1920s Japanese Movies

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

No overview available

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.

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

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

Directed by Kensaku Suzuki.

A man takes a job at an asylum with hopes of freeing his imprisoned wife.

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

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.

Directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa.

An adaptation of Anna Christie, considered lost.

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.

Lost silent film

No overview available

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

When a woman unfairly suspects her husband of flirting with a shop assistant, she decides to flirt with their landlord to get revenge. Considered to be a lost film.

Directed by Minoru Murata.

Directed by Kisaburo Kurihara.

Directed by Kisaburo Kurihara.

Directed by Eizo Tanaka.

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

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.

In order to win the hand of a princess, a man must defeat an evil dragon and claim its treasured magic stone. Upon his return, Baghdad has been invaded and he must use the stone to defeat his new enemy.

Nanjo Mikisaburo is a young samurai trying to restore his ruined family to its past glory. Enduring the contempt and disdain of high-ranking samurai, Mikisaburo devotes himself to the way of the warrior, mastering the literary and martial arts. His master Kurahashi Jupeita's daughter Misao feels for Mikisahuro who maintains his pride in the face of the arrogant samurai's scorn. She sympathizes with and encourages him. However this sympathy ignites a passionate love for her in Mikisaburo.

For nearly 300 years, Japan had been hermetically sealed to the outside world. When, in that pivotal year of 1854, the American Admiral Perry took the direct approach that the Dutch had been unwilling to take, the ruling Shogun knew that the dynasty was over. As the shogun began to open up to the outside world, the Sonno Joi movement called for this to be reversed...

One of Mizoguchi's first films, considered lost.

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.

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.

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.

An old man with a huge lump on his face encounters a band of Tengu in the mountains.

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.

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 kouta eiga, a type of Japanese silent silent film that featured a live performance by a benshi and on-screen lyrics.

Comedy about a young man juggling several girlfriends. Considered to be a lost film.

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

This is the story of a samurai who falls on hard times due to misunderstandings and follows the plots of his enemies.

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.

No overview available