comedy-drama which is too bizarre to be serious propaganda. [The plot revolves around a public contribution campaign to buy airplanes.] The mayor's aviator son promises to fly over the village in salute, and much of the narrative concerns the preparations for this great event. Tasaka throws in a few songs, some village humor and satire, and tremendous camera mobility, finally wringing every possible effect from his climax." John Gillett, British Film Institute

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Tomotaka Tasaka's A Pebble by the Wayside (Robo no Ishi), made in 1938 and taken from a Yuzo Yamamoto novel, takes place around 1902, was about a young boy brought up entirely by his mother since his drunken father is never home. An intelligent teacher wants to send him to middle school, but instead the father apprentices him to a clothing store to which he is in debt. The mother dies and the boy is forced to quit work when his father insults the store owner. Later the boy goes to Tokyo, but only to continue his hardships. First he is forced to do a maid's job at a boarding house and later is used by an old woman to steal at funerals. Finally he is rescued by the teacher, whom he meets in Tokyo.

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During the Second Sino-Japanese War, a five-man reconnaissance unit is dispatched to scout enemy positions in a volatile territory. After a sudden and intense firefight, the group is separated, leaving the survivors to wait in agonizing suspense at their outpost.

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Directed by Tomotaka Tasaka.

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Tomotaka Tasaka's earliest surviving surviving film is a powerful adaptation of Hector Malot's "Nobody's Girl".

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This 1927 film from Tomotaka Tasaka was shot in Taiwan and features an indigenous youth. Produced for Nikkatsu.

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A Japanese soldier who died in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Hawaii entrusted Henry Gray with an unfinished score and promised to complete it.

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Japanese war film.

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