Noriko Honma
Acting
Biography
Noriko Honma (本間文子 Honma Noriko, born 29 November 1911 - 12 April 2009) is a Japanese actress whose film work occurred primarily during the 1950s. She was born in Hokkaido. She worked in many of Akira Kurosawa's films, first appearing in Kurosawa's Rashomon as the Miko, also in Ikiru, The Seven Samurai, Akahige, and Dreams.
Born: November 29, 1911
Place of Birth: Yubari, Hokkaido, Japan
Known For
Seven Samurai
A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food.
Ikiru
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.
Red Beard
Aspiring to an easy job as personal physician to a wealthy family, Noboru Yasumoto is disappointed when his first post after medical school takes him to a small country clinic under the gruff doctor Red Beard. Yasumoto rebels in numerous ways, but Red Beard proves a wise and patient teacher. He gradually introduces his student to the unglamorous side of the profession, ultimately assigning him to care for a prostitute rescued from a local brothel.
Yojimbo
A nameless ronin, or samurai with no master, enters a small village in feudal Japan where two rival businessmen are struggling for control of the local gambling trade. Taking the name Sanjuro Kuwabatake, the ronin convinces both silk merchant Tazaemon and sake merchant Tokuemon to hire him as a personal bodyguard, then artfully sets in motion a full-scale gang war between the two ambitious and unscrupulous men.
Rashomon
Four people recount different versions of the story of a man's murder and the rape of his wife.
Snow-Flake
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
Keiko, whom everyone calls Mama, narrates her story: she's a hostess on the Ginza, 30, a widow. She describes life's vicious cycle: acting cheerful around drunks, dressing and living well to convey confidence, needing money for these expenses and for her demanding mother and brother, and knowing she's growing older.
Dreams
Eight visually rich vignettes drawn from Kurosawa’s own dreams—fox weddings and vanished orchards, a soldier’s ghosts, a walk through Van Gogh’s canvases, nuclear nightmares, and a water-mill utopia—meditate on childhood, art, mortality, and humanity’s uneasy bond with nature.
Oh, Bomb!
During the mayoral election, two ex-prisoners decide to replace the lucky pen of an annoying candidate with a mini-bomb.
Stray Dog
A bad day gets worse for young detective Murakami when a pickpocket steals his gun on a hot, crowded bus. Desperate to right the wrong, he goes undercover, scavenging Tokyo’s sweltering streets for the stray dog whose desperation has led him to a life of crime. With each step, cop and criminal’s lives become more intertwined and the investigation becomes an examination of Murakami’s own dark side.
Filmography
as Old Lady Holding a Cat
as Mourner
as Old Woman
as Tea shop old woman
as Itako
as Kitamura’s Mother
as Resident
as Matsuko - Shiitake's wife
as Ken's Mom
as Farmer's Ex-wife
as Mineko
as Sada
as Ken's Mom
as Mariko's Mother
as Hostess
as Otora, the foster mother
as Tetsu (Zen's wife)
as Natsu, Chiya's Mother (uncredited)
as Fusae (Kazuko’s mother)
as (uncredited)
as Worker family member
as Old Woman of O-Haru
as Woman Farmer
as (uncredited)
as Housewife
as Mino Hirai
as Otoku
as Riu's mother
as Medium
as Itakura's mother
as Sanpei's mother
as Wooden Tub Shop woman
as Ishimura's wife
as Aunt