Yōko Umemura Movies

In late 19th century Tokyo, Kikunosuke Onoue, the adopted son of a legendary actor, himself an actor specializing in female roles, discovers that he...

Umekichi, a geisha in the Gion district of Kyoto, feels obliged to help her lover Furusawa when he asks to stay with her after becoming bankrupt and...

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...

Japanese war film.

Ayako becomes the mistress of her boss so she can pay her father's debt and prevent him from going to prison for embezzlement.

Tōjin Okichi is a 1930 film by Kenji Mizoguchi based on the novel by Gisaburo Juichiya. Only 4 minutes have survived. The fragment has been...

A Man of the Arts

1942 Japanese movie

Based on Soseki Natsume’s 1908 novel of the same title, Poppy is an ornately complicated story of desire and ambition. Fujio is beautiful,...

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. Released in 2 parts. His only release of 1931

A samurai is ordered by his lord to go to Edo and investigate the truth behind the rumor of a rebellion against him.

When a civil war threatens to break out, two geishas flee from their village with aristocrats. During the long journey, the socially inferior women...

A quintessential example of the period "ghost cat" (bakeneko or kaibyo) movie, this was one of at least six such titles released by the studio Shinko...

Followup film to Osaka Elegy - Osaka Woman

Directed by Kichiro Tsuji.

Kenji Mizoguchi is credited as “supervisor” on this rare Japanese genre film, which stars the stunning Isuzu Yamada (Osaka Elegy, Throne...

Silent Japanese film.