Movies: Tomoko Naraoka

When Sosuke, a young boy who lives on a clifftop overlooking the sea, rescues a stranded goldfish named Ponyo, he discovers more than he bargained for. Ponyo is a curious, energetic young creature who yearns to be human, but even as she causes chaos ...

This film follows the daily lives of a group of people barely scraping by in a slum on the outskirts of Tokyo. Yet as desperate as their circumstances are, each of them—the homeless father and son envisioning their dream house; the young woman abused...

A railway stationmaster at a dying end-of-the-line village in Hokkaido is haunted by memories of his dead wife and daughter. When the railroad line is scheduled to be closed, he is offered a job at a hotel, but he is emotionally unable to part with h...

Shows the devastation caused by the atomic bomb, and by use of a fictional storyline, portrays the struggle of the ordinary Japanese people in dealing with the aftermath....

A lavish retelling of the true story of the final voyage and ultimate destruction and sinking of the battleship Yamato, Japan's greatest flagship during the Second World War....

A tragic love story between a prostitute and a young trainee monk....

Shuji was once a feared member of the Yakuza crime syndicate, but he's reformed his ways, abandoned his old life and left the city for a small coastal fishing town where he's become an honest fisherman....

Japanese film icon Ken Takakura, who has starred in over 100 films, stars in this elegiac look at war and remembrance. Hideji Yamaoka (Takakura) was a suicide pilot during the war who somehow survived Japan's surrender. After decades of working as a ...

Rokuheita Narumi is fascinated by oriental art and works as the director of the Saho Art Museum in Nara. His wife, Noriko, is unable to leave Tokyo, despite his wishes, and the two live separately. Feeling lonely and neglected by her husband, she imm...

In 16th century Japan, a young man has to choose between becoming a master steel maker like his father and grandfather before him, or becoming a samurai so that he can help protect his village from attacks by the various clans which want the high-qua...

In the city of Yokosuka, Kinta and his lover Haruko, both involved with yakuza, brave the post-occupation period with a goal to be together....

Half a Confession introduces itself as a thriller and abruptly changes gears, transforming into a tale of morality with deeper insights into its characters than we had anticipated. It begins when Soichiro Kaji (Terao), a retired detective, walks into...

A blind traveling musician is abused and oppressed wherever she goes, even as the modern world imposes change around her....

A heartwarming tale about the turning point in the life of an elite business man in his fifties and a local train that has been running since 1911. Hajime is in line to be the next head of a prominent electronics company. He toils day and night over ...

In the dying months of the Meiji era, a sympathetic student befriends a married couple, but soon realizes they share a curiously strained relationship stemming from an unknown incident in their past....

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Everything goes wrong when Jiro tries to break up his mother's relationship with a business man. The young rebel Jiro has to deal with an environment of crime and prostitution, and the impact of its choices on personal relationships: one with his mot...

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....

The love story between a traveling guest and a geisha who inadvertently becomes the leader of her father's yakuza clan, after his death....

Kyoko met Tetsu during her trip to San Francisco. Soon they fell in love but getting married was not in his mind. They were to meet again back in Tokyo but Tetsu didn't turn up. She went to look for him in San Francisco but all she found was him with...