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The Mikado
🇯🇵 JapanIn a mythical Japan, Ko-Ko, a cheap tailor, has been appointed Lord High Executioner and must find someone to execute before the arrival of the ruling Mikado. He lights upon Nanki-Poo, a strolling minstrel who loves the beautiful Yum-Yum. But Yum-Yum is also loved by Ko-Ko, and Nanki-Poo, seeing no hope for his love, considers suicide. Ko-Ko offers to solve both their problems by executing Nanki-Poo, and an agreement is reached whereby Ko-Ko will allow Nanki-Poo to marry Yum-Yum for one month, at the end of which Nanki-Poo will be executed, in time for the arrival of the Mikado. But what Ko-Ko doesn't know is that Nanki-Poo is the son of the Mikado and has run away to avoid a betrothal to an old harridan named Katisha. The arrival of the Mikado brings all the threads of the tale together
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The Abe Clan
Kumamoto Prefecture The 17th Century“Widely acclaimed as the first full-scale historical film epic in Japan, Kumagai’s adaptation of Ogai Mori’s celebrated novel is an indictment of the bushido tradition of saving face through harakiri. The 19 vassals of Lord Hosokawa ask permission to commit harakiri with him, as a demonstration of their loyalty. Only Yaichiemon Abe is refused permission, forced instead into the vassalage of his lord’s successor. Humiliated and derided, Yaichiemon eventually commits harakiri without permission. His eldest son is then punished for Yaichiemon’s suicide, and when he resists, is sentenced to death. The entire Abe clan rebels upon the son’s execution, and the clan is annihilated.” --Alan Poul, Japan Society
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A quintessential example of the period "ghost cat" (bakeneko or kaibyo) movie, this was one of at least six such titles released by the studio Shinko Kinema between 1937-40 featuring Japan's first scream queen, Sumiko Suzuki. Here she plays Mitsue, the possessive onna-kabuki actress betrothed to apprentice shamisen player Seijiro. When one day Okiyo, a beautiful young girl of samurai class, is led to Seijiro's house by his lost cat Kuro, she becomes besotted with him. Dark jealous passions are invoked in Mitsue, which are intensified when Seijiro gifts Okiyo his precious shamisen. The cat is the first to suffer at the end of Mitsue's hairpin, but returns from the grave to assist Okiyo's younger sister Onui avenge her sister's murder.
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What Did the Lady Forget?
Tokyo PrefectureA professor, Komiya, and his bossy wife, Tokio, are to look after Setsuko, their high-spirited niece from Osaka. Despite being a minor, Setsuko is a liberated woman who does whatever she wants, including smoking. She even convinces Koyima to take her to a geisha house. When she gets rather tipsy, the professor calls Okada, one of his students, to take her home. The wife becomes suspicious of Setsuko when she sees Okada bringing her home.
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Yoshiwara
Tokyo Prefecture The 19th CenturyBased on a novel by Maurice Dekobra, the film is set in the Yoshiwara, the red-light district of Tokyo, in the nineteenth century. It depicts a love triangle between a high-class prostitute, a Russian naval officer, and a rickshaw man.
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The Daughter of the Samurai
🇯🇵 JapanAt the invitation of the Japanese Ministry of Education, the former “mountain filmer” Fanck directed this “cultural feature film” with Japanese actors in Japan, making this the first, German-Japanese co-production. The young Japanese man Teruo gets caught up in a conflict between tradition and modernism, when he returns to Japan from Germany after having spent a number of years there studying. Now, he is supposed to marry Mitsuko, the daughter of his adoptive father, to whom Teruo has long been promised. But Teruo, who has gotten to know the freedoms of the western world, would rather marry the woman he loves and behaves brusquely to Mitsuko.
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The Only Son
Tokyo PrefectureA poor factory worker, visiting the Tokyo son she has skimped to educate, finds even a college degree doesn't make a difference in Depression era Japan.
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Sisters of the Gion
Kyoto PrefectureUmekichi, a geisha in the Gion district of Kyoto, feels obliged to help her lover Furusawa when he asks to stay with her after becoming bankrupt and leaving his wife. However her younger sister Omocha tells her she is wasting her time and money on a loser. She thinks that they should both find wealthy patrons to support them. Omocha therefore tries various schemes to get rid of Furusawa, and set themselves up with better patrons.
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Oil For The Lamps Of China
Kanagawa PrefectureThe FLAMING HELL OF THE LAST FRONTIER — An American oil company representative almost sacrifices his marriage for his career.
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The Battle
🇯🇵 Japan The 1900sThe Battle is a 1934 Franco-British co-production English language drama film directed by Nicolas Farkas and Viktor Tourjansky, and starring Charles Boyer, Merle Oberon and John Loder. It was adapted from a novel by Claude Farrère. In 1904 during the Russo-Japanese War, a Japanese naval officer gets his wife to seduce a British atachee in order to gain secrets from him. Things begin to go wrong when she instead falls in love with him.
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Japanese Girls at the Harbor
Kanagawa PrefectureSet in the port city of Yokohama, two girls, Sunako and Dora who attend a Christian school, pledge to be friends. But when a youth named Henry appears on his motorcycle and offers to take Sunako for a ride, we know that this friendship won't last and that the lives of both girls will change in ways they are barely able to comprehend, and can do little to change.
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Apart From You
🇯🇵 Japan The 1930sFor Apart from You, Mikio Naruse turned his camera on the lives of working women, which he would continue to do throughout his long career. In this gently devastating drama, a critical breakthrough for the director, he contrasts the life of an aging geisha, whose angry teenage son is ashamed of her profession, with that of her youthful counterpart, a lovely young girl resentful of her family for forcing her into a life of ignominy.
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Japanese King Kong
Tokyo PrefectureA silent 3-reel comedy short that uses the 1933 film King Kong as a backdrop to the story. It was produced by Shochiku Studios (who released the original 1933 film in Japan on behalf of RKO). It is now considered to be a lost film.
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Madame Butterfly
🇯🇵 JapanPinkerton marries Cho-Cho San in Japan, whilst on shore leave. When he leaves, she keeps his Japanese home as he left it. He returns three years later, having married again in America, and tells Cho-Cho that their affair is over. She has had a child in his absence, who is sent to her family, before she kills herself.
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Tokyo Chorus
Tokyo PrefectureMr. Omura, a teacher, leads a group of male students in an outdoor drill. One slight, comic young man, Shinji Okajima, has no shirt under his jacket; he scratches at fleas and makes faces behind Omura's back. Jump ahead several years, Shinji is married with three children. He sells insurance, and on the company's annual bonus day, he protests when an older worker is fired. Shinji loses his own job as a result, and he and his wife must find ways to cope. Lassitude, pride, the demands and needs of young children, and relationships from bygone school days all play a part in the outcome of their struggle.
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Crossroads
Tokyo PrefectureRikiya is blinded in a fight after falling in love with a courtesan. Believing the blindness permanent and his opponent dead, he goes back home to his sister Okiku, who become a prostitute to pay for his treatment.
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The Breath of the Gods
🇯🇵 Japan The 1900sWhile attending college in Washington, D.C., Yuki Onda, the daughter of a Japanese samurai, meets and falls in love with Pierre Le Beau, a diplomatic attaché. At the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, Pierre is sent to Japan as attaché to the Australian ambassador. When Yuki's father discovers his daughter's romance with a foreigner, he becomes enraged and betroths her to Prince Hagane for political reasons.
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The Dragon Painter
🇯🇵 JapanA wild man and genius becomes a master painter's disciple, but loses his divine gift when he finds love.
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Harakiri
🇯🇵 Japan The 1890sThe daughter of a Daimyo, one forced to commit harakiri to secure her a future to choose her own destiny, falls in love with and marries a European officer. The officer returns to Europe but promises to come back for her and his new child, but when he comes back to Japan, he brings his European wife.
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Madame Butterfly
🇯🇵 Japan The 1900sThe story of a Japanese woman and the tragedy that ensues when she loves an American naval officer.
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The Wrath of the Gods
🇯🇵 JapanAn American sailor falls in love with a fisherman's daughter and convinces her that Jesus is more powerful than the gods who have cursed her.
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How Do You Live?
🇯🇵 Japan15-year-old boy Junichi Honda and his uncle move to new neighborhood, as Junichi deals with spiritual growth, bullying, poverty, education, work, courage, and how to live as a human being.
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Shin Ultraman
🇯🇵 JapanHave you become so fond of humans, Ultraman? — An upcoming Ultraman film by Shinji Higuchi and Hideaki Anno based on the original 1966 TV series.
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Cottontail
🇯🇵 JapanA widower from Japan travels with his estranged son to England in order to fulfill his late wife's dying wish.
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