Yoshiko Kuga
Acting
Biography
Yoshiko Kuga (久我 美子, Kuga Yoshiko, 21 January 1931 – 9 June 2024) was a Japanese actress. Kuga was born in Tokyo, Japan. In 1946, while still attending Gakushuin Junior High School, she became an actress for Toho studios. In 1947, she made her debut as one of the lead actresses in the omnibus movie Four Love Stories (四つの恋の物語, Yottsu no Koi no Monogatari). In the 1950s, she started working independently and starred in many productions of the Shochiku studios under the direction of Keisuke Kinoshita. Other important directors include Kenji Mizoguchi (The Woman in the Rumor), Yasujirō Ozu (Equinox Flower), and Tadashi Imai (An Inlet of Muddy Water). Since the 1970s, she appeared mainly on television and on stage. Kuga was married to actor Akihiko Hirata from 1961 until his death in 1984. She died from aspiration pneumonia on 9 June 2024, at the age of 93.
Born: January 21, 1931
Place of Birth: Ushigome, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan
Known For
The Roads Men Travel
The series depicts the employees of a security company from different generations and backgrounds facing many difficult questions. It features a guard who survived a suicide mission during the war and his conflicts, rebellion, empathy and reconciliation with the younger generation born after the war.
Good Morning
A lighthearted take on director Yasujiro Ozu’s perennial theme of the challenges of intergenerational relationships, Good Morning tells the story of two young boys who stop speaking in protest after their parents refuse to buy a television set. Ozu weaves a wealth of subtle gags through a family portrait as rich as those of his dramatic films, mocking the foibles of the adult world through the eyes of his child protagonists. Shot in stunning color and set in a suburb of Tokyo where housewives gossip about the neighbors’ new washing machine and unemployed husbands look for work as door-to-door salesmen, this charming comedy refashions Ozu’s own silent classic I Was Born, But . . . to gently satirize consumerism in postwar Japan.
Drunken Angel
In postwar Tokyo, a blunt, alcohol-soaked doctor diagnoses a swaggering young yakuza with tuberculosis, forging an uneasy bond that’s tested when the gangster’s ruthless former boss returns and drags him back toward the swampy underworld he can’t escape.
Godzilla vs. Biollante
After the previous Godzilla attack, a miniature arms race ensues to collect his cells. Concerned over Godzilla's possible return, the Japanese government uses the cells to create a new bio-weapon, ANEB (Anti-Nuclear Energy Bacteria). They seeks the aid of geneticist Genshiro Shiragami, who's experiments result in a new mutation.
Equinox Flower
Wataru Hirayama's outwardly liberal views on marriage are severely tested when his daughter declares that she is in love with a coworker and is adamant to live life her own way, instead of agreeing to an arranged marriage. Outwitted by his female relatives, Hirayama stubbornly refuses to admit defeat.
Samurai Banners
Kansuke Yamamoto is a samurai who dreams of a country united, peaceful from sea to sea. He enters the service of Takeda, the lord of Kai domain. He convinces Takeda to kill the lord of neighboring Suwa and take his wife as a concubine. He then convinces the widow, Princess Yu, to accept this arrangement and to bear Takeda a son. He pledges them his life. He then spends years using treachery, poetic sensibility, military and political strategy to expand Takeda's realm, advance the claim of Yu's son as the heir, and prepare for an ultimate battle with the forces of Echigo. Has Kansuke overreached? Are his dreams, blinded by love, too big?
Tokyo Fair Weather
This is a biographical film about the late Yoko Araki, who was the wife of Japan's leading photographer, Nobuyoshi Araki.
The Woman in the Rumor
After living a traumatic experience in Tokyo, Yukiko returns to Kyoto, where Hatsuko, her mother, runs a brothel, which upsets Yukiko very much.
Daredevil in the Castle
During the raging war between the Toyotomi and Tokugawa clans, the swordsman Mohei (whose family has been completely decimated) is recruited by Toyotomi to overcome the seat of power, Osaka Castle. Mohei's daredevil skills will be put to severe tests.
The Idiot
A gentle, war-shattered ex-soldier, Kinji Kameda, arrives in wintry Hokkaidō and is pulled into a volatile tangle of love and pity between the disgraced Taeko Nasu, the proud Ayako, and his possessive friend Akama. Kameda’s saintly compassion exposes everyone’s wounds, steering the quartet toward jealousy, violence, and inexorable tragedy. Adapted from Dostoevsky’s novel.
Filmography
as Yuki Shiokawa
as Michie Yoshiyama
as Fumi Kobayshi
as Women's clothing store manager
as Lady who walks
as Prime Minister's Wife
as Suzuko Watanabe
as 竹田静
as Takahara Chie
as Tatsuo's mother
as Onobu (Kaishu's mother)
as 室伏はる子（伊東はる子）
as Kikusato
as Yaeno Kurumiya
as Chiyo
as Nobuko Sato
as Teiko Uhara
as Kobue
as Yuki
as Kazuko Yasugi
as Yasuko Satô
as Setsuko Arita
as Sakura
as Chie
as Fumiko Mikami
as Reiko Hyodo
as Yuhime
as Yasuko Ashihara
as Keiko Hase
as Senko Minami, prisoner
as Yôichi's older sister, Toyoko
as Harue Kawazoe
as Reiko
as Tokiko
as Yumiko (segment 3)
as Hiroko, Ryoichi's wife
as Sute Kagami
as Yasuyo Uematsu
as Yukiko Mabuchi
as Akiko Hayashino
as Michiko Kubota
as San
as Yukiko
as Ayako
as Hamako Abe
as Keiko Ono
as Kuwako
as Girl at church
as Schoolgirl
as Kumiko Hirobe