Known for Camera
Asakazu Nakai (Japanese: 中井朝一; August 29, 1901 – February 28, 1988) was a Japanese cinematographer, born in Kobe. He worked on a dozen films with filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work in the film Ran (1985). In 1950 he won the award for Best Cinematography at the Mainichi Film Concours for Stray Dog.
Born
August 29, 1901
Died
February 28, 1988 (age 86)
Birthplace
Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan
Filmography
72 films


Ran
1985 · 2h 40m
country: Japan
Shakespeare's King Lear is reimagined as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan where an aging warlord divides his kingdom between his three sons.


Love and Separation in Sri Lanka
1976 · 1h 56m
country: Japan
A Japanese businessman is sent to Sri Lanka and meets a beautiful Japanese woman with a past. They befriend an old Japanese-Indian widow who has an estranged son in Japan.


Dersu Uzala
1975 · 2h 21m
country: Japan
A military explorer meets and befriends a Goldi man in Russia’s unmapped forests. A deep and abiding bond evolves between the two men, one civilized in the usual sense, the other at home in the glacial Siberian woods.


The Origin of Twenty Years Old
1973 · 1h 29m
country: Japan
On June 24, 1969, Etsuko Takano, a 20-year-old third-year student at Ritsumeikan University, jumped in front of a train and died instantly. She left no suicide note, but did leave over a dozen diaries. This film is based on her writings.


First Love
1972 · 1h 34m
country: Japan
A 1970s Toho coming-of-age film.


Shiosai
1971 · 1h 28m
country: Japan
Lonely youth Shinji meets Hatsue, a pretty pearl diver, on the beach and the two fall in love. But Shinji has a rival for Hatsue's affections, Yasuo. Yasuo spreads unpleasant gossip about his rival, and Hatsue's father forbids her to see Shinji. But when the boy saves the passengers on a boat owned by Hatsue's father, his luck in love begins to change.


Wakare no uta
1971 · 1h 44m
country: Japan
Richness, severity and pureness of love is beautifully and sentimentally depicted.


Take Care, Red Riding Hood
1970 · 1h 29m
country: Japan
A high-schooler involved in turn-of-the-decade student movements works to escape his comfort zone and apply himself.


L'Essayage
1969 · 1h 34m
country: Japan
Drama about a young dress designer.


When Love Awakens
1969 · 1h 28m
country: Japan
Drama about an adolescent girl. Remake of Wife! Be Like a Rose! (1935)


Konto 55: The Weaknesses of the Century
1968 · 1h 27m
country: Japan
A Toho film featuring the comedy duo Konto 55, (コント55号), comprised of comedians Kinichi Hagimoto and Jiro Sakagami.


Judge and Jeopardy
1968 · 1h 39m
country: Japan
It is based on the story "The Lawyer" by attorney Hiroshi Masaki and his account of Japan's "Headless Murder Case" in which a police officer beat a suspect to death during the Pacific War.


Great Incidents
1967 · 1h 23m
country: Japan
Comedy starring the manzai team of Chick and Tack, and set in the world of salarymen.


The Daphne
1966 · 1h 46m
country: Japan
Four sisters are all named after flowers. While the two youngest are married, the eldest two remain single, much to the annoyance of their long-suffering mother. The mother and her brother try various schemes to find husbands for them.


We Will Remember
1965 · 2h 11m
country: Japan
Near the end of the war, a number of young Japanese join an army band hoping to avoid the front lines, but instead are sent to the Chinese Front.


Red Beard
1965 · 3h 5m
country: Japan
Aspiring to an easy job as personal physician to a wealthy family, Noboru Yasumoto is disappointed when his first post after medical school takes him to a small country clinic under the gruff doctor Red Beard. Yasumoto rebels in numerous ways, but Red Beard proves a wise and patient teacher. He gradually introduces his student to the unglamorous side of the profession, ultimately assigning him to care for a prostitute rescued from a local brothel.


The World's Most Beautiful Swindlers
1964 · 1h 48m
country: France
Five swindle stories, taking place in five international cities: Tokyo, Japan ("Fumiko's Five Benefactors" by Hiromichi Horikawa); Amsterdam, The Netherlands ("A River of Diamonds" by Roman Polanski); Naples, Italy ("The Road Map" by Ugo Gregoretti); Paris, France ("The Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower" by Claude Chabrol); and Marrakesh, Morocco ("The Confidence Man" by Jean-Luc Godard). Godard's segment was not included in the original French cinema release, and Polanski's segment was not included on the 2016 home disc release.


Apple Blossom Town
1963 · 1h 29m
country: Japan


High and Low
1963 · 2h 22m
country: Japan
A Yokohama shoe executive faces a wrenching choice when kidnappers mistakenly seize his chauffeur’s son but demand the ransom anyway.


Musume to watashi
1962 · 2h 3m
country: Japan


The End of Summer
1961 · 1h 43m
country: Japan
The family of an older man who runs a small sake brewery become concerned with his finances and his health after they discover him visiting an old mistress from his youth.


Girls of the Night
1961 · 1h 32m
country: Japan
In the wake of the 1956 Prostitution Prevention Law, a young woman recently released from one of Japan's new rehabilitation centers struggles to build a new life.


Eternity of Love
1961 · 2h 20m
country: Japan
A Hiromichi Horikawa movie


The Blue Beast
1960 · 1h 35m
country: Japan
The ruthless and ambitious Yasuhiko uses his charm to manipulate and exploit those around him to climb the corporate social ladder. His cold-blooded ascent eventually leads to moral decay as his past actions begin to catch up with him.


The Dangerous Kiss
1960 · 1h 23m
country: Japan
Starring Akira Takarada as a lightweight boxing champion.


The Lost Alibi
1960 · 1h 35m
country: Japan
Suspense drama about a married salaryman whose affair with one of his co-workers is compromised when, returning from a clandestine meeting with his lover, he runs into a neighbor who is later accused of murder. Questioned by police about the neighbor, and blackmailed by his lover's neighbor, the salaryman's lies lead him on a path to destruction.


New Third Class Executive: Travel, Women and Drinking
1960 · 1h 25m
country: Japan
A struggling salesman at World Electric finds his major deal blocked by internal politics and pressure from all sides. During a company trip to Beppu, personal entanglements and old company secrets surface, forcing difficult choices and quiet compromises.


The Enchanting Devil
1959 · 1h 27m
country: Japan
Thriller directed by Seiji Maruyama


I Love You
1959 · 1h 20m
country: Japan


I Want to Be a Shellfish
1959 · 1h 53m
country: Japan
On a post-war peaceful day in Japan, Toyomatsu Shimizu, a barber as well as a good father and husband, is suddenly arrested by the Prefectural Police as a war criminal and sued for murder.


The Big Boss
1959 · 1h 41m
country: Japan
Ryuta and Mineo Komatsu are brothers, both yakuza (gangsters). Mineo, although complicit in crime, even murder, wants out of the gangster life, hoping to become a successful singer instead. Ryuta loves his brother, but Mineo's possible defection presents problems for the gang, and Ryuta realizes he must kill his brother if he wants to survive.


The Naked General
1958 · 1h 33m
country: Japan
A film about the life of Kiyoshi Yamashita, a Japanese painter with disabilities.


All About Marriage
1958 · 1h 24m
country: Japan
Ultra-perky model likes single freedom but feels ryosai kenbo ("good wife, wise mother") pressure, exemplified by her bored-to-tears sister.


A Bridge for Two Alone
1958 · 1h 29m
country: Japan


The Oil-Hell Murder
1957 · 1h 39m
country: Japan
A privileged son betrays his family for the favors of a geisha in 18th century Osaka.


A Dangerous Hero
1957 · 1h 34m
country: Japan
After the son of a wealthy man is kidnapped, a tenacious young reporter decides to find the culprit.


Ujō
1957 · 1h 57m
country: Japan


Throne of Blood
1957 · 1h 48m
country: Japan
Returning to their lord's castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the spirit's prophecy comes true, Washizu's scheming wife, Asaji, presses him to speed up the rest of the spirit's prophecy by murdering his lord and usurping his place. Director Akira Kurosawa's resetting of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" in feudal Japan is one of his most acclaimed films.


I Live in Fear
1955 · 1h 43m
country: Japan
An aging foundry patriarch, gripped by terror of nuclear annihilation, tries to uproot his family to Brazil. When they petition to have him declared incompetent, a family-court counselor witnesses his obsession slide into ruin—and asks whether ignoring the atomic threat is any saner.


The Tears of Geisha Konatsu
1955 · 1h 45m
country: Japan
A sequel to Geisha Konatsu (1954).


School Girls in Costume
1955 · 1h 26m
country: Japan


Seven Samurai
1954 · 3h 27m
country: Japan
A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food.


Mr. Pu
1953 · 1h 38m
country: Japan
A math teacher loses his job while falling in love with a local girl.


Husband and Wife
1953 · 1h 27m
country: Japan
A married couple looking for an apartment move in with the husband's co-worker, a widower. The husband becomes jealous of the widower and his wife.


Oka wa hanazakari
1952
country: Japan


Ikiru
1952 · 2h 23m
country: Japan
Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.


Who Knows a Woman's Heart
1951 · 1h 20m
country: Japan
Ikeuchi was captain of the K - University ice hockey team. The daughter Shikotsuko of Ginza 's western restaurant "Piccolo" was also a female student at K University and was a figure player. They had a dream of being dispatched to Oslo in the Olympic Games and were struggling in each way. Mizuno who runs a sports equipment store in Ginza, showed the geisha by guiding the junior's Ikeuchi and others to the shop of Shimbashi one day.


Dancing Girl
1951 · 1h 25m
country: Japan
The troubled relationship between a writer and his ballet teacher wife, who has for years loved another man, finally leads to the breakup of the family.


Freedom School
1951 · 1h 45m
country: Japan
Released on the same date as Shochiku's version.


Elegy
1951 · 1h 50m
country: Japan
Wataru Naohiko who has the prosecutor general as his father became a young composer and its symphony "saint" invoked the world echoed. But his disciple Uchiyama and his best friend prosecutor Daisuke Toki accused his music as a sesame of pause-only technique, not a truly heart-hungry art.


Clothes of Deception
1951 · 1h 42m
country: Japan
The story of two sisters in post-war Japan. One is a geisha and the other works for the tourist board.


The End of the War
1950 · 1h 31m
country: Japan
A man driven mad amid the ravages of war, a woman who never found true love, and an innocent young man—all drawn once again to the military port now returned to peace.


Escape from Prison
1950 · 1h 43m
country: Japan


Stray Dog
1949 · 2h 2m
country: Japan
A bad day gets worse for young detective Murakami when a pickpocket steals his gun on a hot, crowded bus. Desperate to right the wrong, he goes undercover, scavenging Tokyo’s sweltering streets for the stray dog whose desperation has led him to a life of crime. With each step, cop and criminal’s lives become more intertwined and the investigation becomes an examination of Murakami’s own dark side.


The Blue Mountains: Part II
1949 · 1h 31m
country: Japan
Continuation of The Blue Mountains: Part I. Released a week later.


The Blue Mountains: Part I
1949 · 1h 32m
country: Japan
Teacher Yukiko finds herself in opposition to conservative faculty and villagers after defending a student for being in a relationship with a young man from Tokyo.


Suiren fujin to bara musume
1948 · 1h 20m
country: Japan
When pickpocketing runs rampant, detectives step up their game. Yazaki, a detective at the Ohira Private Detective Agency who graduated from the University of Tokyo, bumps into a woman on a street corner. The woman turns out to be Asako, a female detective who works at his uncle Ryutaro’s private detective agency. Asako lives with her stepmother, Kiyoe, a young widow. The mother worries about her daughter’s marriage prospects, while the daughter worries about her mother’s job situation.


Actress
1947 · 1h 56m
country: Japan
During the late Meiji period, at the beginning of the twentieth century, Sumako, a country girl, becomes a great actress with the help of Hogetsu, a scholar who brought European realism to the Japanese stage. The relationship leads to the end of his marriage and the breakup of his Arts Society.


One Wonderful Sunday
1947 · 1h 48m
country: Japan
Two broke sweethearts wander war-scarred Tokyo on a single Sunday, stretching 35 yen as they chase housing, small pleasures, and a little hope.


No Regrets for Our Youth
1946 · 1h 51m
country: Japan
After her anti-fascist professor father is dismissed, Yukie navigates love, political repression, and wartime upheaval—ultimately forging her own path in pre- and post-WWII Japan.
The Brick Factory Girl
The Brick Factory Girl
1946 · 1h 3m
country: Japan
This film focuses on Koreans living in Japan. The filmmaker’s humanism comes across in the portrayal of a girl living in a shabby tenement, the warmth of a Korean girl she meets, and the friendliness of this Korean girl’s family.
Yoki na onna
Yoki na onna
1946 · 1h 13m
country: Japan
1946 Toho film directed by Kiyoshi Saeki


Three Women of the North
1945 · 1h 12m
country: Japan
The story of an airport and its air traffic control crew in a remote and northern Japanese town. Three of the air traffic controllers are female with one of them working with her dead fiancé's sister. The engaged man had gone to war and never returned.


Battle Troop
1944 · 1h 35m
country: Japan
Three IJN flyers Mikami (Susumu Fujita), Kawakami (Masayuki Mori) and Murakami (Akitake Kono) are good friends, and they are all renowned for their torpedo techniques. Mikami is posted as a staff officer at a base on an island in the Pacific. Kawakami and Murakami later joins him as the base squardron is reinforced. The enemy task force approaches the island and all three of them attack the fleet, killing themselves in the process.


Nichijô no tatakai
1944 · 1h 12m
country: Japan


The Song Lantern
1943 · 1h 33m
country: Japan
A self-absorbed young actor humiliates an elderly Noh performer, who then commits suicide. His act of cruelty compels his father to disown him, leading the once promising actor to a life on the streets. But his desire to win back the respect of his father and the affection of the dead actor's daughter pushes him toward a more noble existence. Naruse employed a delicately structured mise-en-scene in this family melodrama, which evokes the work of Josef von Sternberg.


Banzuiin Chōbei
1940 · 1h 21m
country: Japan
A jidaigeki film on Banzuiin Chōbei produced in 1940 and directed by Yasuki Chiba.


Hideko the Cheerleader
1940 · 1h 11m
country: Japan
Hideko, a young Baseball fan, determined to cheer for her favourite baseball team by creating a new song for them.
Otomebashi
Otomebashi
1936 · 54m
country: Unknown
Because there was no bridge over the large river flowing between two villages, the villagers had to rely on a rope to cross, risking their lives each time. One day, a young girl is swept away by the raging current and loses her life…


The Scent of Pheasant’s Eye: An Episode from the Tales of Flowers
1935 · 1h 7m
country: Japan
Mitsuo the Counselor's son marries writer Miyoko, however a tender romance blossoms between Miyoko and Mitsuo's sister Kaoru. When the family falls to bankruptcy, heartache ensues; Miyoko's illness worsens and she is sent to a sanatorium, separating the lovers. Based on a story from Tales of Flowers by Nobuko Yoshiya