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....

In Part I we see the young would-be swordsman setting out to achieve greatness in war, achieving nothing because fighting on the losing side, & then beginning his long period of wandering & training, with the goal always in mind of his duel with Koji...

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 ...

The 22nd film in the Shacho comedy series....

In this patriotic WW II drama, the Japanese army demonstrates its courage and willingness to do anything to win as they endeavor to sneak into Communist China to bring back the flag of a defeated enemy regiment....

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

The fifth "Ekimae" film set in Yokohama's Chinatown....

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....

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Period piece about a samurai who marries a mysterious beautiful young woman who claims to have lost her memory....

In the 12th century, Buddhism was still a relatively new religion in Japan. At that time, one school (Shingon) offered extensive training in complex and very demanding practices which might eventually bring about spiritual purification and realizatio...

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...

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...

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

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A continuation of Hungry Soul, from the same year. Reiko, who tolerates abuse in her marriage to a man 23 years her senior, is friends with Mayumi, a beautiful widow. Reiko meets her husband’s business rival, a young, capable businessman, and falls f...

Comedy about three soldiers, two female reporters, six prostitutes, and the wife of an officer, all stranded on a South Seas island at the end of World War II....