1920s Japanese Movies

University friends Ben and Shūichi unknowingly vie for the attention of the beautiful Chieko while on a skiing trip.

Directed by Kisaburo Kurihara.

An elderly man visits his mentally ill wife in a psychiatric hospital. Years earlier, she had tried to drown their child and then take her own life. Crushed by guilt and powerless to change what has happened, he remains at the clinic as a janitor. Soon, their daughter arrives to inform him of her upcoming wedding, and with her arrival come painful memories and tormenting visions.

A dutiful young fisherboy sets out to catch his grandfather's favorite fish, which leads him into an extraordinary encounter with a magic pot.

Directed by Kisaburo Kurihara.

A short animated film about how to keep germs at bay.

Mizoguchi’s 30th film is the earliest surviving example of his work, and his only film of the 1920s to survive complete. Song of Home finds the director already concerning himself with the collision of traditional and modern values. The film is structured around the contrast of two country-bred boys: a coach driver who has never left his home, and a student who returns from Tokyo with city-slicker affectations and Western jazz records. Produced by the Ministry of Education, the film has a simplistic lesson-plan at its heart, but what lingers in the mind after viewing are its more ineffable qualities: The dulcet, lyric, evocation of a disappeared rural past.

Directed by Kensaku Suzuki. "...about the unemployed and women forced into prostitution, subjects which most producers, then as now, tended to avoid." - Donald Richie, Japanese cinema: film style and national character.

Momotaro, the hero of the story, is born out of a giant peach his foster mother finds floating on the river.

Sweat (1929) is a slapstick riff on tendency-film themes, as a bored young millionaire has his clothes stolen by a tramp; dressed in the tramp’s clothes, he has to accept work as a labourer. As the hero ends up building the mausoleum he had himself commissioned.

Kurama Tengu is a 1928 black and white Japanese silent film with benshi accompaniment directed by Teppei Yamaguchi. It is a film which is a part of the series depicting the bold and daring hero Kurama Tengu. The popular series comprises numerous films based on the original novel written by Jiro Osaragi, but those featuring Kanjuro Arashi are considered to be the most valuable. Of note is the last scene in which the main character takes on numerous foes with a sword in each hand.

An adaptation of Anna Christie, considered lost.

A melodrama about an orphan and her mother who are separated and lose contact, but are later reunited.

Toshie, a young, conservative secretary-typist has fallen in love with Shozo Narita, a young man she has met through her work.

Date Mosui, a young samurai, one day gets a scolding from a nameless ronin that sets him thinking about what life is all about and his ways of living. His frined, Ando Kichinosuke, is alarmed at Mosui's despondency and invites him to his house as his little sister Tsuyu and he try to cheer him up.

A small town boy dreams of being a famous fiddler; Meanwhile, two convicts escape from prison and hide in the woods.

A twice-remade ironic comedy about a writer's encounter with a female thief.

One of Mizoguchi's first films, considered lost.

Directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa.

A young couple flee their disapproving parents, get lost of Mt. Akagi and find a cache of gold protected by the ghost of a gangster.

No overview available

Two criminal brothers try to go straight but face opposition from one of their criminal cohorts. Considered to be a lost film.

An Expressionist film about masses downtrodden by authoritarian capitalism. (Now lost.)

Tokutaro is an orphan child who becomes a street candy vendor. He sells candies, humming a song he learned long ago from his mother. One day he met with thieves along the way and this encounter changes their lives in ways they cannot imagine.

Directed by Minoru Murata.

A film on the life of Shibukawa Bangorō, the founder of the Shibukawa-ryū school of jūjutsu. To paraphrase Satō Tadao’s blurb on the back cover of the video, this is an important film for three reasons. 1. it is an almost perfectly well preserved copy of one of only a few full-length movies still available of the first superstar in Japanese cinema history, the very famous Onoe Matsunosuke. 2. it uses a method that was common in the silent era, the dyeing/tinting of film to mark given moments of day (for ex., blue for night-time) or given situations (for ex., red for fire) – and even though most films that used this technique have been redeveloped in straight b&w, this one is available in its original form. 3. it is an early SFX (special effects) movie that uses the basic tools of the trade - a great action movie full of swordsmanship and monsters (bakemono).

No overview available

Jiraiya is some sort of super-ninja with superpowers. He can fly, he can avoid detection by turning himself into a toad, and he has some sort of ability to vanish.

A kidnapped boy proves to be more than his abductor can handle.

An old potter despairs of having only two daughters and no son, hoping his apprentice will one day bring him an heir. The apprentice meets the eldest daughter but is disgusted by her. He decides to marry the younger daughter, who is in love with another man. Considered a lost film.

A classic melodramatic love tragedy addressing social inequality in Taishō-era Japan, The nostalgic scenes of 1920s Tokyo provides a valuable visual experience set against the background of the title song, "Tokyo March." (Sadly, less than a half hour of the footage has been recovered and restored.)

An old man known as a mining king was found killed by a “golden bullet”. The first to be suspected was the phantom thief at large known as the Benevolent Picaroon, widely talked about around town. But Inomata, the private eye investigating the case, didn’t think the killing-averse outlaw was behind the murder. A few days later, a note from the Picaroon was found at the crime scene of another wealthy household. Rushing over, Inomata finds something dubious about the behavior of the tycoon’s daughter. He calls in his buddy detective Kawanami and launches a serious probe to find out the truth. Whatever happened to the “golden bullet” — the key to the case? And who in fact is the Benevolent Picaroon?

Based on a Japanese legend, this animated short tells the story of a farmer who attempts to hide his mother from the wrath of a Lord who forces all people 60 and older from his village.

Lost silent film

A married man falls for a dancer and his wife's uncle hires a private detective to spy on him. Considered to be a lost film.

A young man falls for one of the geisha working in the house where he lives. However, the romance doesn't find favour with his father or current girlfriend. Considered to be a lost film.

When a nobleman is threatened by a family curse on his newly inherited estate, Sherlock Holmes is hired to investigate.

A hen-pecked man works as his artist wife's model and a house-husband. When her patron flirts with her and humiliates him, he decides to get revenge by trying his own hand as a painter. Considered to be a lost film.

In medieval Japan, a brutal and corrupt magistrate is planning to kill the child who is about to become the heir to the estate and position of the local lord and substitute his own "heir", an orphan, in order to get control of the late lord's estate and rule as the impostor's "regent". However, a mysterious stranger appears and sets out to thwart the magistrate's plans and free the people from his oppressive rule.

A retelling of the classic Aesop Fable, The Tortoise and the Hare.