Keisuke Kinoshita

As World War II escalates, the tight-knit inhabitants of a street in Tokyo must relocate from their beloved neighborhood so the government can use the space for the war effort.

Two con men pretending to be the brothers of a boatyard owner arrive in a seaside town in southern Kyūshū to swindle the locals, but soon they have a crisis of conscience when World War II begins.

This haunting, kabuki-inflected version of a Japanese folk legend is set in a remote mountain village where food is scarce and tradition dictates that citizens who have reached their seventieth year must be carried to the summit of Mount Narayama and left there to die. The sacrificial elder at the center of the tale is Orin, a dignified and dutiful woman who spends her dwindling days securing the happiness of her loyal widowed son with a respectable...

Filmed after Japan's unconditional surrender in 1945, this family drama functions as an angry indictment of Japanese imperialism. Fusako, a widow, is enjoying Christmas with her three sons and daughter. But the family's happiness is destroyed by several bad events: Fusako's daughter's fiance is drafted for war service and her eldest son is arrested for his political beliefs. An uncle who is a general in the army begins to dominate the family and Fusako...