Kyōko Asagiri

Miniature

Ginko, a poor cobbler's daughter, becomes a geisha to support her family. She passes from one geisha house to the next, trying to find love and hope in the process. No matter how hard she tries, she just can't escape her sad fate.

A Last Note

A retired actress whose husband has recently died visits her summer home. There she has encounters with old friends and acquaintances who bring various stories and news of death and the past

Notes of an Itinerant Performer

Uta’s mother died when she was six years old; her father she never met. She was forced to adopt a traveller’s life when her grandmother died, and now she is a dancer and part of a family of actors who travel from town to town, setting up street performances. A way of escape from this marginal existence arises when she gets the chance to move to tea merchant Hiramatsu’s place, where she is asked to teach his daughter to dance.

The Love of the Actress Sumako

The stage director Shimamura, who is bringing western theatre to Japan, falls in love with the outspoken actress Sumako Matsui, and leaves his family to be with her, while trying to keep his Art Theatre solvent.

Tokyo Lullaby

When Koichi Hamanaka returns after his mysterious disappearance years earlier, journalist Asakura who befriended Hamanaka's wife during his absence, tries to piece together the reasons for his departure.

Ishimatsu of the Forest

The tale of a feudal swordsman who cynically takes no responsibility for anything, relegating it to others, and then taking the credit.

Theater

Kotobuki-za is a story of the Naniwa-bushi singer Baichuken Tsurumaru.

Otoko no iki

This was 1942, so it was a national policy film, no matter what you call it. But when the war was still on the winning side, there wasn't even a little bit of sadness in the film (as the war was getting worse and worse, the burdens on our backs were increasing day by day, and we had to keep forming a line for tomorrow with nowhere to go (Akira Kurosawa's "The Most Beautiful", Admiral Nomura's "Enemy Air Raid", etc.) (Song of Annihilation, directed by Sasaki Yasushi). The film closes with the hope of the blue cloud that is bubbling up in the air. Or it may be the last time that a Japanese film talks about war and looks at the end of the war with an unconcerned eye.

君と僕

Suzhou Nights

A hostile Chinese nurse (Yamaguchi) who works in an orphanage is won over by the care and commitment of the Japanese doctor (Sano) who treats her wards. Disease outbreaks and family obligations, however, threaten to torpedo their budding romance.