Teppei Himuro

音楽大進軍

A 1943 film.

Onna keizu

1942 adaptation of Izumi Kyoka's novel.

The Man Who Waited

A bizarre murder at a hot springs resort threatens to disrupt an Edo detective's (Hasegawa) vacation. When his hot-blooded wife (Yamada) starts snooping around, however, he finds himself reluctantly drawn in to the case.

Sky of Hope

What is marriage? Young couple in match-making wanted to know before they decide. They visited married couples of sisters and brothers. Love comedy in 1942.

Mother of the Red Hands

The title might sound shocking, but the red hands mean, the hands which drag fishnets. Ohama, 15 or 16 years old girl lost her family and lived alone in a fishermen's village. She is a strong-minded girl and very popular among young children. I guess that this story is one of the origins of girl's manga in the 1950s in which I belonged to the first generation of Japanese story manga.

Dancers of Awa

Jurobei, a kaisen tonya (wholesaler in port) in Awa, was wronged and killed on the day of the Dance Festival by the evil merchant & the chamberlin. His brother (Kazuo Hasegawa) vowed vengeance on the day of his brother's death. So every year the villains are worried during the Awa Dance Festival (which is part of the Obon festival), but nothing has ever happened, until seven years later...

A Fond Face from the Past

A Fond Face from the Past is also set in a rural community, specifically a village outside Kameoka, near Kyoto. In some ways this short, thirty-six-minute film is Naruse's most moving negotiation of the militarist restrictions of the time, perhaps because it is also his most direct engagement with the culture of war. When a newsreel comes to Kameoka featuring a local man named Yoichi, it causes some excitement in the community and, of course, in Yoichi's own family. First of all his mother makes the newsreel (Nippon News, no. 14), which begins with the same marching music that opens his own film, followed by a curious baby judging context in Los Angeles featuring two hundred Japanese babies. Released in January 1941, almost a year before the pacific war begins, this “found footage” is indicative of Japanese imperialist ambitions beyond Asia long before Pearl Harbor.

Travelling Actors

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

Enoken's Bow-Wow General

Enoken no wanwan taishô AKA Wanwan Taisho AKA Bowwow General directed by Nobuo Nakagawa

Flowers Blooming In the Storm

Jidaigeki from 1940

Osanaki mono no hata

Two brothers move to their grandfather's house after their father is drafted and play war games with their new classmates.

Numazu Officer School

Japanese war movie