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7.1

♡ 4

67%

Mikio Naruse Director

Mieko Takamine as Mihoko Nakagawa

Sanae Takasugi as Setsuko Sakurai

Rentarô Mikuni as Tadashi Tanimura

Yoshiko Tsubouchi as Taeko Niemura

Ten years into a marriage, the wife is disappointed by the husband's lack of financial success, meaning she has to work and can't treat herself and the husband finds the wife slovenly and mean-spirited: she neither cooks not cleans particularly well and is generally disagreeable. In turn, he alternately ignores her and treats her as a servant. Neither is particularly happy, not helped by their unsatisfactory lodgers. The husband is easily seduced by an ex-colleague, a widow with a small child who needs some security, and considers leaving his wife.

Ginza Cosmetics

1951

7.0

♡ 6

54%

Mikio Naruse Director

Eijirô Tôno as Hyôbei Sugano

Eijirô Yanagi as Seikichi Kineya

Ranko Hanai as Shizue Sayama

Masao Mishima as Tasuzô Fujimura

A luckless geisha struggles to make a living for herself and her young son.

Sound of the Mountain

1954

7.7

♡ 11

94%

adultery

parent-in-law child-in-law relationship

dysfunctional marriage

japan

pregnancy

tokyo, japan

Mikio Naruse Director

Nobuo Kaneko as

Tsuruko Mano as

Machiko Kitagawa as

Setsuko Hara as Ogata Kikuko

An ingratiating bride develops warm ties to her father-in-law while her cold husband blithely slights her for another woman.

Late Chrysanthemums

1954

7.4

♡ 7

87%

Mikio Naruse Director

Yoshiko Tsubouchi as

Tsuruko Mano as

Sadako Sawamura as Nobu

Chikako Hosokawa as Tamae

With delicate, unobtrusive strokes, Naruse evokes both the humor and bitterness of his characters’ dilemmas, in this bleak, compelling poignant portrait of a quartet of aging geishas contemplating their troubles with men and money.

Wife! Be Like a Rose!

1935

7.5

♡ 5

80%

based on play or musical

Mikio Naruse Director

Toshiko Itô as Etsuko - Kimiko's mother

Sachiko Chiba as Kimiko Yamamoto

Kamatari Fujiwara as Shingo - Etsuko's brother

Chikako Hosokawa as Shingo's wife

Kimiko, a Tokyo white-collar working girl, lives with her serious, intellectual, haiku-writing mother. Kimiko seeks to marry her boyfriend but needs her absent father to act as the go-between and negotiate the marriage. Kimiko travels and finds her father living with a second family.

Daughters, Wives and a Mother

1960

7.3

♡ 7

Mikio Naruse Director

Akira Takarada as Reiji Sakanishi, the younger son

Hideko Takamine as Sakanishi Kazuko, Yuichiro's wife

Setsuko Hara as Sanae Sakanoshi, the eldest daughter

Hiroshi Tachikawa as Shin Asabuki

Sanae is left a widow after her prestigious husband dies, but holds the proceeds of a million yen insurance policy. Being childless, her former in-laws have no objection to her return to her own family.

Lightning

1952

7.5

♡ 9

bus

parent child relationship

sister

Mikio Naruse Director

Hideko Takamine as Kiyoko

Mitsuko Miura as Mitsuko

Chieko Murata as Nuiko

Jun Negami as Shuzo

The story of Kiyoko, a young woman who has successfully managed to make a break with her dysfunctional family who have been trying to arrange a marriage for her with a disagreeable man whom she has rejected.

Repast

1951

7.6

♡ 8

83%

Mikio Naruse Director

Ranko Hanai as Koyoshi Dohya

Setsuko Hara as Michiyo Okamoto

Yôko Sugi as Mitsuko Murata, Michiyo's sister-in-law

Keiju Kobayashi as Shinzo Murata, Michiyo's brother

Michiyo lives in the small place Osaka and is not happy with her marriage; all she does is cook and clean for her husband.

Untamed Woman

1957

7.4

♡ 7

taisho

taishō period

Mikio Naruse Director

Eijirô Tôno as

Masahiko Tsugawa as

Hideko Takamine as Oshima

Mitsuko Miura as Oyu, her rival

A woman marries, gives birth to a stillborn child, and divorces, falls in love with a hotel-keeper, only to find herself subordinated to his drive for success, takes up with a tailor who cannot console himself with her strong personality.

Mother

1952

7.5

♡ 3

Mikio Naruse Director

Eiko Miyoshi as

Sadako Sawamura as O-Sei

Masao Mishima as Ryousuke Fukuhara

Eiji Okada as Shinjiro

A teenaged girl witnesses her widowed mother's attempt to sustain her family.

Older Brother, Younger Sister

1953

7.2

♡ 5

older brother younger sister

extramarital affair

pregnancy

rural area

sibling relationship

Mikio Naruse Director

Masayuki Mori as Inokichi - the Brother

Eiji Funakoshi as Kobata

Machiko Kyô as Mon

Zenji Yamada as Toyogorô

The eldest daughter of a rural family Mon returns home from Tokyo pregnant after an affair with a college student Kobata, which causes a scandal that will threaten the marriage prospects of the younger sister San, in her cash-strapped family. The ill-tempered eldest brother Inokichi decides to take on the role of disciplinarian, with harrowing results.

Sudden Rain

1956

7.2

♡ 3

86%

Mikio Naruse Director

Setsuko Hara as Fumiko

Akemi Negishi as Hinako

Haruko Tôgô as Rin Ameyama

Fuyuki Murakami as Taneda

A husband and wife's pet peeves and minor irritations escalate into major rifts and animosity.

A Woman's Place

1962

7.4

♡ 3

Mikio Naruse Director

Kunio Ôtsuka as

Akira Takarada as Rokkakuya Kou, Aki no senpu no ko

Akemi Kita as Yasuko, Matsuyo no musume

Hideko Takamine as Yoshiko, Ishikawa-ke no yome

Drama about the lives of the five daughters and daughter-in-law of a store owner.

The Lovelorn Geisha

1960

6.7

♡ 2

Mikio Naruse Director

Isuzu Yamada as Aya Fujimura

Masumi Okada as English Teacher

Tadao Nakamaru as Makoto Takamizawa

Akira Takarada as Takiguchi

A woman and her daughter are in love with the same man, a chef at the restaurant that the mother manages. He is slightly crippled from frostbite in his years in Siberian labor camps and considers himself 'already dead'.

Floating Clouds

1955

7.6

♡ 12

82%

Mikio Naruse Director

Fuyuki Murakami as Futsuin no shikensho-chou

Nobuo Kaneko as Futsuin no shoin - Suitou

Masayuki Mori as Kengo Tomioka

Hideko Takamine as Yukiko Koda

A married Japanese forester during WWII is sent to Indochina to manage forests. He meets a young Japanese typist and promises to leave his wife. He doesn't and after the war, she turns up and the affair resumes.

Flowing

1956

7.5

♡ 13

88%

Mikio Naruse Director

Kichijirô Ueda as

Yoshie Minami as

Hideko Takamine as Katsuyo, Otsuta's daughter

Isuzu Yamada as Otsuta

Otsuta is running the geisha house Tsuta in Tokyo. Her business is heavily in debt. Her daughter Katsuyo doesn't see any future in her mother's trade in the late days of Geisha. But Otsuta will not give up. This film portraits the day time life of geisha when not entertaining customers.

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs

1960

8.0

♡ 18

100%

Mikio Naruse Director

Chikako Hosokawa as

Masao Oda as

Hideko Takamine as Keiko Yashiro

Masayuki Mori as Nobuhiko Fujisaki

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.

Yearning

1964