Kamatari Fujiwara

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.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa · With Toshirō Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Yoshio Inaba

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.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa · With Takashi Shimura, Haruo Tanaka, Nobuo Kaneko

In feudal Japan, during a bloody war between clans, two cowardly and greedy peasants, soldiers of a defeated army, stumble upon a mysterious man who guides them to a fortress hidden in the mountains.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa · With Toshirō Mifune, Minoru Chiaki, Kamatari Fujiwara

In this companion piece and sequel to "Yojimbo," jaded samurai Sanjuro helps an idealistic group of young warriors weed out their clan's evil influences, and in the process turns their image of a proper samurai on its ear.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa · With Toshirō Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Keiju Kobayashi

In this loose adaptation of "Hamlet," illegitimate son Kôichi Nishi climbs to a high position within a Japanese corporation and marries the crippled daughter of company vice president Iwabuchi. At the reception, the wedding cake is a replica of their corporate headquarters, but an aspect of the design reminds the party of the hushed-up death of Nishi's father. It is then that Nishi unleashes his plan to avenge his father's death.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa · With Toshirō Mifune, Masayuki Mori, Kamatari Fujiwara

Shiba, a wandering ronin, encounters a band of peasants who have kidnapped the daughter of their dictatorial magistrate, in hopes of coercing from him a reduction in taxes. Shiba takes up their fight, joined by two renegades from the magistrate's guard, Sakura and Kikyo. The three outlaws find themselves in a battle to the death.

Dir. Hideo Gosha · With Tetsuro Tamba, Isamu Nagato, Mikijiro Hira

Two sisters learn about the existence of their long-lost biological mother, but the younger is unable to accept the fact that she was abandoned as a child.

Dir. Yasujirō Ozu · With Setsuko Hara, Ineko Arima, Chishū Ryū

Residents of a rundown boardinghouse in 19th-century Japan, including a mysterious old man and an aging actor, get drawn into a love triangle that turns violent. When amoral thief Sutekichi breaks off his affair with landlady Osugi to romance her younger sister, Okayo, Osugi extracts her revenge by revealing her infidelity to her jealous husband.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa · With Toshirō Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, Kyōko Kagawa