Jun Hamamura

A Yokohama shoe executive faces a wrenching choice when kidnappers mistakenly seize his chauffeur’s son but demand the ransom anyway.

Taking its title from an archaic Japanese word meaning "ghost story," this anthology adapts four folk tales. A penniless samurai marries for money with tragic results. A man stranded in a blizzard is saved by Yuki the Snow Maiden, but his rescue comes at a cost. Blind musician Hoichi is forced to perform for an audience of ghosts. An author relates the story of a samurai who sees another warrior's reflection in his teacup.

Kaji, sent to the Japanese army labeled Red, witnesses cruelties in the army and revolts against the abusive treatment against a fellow recruit. He also sees his friend Shinjô defecting to the Russian border, and he ends in the front to fight a lost battle against the Russian tanks division.

The mother of a feudal lord's only heir is kidnapped by the lord. Her husband and his samurai father must decide whether to accept the unjust decision, or risk death to rescue her.

A youthful film depicting the sexual awakening of a boy who has just entered adolescence and his heartbreaking romance during the summer holidays with a young sprightly girl.

Jack Elliot, a one-time MVP for the New York Yankees is now on the down side of his baseball career. With a falling batting average, does he have one good year left and can the manager of the Chunichi Dragons, a Japanese Central baseball league find it in him?

Two detectives are tasked to investigate the murder of an old man, found bludgeoned to death in a Tokyo rail yard.

After surviving the slaughter of many Christians 350 years ago, a samurai denounces God for ignoring the pleas of believers. He sells his soul to Satan and receives the power to resurrect the dead to join him in a murderous rampage.

In Burma during the closing days of WWII, a Japanese soldier separated from his unit disguises himself as a Buddhist monk to escape imprisonment as a POW.

This sensuously beautiful film chronicles the activities of four sisters who gather in Kyoto every year to view the cherry blossoms. It paints a vivid portrait of the pre-war lifestyle of the wealthy Makioka family from Osaka, and draws a parallel between their activities and the seasonal variations in Japan.

The Americans are swiftly closing on Okinawa, an island just south of the Japanese mainland. The Imperial command sends top generals and several army divisions to defend it at all costs. The mission quickly degenerates as vital resources and troops are diverted to other islands. After a civilian evacuation ends in tragedy most of non-combatants are forced to remain on the island. Many convert to soldier status. Tokyo sends mixed messages that squander time and resources, as when they order the defenders to build an airstrip for aircraft that never come. The truth soon becomes obvious: the high command decides that the island cannot be held and effectively abandons the Okinawan defenders. When the Americans land many troops are deployed in the wrong places. As the slaughter mounts, a suicidal attitude takes hold. Okinawa becomes a death trap, for civilian volunteers and non-combatants as well.

Successful and married with children, paper-mill owner Jihei knows better than to contradict the strict social and moral codes of 18th-century Japan. But when he meets the lovely courtesan Koharu, he becomes a man obsessed. Koharu returns his love, even foregoing other customers while Jihei schemes to somehow buy her freedom. His efforts yield ruinous consequences for his business and his family life, and Koharu is meanwhile purchased by another client.

When a lone traveller stumbles upon a remote, drought-stricken village, he finds himself engulfed in a whirlpool of myth, mystery, and magic: in a nearby pond reside spirits who hold the fate of the town’s inhabitants, including lovers Akira and Yuri, in their hands.

In the closing days of WWII, a Japanese soldier afflicted with tuberculosis is abandoned by his company and left to wander the Philippine island of Leyte.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the denizens of a small Japanese fishing village struggle with defeat, cultural change, and the arrival of American troops.

Ogami Itto volunteers to be tortured by Yakuza in order to save a prostitute and is hired by their leader to kill an evil chamberlain.

A mountain bandit abducts a woman who demands he kill his other wives to please her, leading to a cycle of violence and madness fueled by superstition and obsession.

Following the detonation of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese military and the government clash over the demand from the Allies for unconditional surrender. Minister of the Army Anami leads the military officers who propose to fight on, even to the death of every Japanese citizen. Emperor Hirohito, however, joins with his ministers in asking the unthinkable, the peaceful surrender of Japan. When the military plots a coup to overthrow the Emperor's civilian government, Anami must face the choice between his desires and loyalty to his Emperor.

A harsh young man seduces a freeloading young woman and eventually takes advantage of her knack for hitchhiking to rob middle-class men.

Ever since an accident in the mountains outside town, Takuji's slept in a coma; his neighbors care for him as new events occur every day.

The heir to a family fortune discovers that a curse has been placed on it, put there centuries before by a band of samurai warriors. Adaptation of novel by Seishi Yokomizo

A story of Japanese writer Kafu Nagai (1879-1959), a man about sixty with a huge reputation of seducer who falls madly in love for a young geisha named Oyuki. Meticulous and smartly dressed, Nagai patiently wrote in his diary his thoughts during many years. A melancholy reflection on the passage of time and a brilliant interpretive exercise.

Hell manifests itself through the sins, shame and desires of an upper class rural family and a mother's grief from beyond the grave.

A nuclear explosion in the far north unleashes Gamera, the legendary flying turtle, from his sleep under the ice. In his search for energy, Gamera wreaks havoc over the entire world, and it's up to the scientists, assisted by a young boy with a strange sympathic link to the monster, to put a stop to Gamera's rampage.

Inspired by American TV movies like "Hitchcock Theater" and "The Twilight Zone," the show features multiple works with Tamori as the storyteller and actors as the main characters. While horror and supernatural themes are predominant, a variety of genres like comedy and drama are also produced. Most episodes, however, have a bad ending.

NET Playhouse is an American dramatic television anthology series produced by National Educational Television. NET subsequently merged with WNDT Newark, New Jersey to form WNET and was superseded by the Public Broadcasting Service. American television anthology series of wide range of genres, from history and drama, to fantasy, and science fiction. Fiction novels, stories, stage plays, fairytales, and historic events are dramatized in each episode.

Centered around Masujiro Omura, who became a commander for the Choshu clan, and founded the modern Japanese millitary system.

Based on the life of Hideyoshi Toyotomi (February 2, 1537 – September 18, 1598) a Sengoku period daimyo who unified Japan.