Keiji Hasebe

Ballad of Orin

A blind traveling musician is abused and oppressed wherever she goes, even as the modern world imposes change around her.

The Long Darkness

A delicate study of the relationship between two disillusioned young people, shot in atmospheric monochrome among Tokyo's decaying lumberyards and the inhospitable snowscapes of the north.

Profound Desires of the Gods

Tokyo engineer Kariya arrives on a primitive tropical island, where he interacts with the Futori clan, to drill a well to power a sugar mill.

Intentions of Murder

The neglected common-law wife of a Japanese librarian is repeatedly harassed by a young man with a heart condition who seduces her with the prospect of a better life.

The Insect Woman

A woman, Tome, is born to a lower class family in Japan in 1918. The title refers to an insect, repeating its mistakes, as in an infinite circle. Imamura, with this metaphor, introduces the life of Tome, who keeps trying to change her poor life.

Odd Obsession

A middle-aged husband of a younger woman finds her youth intimidating to the point that he cannot become aroused. His solution involves the introduction of his daughter's lover to his wife.

Maria of the Ant Village

Alongside Tokyo's Sumida River is a ragpickers' settlement known as Ant Village. One night, a young Catholic girl, Satoko Kitahara, who has been baptized under the name of Maria, comes to offer her services. However, Ant Village is not just an ordinary vagrants' community but a fine autonomous organization, and as the municipal authorities have long been demanding that the people of Ant Village leave the site, Satoko is utilized to publicize the Village and win public sympathy. While being utilized in this manner, Satoko is nevertheless glad to be able to help the people of Ant Village, especially the children, and when the summer vacation comes she decides to take the children on an excursion to Hakone. To raise funds for this purpose she becomes a rag-picker herself.

Conflagration

Learning of his family's collapse, acolyte Goichi, sent to study silently at the Temple of the Golden Pavilion, must endure acute psychological distress.

Yoku

Half a Loaf... Avarice / Yoku

The Seasons of Love

A family is slowly falling apart: the father is absent from the start, the mother a kept woman thanks to her children, the son is being cheated on by his wife, one daughter is forced to marry an older man against her will, while the other has retreated into smug moral superiority.

Yellow Crow

In this Golden Globe winner for Best Foreign-Language Film, director Heinosuke Gosho -- a master chronicler of Japanese middle-class life -- presents the story of Kiyoshi Yoshida (Koji Shitara), who feels estranged from both parents after his father returns from war. How the boy adapts to life with the virtual stranger his father has become is the film's focus. Chikage Awashima, Yûnosuke Itô and Yoshiko Kuga also star.

Summer Storm

A woman falls in love with her sister's fiancé.

Punishment Room

Shimada is a student of U College. When the college's baseball team wins the day, he and his friend Ito drug two girls they met at the game.

Twice on a Certain Night

Poor social conditions badly affect the relationship between a married couple, when the husband, who is desperately searching for work, fails to notice the terrible sacrifices made by his wife when she accepts a job at a local inn.

The Heart

In the dying months of the Meiji era, a sympathetic student befriends a married couple, but soon realizes they share a curiously strained relationship stemming from an unknown incident in their past.

A Billionaire

An ethical, young tax collector new to his area encounters increasingly absurd individuals and groups coping with their post-war woes.