Nobuko Otowa (1 October 1925 – 22 December 1994) was a Japanese film actress. She appeared in 134 films between 1950 and 1994. She was married to film director Kaneto Shindō. She posthumously won the award for best supporting actress at the 19th Japan Academy Prize for A Last Note, having been diagnosed with terminal liver cancer during its production.
The film is a series of vignettes from Taiji Tonoyama's life and film clips, interspersed with a dialogue to camera by Nobuko Otowa, addressing the camera as if she is addressing Tonoyama himself, recollecting events in his life. The film focuses on Tonoya ...
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A retired actress whose husband has recently died visits her summer home. ...
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Hama-chan shows up to work with his son on his back when his wife goes to her class reunion and his mother throws her back out. ...
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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 ...
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Set in downtown Tokyo, it depicts the activities of a weak youth baseball team, the Chidori Boys, and the ordinary people who live there. ...
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A comedy about the lives of people living in the shopping district of Osaka. ...
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A documentary about the lives of actors in the Sakura-tai theatrical troupe, which had arrived in the island of Hiroshima to begin preparations for the staging of a play just before the atomic bombing. ...
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The story of a teacher who comes to a village on the Inland Sea and the relationship that develops between her and her 12 pupils. ...
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Haru, an aging scriptwriter, has isolated himself somewhere in the woods of Nagano to work on his first novel. As the last surviving member of his kin, he intends to chronicle the family he grew up in. ...
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Takeshi Yasui, a junior high school student is found dead in a river. The police investigate it as a murder related to bullying. The dead boy turns out to have been murdered by two of his schoolmates, who he had been bullying. ...
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The life and travels of adventurer Naomi Uemura, who disappeared in Alaska in 1984. A member of the first Japanese expedition to reach the summit of Mt Everest in 1970, Uemura also accomplished several "firsts". He was the first man to reach the North Pole ...
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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. ...
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A Japanese teenager travels to New Caledonia in search of the fabled "island closest to heaven" that her late father had told her about. ...
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The melodramatic story of a pink crew's tragi-comedic adventures on location. A fictionalized adaptation of set photographer Ichiro Tsuda's 1980 book The Location (Za Rokēshon), an illustrated 229-page document about the cameraman's experiences with pink ...
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Hideo is sold in marriage to a Japanese farmer in San Francisco to settle her family's debt. Over the next 20 years, the couple works hard and raises 4 children. After Pearl Harbor is attacked, they are interned with other Japanese immigrants in a camp, lo ...
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Can a woman love two men at the same time? Set against the backdrop of Kyoto's rich history, this story depicts a woman's difficult choice for love. Ayako, played by Yukiyo Toake, is an international conference coordinator. Torn between her childhood sweet ...
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The final part takes Shingo into a confrontation with his friend Yagyu Katsunoshin's uncle in a duel that could change the destiny of Japan. ...
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Ten years before the outbreak of the Second World War in Asia, a Japanese Go master and his Chinese rival meet in China to play a game of Go (loosely described as an Asian version of chess). It soon becomes evident that the Chinese master's son is the most ...
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The world-famous woodblock artist Hokusai (1760-1849), a widower in need of a steady income, lives with his daughter Oei in the house of his friend Bakin. ...
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"Quit working as a nurse!" "All right, I will!" thus began the married life of Yasuo and Keiko. But the reality is harsh. Keiko even had to work on the first night after her marriage. Ten years later, the married couple is still at it. Yauso tends to the h ...
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A young Japanese-American man arrives at his grandmother's old hometown in Yamaguchi, begins to stay at her family's elite but dysfunctional household, and gets entangled in a sinister plot of murder. ...
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The men who surround and torment the young protagonist (demanding teacher, owner of the company that rapes his own daughter, despotic and uncompromising father) are opposed to women (victims of men) as embodiment of salvation. ...
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The body of Sakai Hatsuko, a woman of 23 who has been slain with a knife, has been found in a forest. Some days later, Ueda Hiroshi, a 19-year-old shipyard worker, is arrested and charged with the murder. At Ueda's trial, a complex story unfolds. ...
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A 1977 Japanese biographical film directed by Kaneto Shindo based on the life of shamisen player Takahashi Chikuzan. ...
Watch NowIt depicts the emotional ups and downs of a designer who runs a clothing store and her husband over the course of a summer. ...
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A film adaptation of Seicho Matsumoto's novel of the same title, starring Muga Takewaki and Yoko Shimada. Set in Japan at the end of the war, the film depicts the fate of a diplomat who abandoned his country, his wife and children, and risked everything to ...
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In 39 interviews with actors and actresses, writers, producers and staff members, interspersed with film excerpts and stills, Shindō recounts the life and career of his friend and mentor Mizoguchi. ...
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Based on a true story, an elderly woman resiliently spends nine months attempting to retrieve her husband's dead body, fighting government bureaucracy and indifference all along the way. ...
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The story tells of the adoration of Sasuke for his mistress, the blind samisen-teacher Shunkin, who treats him imperiously and subjects him to cruel beatings. ...
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A woman takes revenge on her husband after he leaves her for a younger woman by harassing the couple with unwanted phone calls at night. ...
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Oshima's magisterial epic, centering on the ambivalent surviving heir of the Sakurada clan, uses ritual and the microcosm of the traditional family to trace the rise and fall of militaristic Japan across several decades. ...
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Michio Yamada, a recent school graduate, is sent to Tokyo to work as a fruit-packer in a department store as part of a government programme. He takes a gun from a house on an American base and uses it to kill several people. The scene changes to Yamada's ...
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Otowa is a former Seto Inland Sea island farmer who has moved to the mainland in order to find work, but instead ends up dead. The film begins with the discovery of her corpse, which leads to an investigation that uncovers the narcotics, prostitution, and ...
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Japan, February 1868. As the Tokugawa shogunate declines and the power of Emperor Meiji grows, Gonzo, a soldier of the Restoration Army, returns to Sawando, his hometown, to announce the end of tyranny. ...
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In 1943, critical developments in the Pacific War have placed Japan at a disadvantage, although the fiery breaths of war hadn't yet reached Okinawa Normal School for women. Nothing seemed the least bit out of the ordinary, as Kazuko and her friends enjoyed ...
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After the closure of a coal mine leaves her husband unemployed, Fumiko travels from Kyushu to Kyoto with her daughter Kimiko, and they become hostesses at a cabaret. ...
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In the Sengoku period, a woman and her daughter are raped and murdered by soldiers during a time of civil war. Afterwards, a series of samurai returning from the war through that area are found mysteriously dead with their throats torn out. The governor ca ...
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Farmer Abare Goemon is confronted by brigand-like samurai. He raises an army of farmers to fight them and does so brilliantly. When Lord Asakura sees the success Goemon has achieved, he attempts to recruit him to fight in a conflict between Asakura and ano ...
Watch NowFormer playmates (Naito and Tamura), both long ago abandoned by their parents, recall their youth and fall in love. ...
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A well-respected drama teacher confesses to his housekeeper that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima has left him impotent. With the coming of spring, the sympathetic housekeeper suggests that the Master observe the Yobai , a custom in which the young men of a ...
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Provincial 14th century governor Moronao, attracted to the wife of a court magistrate, tries to seduce her and when she rejects his advances plots to send her husband into battle. ...
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One day a company executive learns that his younger brother, whom he recommended, embezzled company funds. To save the situation he withdraws his life savings and gives money to his younger brother. ...
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While her son, Kichi, is away at war, a woman and her daughter-in-law survive by killing samurai who stray into their swamp, then selling whatever valuables they find. Both are devastated when they learn that Kichi has died, but his wife soon begins an aff ...
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After her mother runs away from home, Tomoko is raised to be a geisha. One day Tomoko meets her mother in a red-light district in Tokyo and her life deeply gets in trouble. ...
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A divorced woman enters a marriage arranged by her mother in exchange for money to save the life of her seriously ill son. ...
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Nine maids serve the household of a writer and his wife. The couple treat their maids like daughters and marry them off to eligible men. So, they are forever looking for new maids. As the years go by maid servants become hired help and more bossy and indep ...
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Three stories about the relationship between men and women: "Playgirl" (Masumura/Shirasaka), "Company No. 2" (Yoshimura/Kasahara), and "San Nyotai" (Kinugasa/Shindô). ...
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A dark family secret sends a 21-year-old French student (Hoshi) on a journey of self-discovery. ...
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The ship Kaijin Maru is left adrift after losing all means of navigation in a storm. The four people on the ship are becoming increasingly desperate as food and water run out. ...
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A touching story of pure love and tears between a boy and a girl, drawn by the innocent duo of Chieko Baisho and Shinichiro Mikami, based on "Nagashi bina", which absorbed the customs of the Tottori region. ...
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A Japanese family is torn apart by the tensions of an avoidable nuclear world war between the superpowers. ...
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Gen is a lonely orphan boy. His sole sense of companionship comes from an imaginary friend, the god Prince Fudo-Myo. Prince Fudo-Myo comes to the boy's rescue in times of difficulty. ...
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A young woman is forced by circumstance into a loveless marriage while still in love with another. This episodic tale follows their story through three decades of bitter conflict which engulfs their children and those around them. ...
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The university professor Ozeki Hitoshi (Ryu Chishu) is regarded as an eccentric by people in his surroundings. When his daughter Tokiko is asked to marry a colleague, she and her mother are overjoyed, but Hitoshi is not satisfied with the situation. ...
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Story of a woman, Saiko, who divorces her doctor husband when she is given a baby by a stranger who claims it is the husband's child. Saiko embarks on an affair with her cousin's husband, but a crisis threatens when she discovers that her ex-husband is abo ...
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A family of four are the sole inhabitants of a small island, where they struggle each day to irrigate their crops. ...
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A single mother from the country raising a 6th grade boy comes to Tokyo, leaves the boy to live with his uncle's family, runs a struggling grocery store, and works a local inn. The boy befriends a girl, the daughter of the innkeeper. ...
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In this Japanese drama, a village girl goes to Tokyo and becomes a hooker to support her ailing mother. While there she meets an unmarried teacher (at least he says he's unmarried) and falls in love. When she learns that he lied and is married to a woman w ...
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Tradition and modernity clash when a young woman inherits a sweet-making firm in Kyoto. ...
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A young Japanese-American comes from California looking for a bride, going on blind dates with three candidates from Osaka, Hiroshima and Nagoya. ...
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The legend of the birth of Shintoism. In Fourth Century Japan, the Emperor's son Ouso expects to succeed his father on the throne, but Otomo, the Emperor's vassal, prefers Ouso's stepbrother, and conspires to have Ouso die on a dangerous mission he has con ...
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Story of a romance between a middle-aged journalist and a young woman. ...
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When Yumiko Tsuyama, a potter by profession, comes inquiring about a room for rent in an old mansion overlooking Osaka, she finds a bizarre collection of characters already living there. The unlikely leader of this menagerie is Yoda Goro, who speaks four l ...
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An ageing fishing boat, Dai-go Fukuryu Maru ("Lucky Dragon No. 5") sets out from the port of Yaizu in Shizuoka Prefecture. It travels around the Pacific line fishing. While the ship is near Bikini Atoll, the ship's navigator sees a flash. All the crew come ...
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The movie depicts the strength and resilience of a woman who spent her entire life as a merchant in Semba, Osaka. ...
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Two residents of Edo city Yaji and Kita make a journey to the temple of Ise, as part of a religious pilgrimage, but actually to get away from their wives for a little while. As they travel, they are constantly beset by complications involving women, mistak ...
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In the Tokugawa Era, the clan of Lord Yagyu has hidden away three scrolls containing clan secrets which, if revealed, would cause revolution and disaster for the clan. The information is divided among the three scrolls, all of which must be possessed for t ...
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Directed by Hiroshi Inagaki, the drama, set in the brothels of Shimabara in post-war Kyoto, is a moving look at the lives of women of tenacity and resilience. ...
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Floating Vessel (源氏物語 浮舟 , Ukifune) is a 1957 color Japanese film directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa. Drawn from parts of the famous Genji monogatari by Lady Murasaki. ...
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Based on Kakuko Mori's autobiography, about her life and retirement from acting due to her increasing blindness. ...
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20th film adaptation of the novel Ono ga tsumi (published 1900-1901). ...
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Poor social conditions badly affect the relationship between a married couple, when the husband, who is desperately searching for work, fails to notice the terrible sacrifices made by his wife when she accepts a job at a local inn. ...
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Kabuki adaptation: A princess, a figure from the literary past who anticipates a modern woman, tempts a self-righteous priest. ...
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A group of five rookie insurance salespersons, driven to desperation by the impossibility of their work in Japan's failing postwar economy, form a plan to rob a cash delivery truck in order to provide for their families. ...
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At Shizumoto, a geisha shop not far from Ginza, a group of geisha are going about their day, putting up a modest resistance to the tragedies of life. The proprietress, Ikuyo, is a ridiculously good-natured woman who gives money to a poor but brilliant youn ...
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Shigeki Kachi, Tosuke Satomura, and Nanako, who belong to the theater company Vuanbert around Dosa, withdrew at the indignation of the chairman Hayashi and seeked their own careers in the film industry. ...
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A great ambition to portray with sharp satire and humor the course of modern anxiety and love that is about to be driven to despair. ...
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Postwar Tokyo. Pin and Toku live in the squatter area of Kappanuma. Pin and Toku are avid gamblers. They take in Tsuru, a slightly demented woman who has run away from a geisha house. ...
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An Inn at Osaka, rarely seen outside Japan, follows the story of an insurance company executive from Tokyo, Mr. Mito, who is demoted to the Osaka office. He takes a room at a small inn and tries to rebuild his life. Notable for its exquisite framing and ci ...
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Nobuko Otowa won the Blue Ribbon for the Best Actress for this movie among others. ...
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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. ...
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A villager's family is ostracized after he makes an accusation of rigged elections ...
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Kazuo Miyagawa's prizewinning black-and-white cinematography draws out the moral shadings of Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata's 1952 novel Thousand Cranes, a quietly devastating story of a young man, orphaned during the war, who stumbles into a passionate ...
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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. ...
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Soichi Ataka is the eldest son of Ataka family. Although mentally challenged, he's a person with a gentle heart. Soichi's wife, Kuniko is devoted to her husband and together the couple runs the family farm. Their happy family life comes to an abrupt halt w ...
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Story of a Beloved Wife is an autobiographical work based on Shindo's first marriage. Jūkichi Uno stars as a struggling screenwriter, and Nobuko Otowa stars as the wife who supports him through his early struggles. ...
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Shinnosuke is introduced to Shizu as a prospective marriage partner, but he falls in love with her widowed sister Oyu. Convention forbids Oyu to marry because she has to raise her son as the head of her husband's family. Oyu convinces Shinnosuke and Shizu ...
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Genji, the illegitimate offspring of a Japanese potentate, goes by the philosophy of "love 'em and leave 'em" as a matter of course. Only when his heart is broken by Awaji does Genji realizes how much pain he himself has caused. ...
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A beautiful but sad romantic melodrama about three sisters who are uninhibited, pure and lovely, and who stand tall like the peaks of a place that has endured the winds and snow of love! Eisuke Taniguchi (Shimizu), president of Towa Electric Works, has th ...
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A jewelry store president begins to fall for the doctor treating her husband's illness. ...
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