Masaya Takahashi
Known for Acting
Born
March 16, 1930
Died
January 16, 2014 (age 83)
Birthplace
Ushigome, Tokyo, Japan
Filmography
62 films, 10 shows
Known for Acting
Born
March 16, 1930
Died
January 16, 2014 (age 83)
Birthplace
Ushigome, Tokyo, Japan
Filmography
62 films, 10 shows

The Complex
2013 · 1h 46m
country: Japan
Nursing student Asuka has just moved into an apartment complex with her parents and younger brother. On the first night in her new room, she is awoken by a strange scratching sound coming from the apartment of her neighbor, a reclusive old man who has refused all attempts at communication. Concerned over his well being, Asuka enters his home only to find him dead from malnutrition. Worse, it looks as if he had been trying to claw his way into her room. Asuka learns that there have been a number of strange deaths in the complex over the years from Shinobu, the handyman cleaning up the old man’s apartment. Even the girls at school whisper rumors of it being haunted.

Kyokuhoku Rhapsody
2013
country: Japan
Set in Kyokuhoku Citizen Hospital in Hokkaido, Japan. "Kyokuhoku Rhapsody" follows the life of a young doctor for a one year period. Yoshio Imanaka works at the Kyokuhoku Hospital that is losing staff members and facing bankruptcy. During this difficult time, Yoshio Imanaka meets hairdresser Kozue Namiki and falls in love.

Air Doll
2009 · 1h 52m
country: Japan
A life-size, inflatable sex doll suddenly comes to life one day. Without her owner knowing, she goes for a walk around town and falls in love with Junichi. She starts to date Junichi and gets a job at the same store where he works. Everything seems to be going perfectly for her until something unexpected happens.

Tokyo Rendezvous
2008 · 1h 44m
country: Japan
A salaryman debates selling his grandfather's land to pay off his father's debt.

Kindachi Kosuke: The Queen Bee
2006 · 1h 57m
country: Japan
The movie is part of the Kindaichi TV movie series. Kindaichi is played by actor Goro Inagaki. The character's grandfather began with the written word. Kousuke Kindaichi started life in the novels of Seishi Yokomizo, written and set in post-war Japan. Inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, Kindaichi is still very much a unique character, giving the Japanese their very own literary hero-detective. Young Hajime Kindaichi is a young man with bad dandruff and worse dress-sense (decades before Columbo), who wears a trademark, scruffy sunhat. He also happens to be better than the police at deductive reasoning. Having gained publicity for solving a high-profile murder case, the detectives allow him to work with them again. This story is slimmer than the twisty plots of Inugami and Village, but is graced by the presence of Chiaki Kuriyama (Battle Royale, Kill Bill Vol. 1, The Great Yokai War) in the title role.

Always - Sunset on Third Street
2005 · 2h 13m
country: Japan
In 1958 postwar Tokyo, the residents of a humble Third Street neighbourhood struggle, dream, and grow together as rapid modernisation transforms their lives beneath the shadow of the newly rising Tokyo Tower.

The Suspect: Muroi Shinji
2005 · 1h 57m
country: Japan
One day in February, 2005, Metropolitan Police Department Superintendent Muroi (Toshiro Yanagiba) is arrested to take responsibility for a botched murder case he headed. His faithful colleagues, including Arashiro (Toshio Kakei) and Okita (Miki Maya), only exacerbate the situation when they try to help clear his name. Is Muroi guilty as charged or merely taking the fall? What is the truth behind the murder? Two lawyers, one determined to get Muroi, the other resolved to save him, a feud between two police departments, political power plays and legal trappings, all combine to orchestrate Muroi’s downfall.

University of Laughs
2004 · 2h 1m
country: Japan
In pre-war Japan, a government censor tries to make the writer for a theater troupe alter his comedic script. As they work with and against each other, the script ends up developing in unexpected ways.

Otakus in Love
2004 · 1h 54m
country: Japan
Live-action adaptation of a madcap manga about art, opposites, love and a whole lot of cosplay.

Translucent Tree
2004 · 2h 1m
country: Japan
Translucent Tree is centered around divorced Chigiri, a suburban middle-aged mother taking care of her teenage daughter, Mayu, and her ailing father Kaho. Her life is mundane and rather hopeless until Go, a TV producer from Tokyo, pays a visit to her town and the tree they shared time under some twenty years back after a TV commercial shoot. His remembrances of her, the tree, and the long unrequited love stir both of their hearts to fumbling action as they re-discover the love between them.

Returner
2002 · 1h 56m
country: Japan
A young woman from the future forces a local gunman to help her stop an impending alien invasion which will wipe out the human race.

Ellie My Love
1987 · 1h 43m
country: Japan
Based on the comic by Mako Takami.

The Beauty of the Black Pearl
1985
country: Japan

オフィス妻のさけび
1985 · 1h 31m
country: Japan
Natsuko is witnessed carrying on an affair with her boss, Misawa, by the unmarried Chieko. However, Chieko dies by falling and is found about ten days later in the shrubbery in front of the company. It is revealed that Chieko led a flashy private life and frequented a host club. Moreover, it seems that she was having an affair with Division Chief Yamazaki.

Modori River
1983 · 2h 17m
country: Japan
The story of Takeha, a free-spirited genius poet who lived through Taisho Romanticism, and the women who gave themselves over to his ambitions.

The Imperial Japanese Empire
1982 · 3h
country: Japan
Story of three people, a barber, a Christian and a graduate of the Tokyo Military Academy during the 2nd World War.

Beauty with White Breasts
1981 · 1h 31m
country: Japan
Kogoro approaches the true face of a bloody clown who attacks beautiful women one after another! Based on the Edogawa Rampo story, "Hell's Clown."

White Love
1979 · 1h 50m
country: Japan
Kobasashi was learning Spanish so that she could go to Spain to look for her father who had left the family. She fell in love with her language teacher Ken. Finally she found her father in Madrid and she also met Ken's ex-girl friend Taeko there. Ken came to Madrid and learned of their meeting. He wanted her to help to look for Taeko. Ken was caught in between the past and the present.

Take Me Away!
1978 · 1h 32m
country: Japan
Kyoko met Tetsu during her trip to San Francisco. Soon they fell in love but getting married was not in his mind. They were to meet again back in Tokyo but Tetsu didn't turn up. She went to look for him in San Francisco but all she found was him with his new girlfriend. Kyoko went back to Tokyo and eventually married a big corporate CEO.

Sweet Revenge
1977 · 1h 35m
country: Japan
Masao is falsely accused and jailed for the murder of a loanshark to whom he owed a lot of money. His sister Kiriko makes the long trip to Tokyo, specifically to accost Otsuka, Japan's top criminal defence lawyer, and plead with him to take her brother's case. They live in Kitakyushu which, though a city, she contends that the local lawyers are not up to the job. Otsuka contemptuously brushes her off. A year passes. Masao has suicided in jail, his appeal having failed due to the lack of interest and competence of the local defence lawyer. Kiriko returns to Tokyo, planning revenge on Otsuka for refusing the case and causing her brother's death.

Ame no meguri ai
1977 · 1h 31m
country: Japan
Japanese drama film.

Aspiration
1977 · 1h 28m
country: Japan

Japan's Don
1977 · 2h 12m
country: Japan
A yakuza leader must balance his violent tactics necessary for the rough streets of 1960s Tokyo with the domestic needs of his daughters.

Main Line to Terror
1975 · 2h 1m
country: Japan
Akiyama is an intern, disgusted with the noise pollution caused by the bullet trains and the heart attacks that noise has been causing in older hospital patients, plots to disrupt and, in ten days, destroy a unit of the operation. He warns the Japan National Railway, that, if nothing is done to reduce the noise, he will derail a bullet train. Takigawa is the police detective sent to stop him.

Doterai Man
1975 · 1h 28m
country: Japan
Business is a game! A theatrical version of the TV drama that became a social phenomenon starring Teruhiko Saigo. Set in a wholesaler town in Osaka, it depicts the activities of the main character Takezo Yamashita who repels adversity with a man's stubbornness and guts.

Bitterness of Youth
1974 · 1h 25m
country: Japan
A footballing law student tutors an undergraduate, developing into a romance that soon enough goes awry.

Belladonna of Sadness
1973 · 1h 27m
country: Japan
An evil feudal lord rapes a village girl on her wedding night and proceeds to ruin her and her husband's lives. After she's eventually banished from her village, the girl makes a pact with the devil to gain magical ability and take revenge.

Sapporo Winter Olympics
1972 · 2h 48m
country: Japan
An artistic and unconventional approach to winter sports, using striking visuals, sound design, and a focus on both the spectacle and the human element—including behind-the-scenes figures like ice maintenance workers—to create an intimate and aesthetically unique portrayal of the Olympics.

Kanto Street Peddlers: Shallow Clan Honor
1971 · 1h 31m
country: Japan
The fifth and final chapter of the Kanto Street Peddlers series! Will the battle in Asakusa be enough for a complete victory?

Silence
1971 · 2h 10m
country: Japan
In 17th-century Japan, two Portuguese Jesuit priests seek their mentor, who is rumoured to have committed apostasy, and to propagate Catholicism.

Mysterious Thirteen Nights: Chapter 12 - The Mystery of the Ever-Changing Tamamushi Mansion!
1971 · 1h
country: Japan
Twelfth film of "Mysterious Thirteen Nights" series.

The Night Clinic
1971 · 1h 25m
country: Japan

Just for You
1970 · 1h 23m
country: Japan
Yumi Ishikawa (Mari Atsumi) is nineteen and a popular geisha. Orphaned when a child, Yumi she was raised by Shizuko, the madame of a geisha house. Yumi is impulsive, out-going. And although she cannot claim to be good at Japanese dancing or playing musical instruments so necessary to a geisha, she is a whizz at go-go and will dance the hula at parties. But before becoming a full-fledged geisha, Yumi must go through the ceremony of the "mizuage", when a budding geisha surrenders her virginity to an experienced man who makes her a woman. Takida, a rich money-lender, is chosen for Yumi's mizuage but she offers herself first to Keiichi (Ryo Tamura), who she really loves although she knows that his world and hers are too far apart for a successful marriage.

Woman Gambling Expert: Stakes of a Game of Chance
1970 · 1h 21m
country: Japan
16th in the 17 film Daiei "Woman Gambler" series

Memoir of Japanese Assassinations
1969 · 2h 22m
country: Japan
This anthology film consists of nine incidents in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when assassins changed the course of Japanese history.

Killer's Mission
1969 · 1h 30m
country: Japan
Ichibei is assigned by Shogun Tokugawa to prevent the sale of a Dutch ships-load of rifles to the hostile Shogun Satsuma. On his mission he meets a cowardly Ronin who becomes his assistant, as well as a female spy and a female warrior...

Daring Girls
1969 · 1h 30m
country: Japan
Two sisters involved in rival underworld sex trade factions compete against each other in this tale of elaborate sex antics, yakuza crime, and bloody revenge.

Art of Assassination
1969 · 1h 21m
country: Japan
A beautiful hostess of a small restaurant moonlights as a well-trained assassin tasked with taking the life of a wealthy businessman...

Young Challengers
1968 · 1h 35m
country: Japan
A story depicting the challenges faced by today's youth in working to build a better tomorrow, based on the theme of Toshiba's progress as one of Japan's leading manufacturers of electronic and electric goods.

Little Snack
1968 · 1h 23m
country: Japan
Two young adults (Nana Ozaki and Hiroshi Fujioka) meet at a Snack Bar where the youth hang out and bands like The Village Singers and Purple Shadows play, and soon they fall in love, but a shadow and a secret hangs over them.

Goké, Body Snatcher from Hell
1968 · 1h 24m
country: Japan
The survivors of a plane crash in a remote area are attacked by blob-like alien creatures that turn their victims into blood-thirsty vampires.

The Worship of the Flesh
1968 · 1h 25m
country: Japan
A major pink film set in the early Meiji era, depicting the lives of a yakuza who tries to make a fortune by starting a new religious movement, and the women who flock to him, all portrayed with an unusual atmosphere and erotic scenes.

The Young Eagles of the Kamikaze
1968 · 1h 50m
country: Japan
The film is dedicated to the souls of flight school graduates killed in World War II. Young boys dream about becoming pilots and apply to flight schools. However, the flight schools have extremely demanding, harsh training, and once they finally become pilots, they must become suicide bombers and give their lives for their homeland.

The Debt of Blood
1967 · 1h 33m
country: Japan
1967 Nikkatsu film.

The Shogun and His Mistresses
1967 · 1h 36m
country: Japan
Three tales of women that resided in the Shogun's harem (o-oku) during the Edo period.

Classmates
1967 · 1h 47m
country: Japan
A story of young students trained to become Kamikaze pilots in World War II.

Night Trap
1967 · 1h 25m
country: Japan
A woman's desperate attempt to prove her husband's innocence after he has been sentenced to death for the murder of his mistress. She tracks down four men in the victim's life, one of whom she suspects may be the real murderer, and systematically destroys them. In the end, her obsession becomes madness and she has ruined her own life along with her victims' lives to save her philandering husband.

Rebellion of Japan
1967 · 1h 40m
country: Japan
Suzuko, a woman in her twenties who has a brother with political problems (due to communist reprisals), lives for over five years in a love affair with Tate who's a young lieutenant in the Army, ultimately becoming a right-wing fundamentalist revolutionary. She marries another man, one totally dedicated to the rigorous practices of Noh theatre, in an arranged marriage, but the bond that connects her with Tate is too strong.

The Spy
1965 · 1h 35m
country: Japan
Based on true events surrounding a Korean student who had entered Japan unlawfully and escaped illegal alien internment.

The Black Gambler: The Gambling Syndicate
1965 · 1h 26m
country: Japan
Place your bets! Koji Himuro (Akira Kobayashi) is a makeout artist with unparalleled gambling skills. Shortly after his return to Tokyo, he is invited to attend a reception being held at the Suvenian Embassy of Tokyo. This “reception” was an undercover gambling operation that was run by an international gambling syndicate. Up against a cardsharp by the name of Inumaru and his mistress Reiko, Koji plays a flawless game of Seven Bridge. Outraged by his loss, Inumaru orders Reiko to stalk Koji like a shadow.

Sweet Seventeen
1964 · 1h 30m
country: Japan

Modae
1964 · 1h 31m
country: Japan
This unique melodrama depicts the anguish of a new wife whose husband confesses to her his infertility on their wedding night. The virgin wife, who spends her days in a state of unfulfillment, is gradually attracted to a young playboy, but she is unable to cross the line. One day, her husband proposes to have a child through artificial insemination.

Flora on the Sand
1964 · 1h 35m
country: Japan
One evening, at the Marine Tower observatory, cosmetics salesman Ichiro Iki is drawn into conversation with an unfamiliar young lady Akiko. She invites Ichiro back to a hotel where they make love but part without even exchanging names. A week later, they have a second chance encounter at the observatory. This time, Ichiro is the one who pursues her. Back at the hotel, Akiko begs Ichiro to give her sister – Kyoko, a bar hostess – absolute hell. Akiko resents her sister for lecturing on chastity, while wantonly indulging in promiscuous activity. Ichiro takes an interest in Kyoko and sets out towards her bar…

The Desperate
1964 · 1h 34m
country: Japan
A noir drama depicting the downfall of a veteran detective who hates evil and falls into its depths. Ace detective Sugai pursues Chiyo, the mistress of a man who was arrested for extortion, and takes advantage of her weakness. However, as his colleague Tokumochi and others regard him with suspicion, he is tormented by remorse.

High School Third Graders
1963 · 1h 27m
country: Japan
In 1963, Funaki Kazuo's debut song of the same name was released and then it was adapted to a movie based on Kenji Tomishima 's novel “Shake to Tomorrow” with the same title, produced by Daiei with this song as a motif. Singer and actor Funaki Kazuo also appears in the movie, which depicts the fun, love and heartbreak in a Japanese school.

The Gambling Monk
1963 · 1h 39m
country: Japan
One summer day, the chief monk of the Hojuin Temple dies. Harumichi rushes back to town hearing about his brother's death and requests for a grand funeral. He had been unwilling to take over the family business and had chosen a life as a middle school teacher far away from home, but considering the circumstances, he changes his mind. As the new chief of Hojuin, Harumichi scrambles around day after day for donations. He has kept strictly to the straight and narrow, until he passes a bicycle race track where the sounds of cheering fans induce him into a new way of life...

A Woman's Life
1962 · 1h 34m
country: Japan
Based on Kaoru Morimoto oft performed 1945 play, a starring vehicle for famed actress Machiko Kyo as Kei an abused orphaned girl that eventually finds sanctuary with a wealthy family that trades goods with China and becomes a successful businesswoman. Masumura dilutes the originally intended pro-Japan propaganda elements for a more anti-war approach.

Seinen no isu
1962 · 1h 33m
country: Japan
1962 Japanese movie

Happiness of Us Alone
1961 · 2h 9m
country: Japan
The story is of two people. One is deaf, the other deaf and mute. They marry after meeting at a school reunion, and the film follows their trials and tribulations ... and joys.

The Human Wall
1959 · 2h 26m
country: Japan
Drama which shows the struggle of Fumiko, a female teacher, at work and at home.

But the Flesh is Weak
1957 · 1h 36m
country: Japan
A woman who grew up in a prestigious household, begins to have an affair outside the marriage.

The Sacrifice of the Human Torpedoes
1955 · 1h 27m
country: Japan