Movies: Frankie Sakai

The world-famous woodblock artist Hokusai (1760-1849), a widower in need of a steady income, lives with his daughter Oei in the house of his friend Bakin....

A thief, a murderer, and a charming lady-killer, Iwao Enokizu is on the run from the police....

Shipwreck survivors found on the presumably uninhabited Infant Island leads to a scientific expedition that discovers a surviving native population along with the Shobijin, tiny twin fairy priestesses of the island's mythical deity called Mothra. Aft...

After their lord is tricked into committing ritual suicide, forty-seven samurai warriors await the chance to avenge their master and reclaim their honor....

A Japanese family is torn apart by the tensions of an avoidable nuclear world war between the superpowers....

Saheji, a man-about-town, gets stuck at a high-class brothel when he can’t pay the bill. He makes the best of his situation by performing various tasks amidst the tumult of the end of the shogunate—but always by making sure to get a “commission” for ...

Television production of I Want to Be a Shellfish. 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. According ...

Japanese animation adaptation of a 19th century French novel: A boy is given up by his foster parents to a traveling performer....

Japanese soldiers stranded in Manokwari, New Guinea, improvise a theater play to keep their spirits up and endure the extremely difficult conditions....

A crippled kabuki player is taken into a strolling company of itinerant actors. An influential publisher notices his honest, bold drawings, and nurtures him despite persecution and betrayal. The film explores the eternal relationship between artist a...

A young girl is rigorously trained in the feminine arts so that she can become a geisha. As she struggles through life, she learns to live not just as a woman but as a complete person....

Hikaru, an ordinary man, discovers a way to unleash the supernatural powers hidden inside his soul, allowing him to cure others with his newfound “ki” healing power....

A drama from director Masaharu Segawa....

A young asthmatic man learns he has magical powers....

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Tragedy about a terminally ill girl....

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After the 1995 Kobe earthquake, a writer remembers travelling with his family to bury his brother after World War II....

U.S. Army Captain Clark Allen gains attention by walking back and forth, the length of Japan, gambling with U.S. servicemen in order to raise funds to rebuild an orphanage. Suspicious of Allen's motives, a Japanese newsman, Hiroshi Kitabayashi, trace...

The story of a novelist whose wife is confined in a mental hospital. His love for her drives him to write about her, though he runs into trouble when her parents accuse him of cashing in on her misfortune....