Yōko Mizuki

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 comes at a cost. Blind musician Hoichi is forced to perform for an audience of ghosts. An author relates the story of a samurai who sees another warrior's reflection in his teacup.

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This film by Toyoda depicts the hard life of an unmarried mother in Tokyo. Umeko (Machiko Kyo), at 36, is working in a bar, struggling valiantly to keep her family together. Her 17-year-old daughter Takeko becomes increasingly upset by her mother's constant drinking and yakuza boyfriend, and runs away from home. Kyo's performance was highly praised.

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Two obaachans become fast friends listening to music in front of a record store. They both boast about their loving sons but in reality, one had just escaped a retirement home and the other was looking for an escape from her son and daughter-in-law. With nowhere to go, the two wander around, befriending a cosmetics salesman and a kind waitress who give them beer. This biting social satire starring two memorable grandmothers, scripted by Yôko Mizuki, picked up on Japan’s aging population problem far ahead of its time.

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The three Matsunami sisters navigate adulthood and the complex social pressures of finding a husband while living under their traditional father’s roof. As they balance their personal desires against the family's obsession with status, their search for "marriageable age" stability is complicated by secret affairs and the cold reality of arranged matches. They must ultimately decide whether to conform to the rigid expectations of their upper-class upbringing or break away to pursue their own independence.

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Set in 1926 when Japanese tradition was much stronger, this drama looks at the inner workings of a small family, especially the relationship between a sister and brother.

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Kiku and her brother Isamu are social outcasts, children of a prostitute mother and black GI father, in postwar Japan.

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A film about the life of Kiyoshi Yamashita, a Japanese painter with disabilities.

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Five boys escape from their life of bondage on an island 10 miles off Hiroshima, and are picked up in the Inland Sea, drifting in an open boat.

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Junai Monogatari AKA Story of Pure Love is about two poor youths, Mitsuko and Kando, rebelling against society in various ways, who are desperately trying to be together despite tortuous circumstances. The film depicts their lives as thieves, menial laborers who can get little pay, society outcasts, and of course, lovers. Junai Monogatari depicts, mostly, their struggles within the Japanese reformatory system and Mitsuko's worsening sickness.

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A woman marries, gives birth to a stillborn child, and divorces, falls in love with a hotel-keeper, only to find herself subordinated to his drive for success, takes up with a tailor who cannot console himself with her strong personality.

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Fumiko and Ryōtarō Namiki's marriage has gone stale, with both constantly arguing over what to do on a day off, or about her cutting out recipes from the newspaper before he finishes reading it. Their animosities are witnessed by Fumiko's niece Ayako, who visits to complain about her own husband's inattentiveness, and their new neighbours, the Imasatos.

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The story of a group of young people who organise their own travelling symphony orchestra to provide music for people living in remote villages shortly after the war.

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The film adaptation of Yuzo Yamamoto's novel tells the story of the difficult fate of a single mother in pre-war Japan.

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A married Japanese forester during WWII is sent to Indochina to manage forests. He meets a young Japanese typist and promises to leave his wife. He doesn't and after the war, she turns up and the affair resumes.

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An ingratiating bride develops warm ties to her father-in-law while her cold husband blithely slights her for another woman.

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A Japanese woman writes down three stories she has witnessed or heard of in her diary, each about the difficult situation a young woman finds herself in.

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The eldest daughter of a rural family Mon returns home from Tokyo pregnant after an affair with a college student Kobata, which causes a scandal that will threaten the marriage prospects of the younger sister San, in her cash-strapped family. The ill-tempered eldest brother Inokichi decides to take on the role of disciplinarian, with harrowing results.

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Michiko Asakura was married to the eldest son of the Sakuma family, an unsealed family in Shinshu, but died from her husband and returned to her parents' house in Tokyo with her five-year-old daughter Yoshiko.

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A married couple looking for an apartment move in with the husband's co-worker, a widower. The husband becomes jealous of the widower and his wife.

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A group of Okinawan high school girls are drafted as nurses during the American invasion of the island. As the enemy army advances further, the situation for the girls becomes increasingly desperate as food and shelter run out and the number of injured climbs, leading to the film's tragic finale.

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A teenaged girl witnesses her widowed mother's attempt to sustain her family.

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Soichi Ataka is the eldest son of Ataka family. Although mentally challenged, he's a person with a gentle heart. Soichi's wife, Kuniko is devoted to her husband and together the couple runs the family farm. Their happy family life comes to an abrupt halt when Soichi's half-brother, Joji returns with his wife Masako after failing in a business.

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Saburo and Keiko fall in love with each other but the tide of war separates them.

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