Chieko Nakakita

Keiko, whom everyone calls Mama, narrates her story: she's a hostess on the Ginza, 30, a widow. She describes life's vicious cycle: acting cheerful around drunks, dressing and living well to convey confidence, needing money for these expenses and for her demanding mother and brother, and knowing she's growing older.

Dir. Mikio Naruse · With Hideko Takamine, Masayuki Mori, Reiko Dan

In postwar Tokyo, a blunt, alcohol-soaked doctor diagnoses a swaggering young yakuza with tuberculosis, forging an uneasy bond that’s tested when the gangster’s ruthless former boss returns and drags him back toward the swampy underworld he can’t escape.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa · With Takashi Shimura, Toshirō Mifune, Reizaburo Yamamoto

A married Japanese forester during WWII is sent to Indochina to manage forests. He meets a young Japanese typist and promises to leave his wife. He doesn't and after the war, she turns up and the affair resumes.

Dir. Mikio Naruse · With Hideko Takamine, Masayuki Mori, Mariko Okada