Fateful Birthplace 1961

A sad love story between young Umihiko Kojima and a beautiful girl named Yukiko Shino.

The Eleventh Hour 1957

Based on a 1956 television feature on Japan’s national network, NHK, this is one of Uchida’s rarest films. A socially conscious drama with a contemporary backdrop, Dotanba focuses on the attempts to rescue a group of trapped miners. The title is a figure of speech — (essentially “last minute” or “eleventh hour”) — that refers to a situation of peril. The film boasts a script co-written by Uchida and Akira Kurosawa’s frequent screenwriter, Shinobu Hashimoto, and stars Kurosawa’s frequent star Takashi Shimura.

Ikiru 1952

Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.

Duel in the Sun 1950

A film by Kiyoshi Saeki

Conduct Report on Professor Ishinaka 1950

Three humorous love stories set in rural Japan.

Living Image 1948

A film dealing with the comings and goings of individuals in the immediate postwar period.

An Enemy of the People 1946

Tadashi Imai 1946 movie

Green Earth 1942

Set in Qingdao, China, a Japanese company locates an office there and begins work and cooperation with a local Chinese company for business. Many Japanese engineers also move to China, with their families, for the company in order to construct a canal. There are young Chinese resisting the Japanese in this area.

The Battle of Kawanakajima 1941

This epic depicts the battle between Uesugi Kenshin and Takeda Shingen. The focus of the story is the struggle by the unit leader in charge of the main supply wagons and the supply troops to transport materiel to the Uesugi army. To this are added episodes involving an itinerant woman.

Oath on the Burning Sands 1940

A Japanese army engineer (Hasegawa) on the mainland must put his personal feelings for a beautiful Chinese woman (Ri) aside if he is to succeed at building a highway through the "bandit"- (aka anti-Japanese militia-) infested hinterlands.

Flowers Blooming In the Storm 1940

Jidaigeki from 1940

Mother's Melody 1937

Saga of the Vagabonds, Part One: Tiger and Wolf 1937

Story of a bandit king.

The Scent of Pheasant’s Eye: An Episode from the Tales of Flowers 1935

When Kaoru's sister-in-law Miyoko arrives at the family home, tender feelings start to grow between the two. However, the initial happiness that Kaoru finds in the company of her beautiful sister-in-law is frustrated by her brother Mitsuo, Miyoko's husband, who intervenes in their budding passion. Full of unspoken words, deeply suggestive mise-en-scène, and forbidden glances, Fukujuso is a compelling melodrama that surprises us with its potent homoeroticism, especially considering its year of production.