Masahiro Shinoda

Spy Sorge

A foreign spy using the Sorge alias is assigned to Tokyo the capital of Japan just prior to the outbreak of World War II and in the midst of the Japanese imperial ambitions in Eastern Asia. The spy becomes acquainted with a sympathetic communist who like he is attached to the ideals of freedom and rule of the masses. Sorge is able to feed the Soviet Union useful information regarding the Axis allies and their movements in Asia and beyond.

NR

9

2003 Drama 182 min Spielen

6.1

Sharaku

The ukiyo-e (woodblock print) artist Sharaku is an enigmatic puzzle in the world of Japanese art. Working at an age when such masters of the trade as Hokusai and Utamaro were at their zenith, Sharaku suddenly emerged out of obscurity and produced roughly 140 strikingly brilliant portraits of Kabuki performers, only to disappear just as suddenly. To date, no one knows about his true identity or about his post-ukiyo-e career. Veteran director Masahiro Shinoda tries to fill in the blanks with ...

NR

6.1

1995 Drama 140 min Spielen

6.4

Ballad of Orin

A blind traveling musician is abused and oppressed wherever she goes, even as the modern world imposes change around her.

NR

6.4

1977 Drama 118 min Spielen

6.9

Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees

A mountain man beheads his many wives to prove his love to an alluring woman he meets in an enchanted forest.

NR

6.9

1975 Drama 95 min Spielen

6.9

Himiko

A freestyle, imagined telling of the life of shaman queen Himiko, who falls in love with her half-brother, making her powers weaken thus putting her position to risk.

NR

6.9

1974 Drama 100 min Spielen

7.1

Double Suicide

Successful and married with children, paper-mill owner Jihei knows better than to contradict the strict social and moral codes of 18th-century Japan. But when he meets the lovely courtesan Koharu, he becomes a man obsessed. Koharu returns his love, even foregoing other customers while Jihei schemes to somehow buy her freedom. His efforts yield ruinous consequences for his business and his family life, and Koharu is meanwhile purchased by another client.

NR

7.1

1969 Drama 105 min Spielen

6.7

Samurai Spy

Years of warfare end in a Japan unified under the Tokugawa shogunate, and samurai spy Sasuke Sarutobi, tired of conflict, longs for peace. When a high-ranking spy named Tatewaki Koriyama defects from the shogun to a rival clan, however, the world of swordsmen is thrown into turmoil. After Sasuke is unwittingly drawn into the conflict, he tracks Tatewaki, while a mysterious, white-hooded figure seems to hunt them both. By tale’s end, no one is who they seemed to be, and the truth is far more ...

NR

6.7

1965 Action 100 min Spielen

7.3

Pale Flower

Muraki, a hardboiled Yakuza gangster, has just been released from prison after serving a sentence for murder. Revisiting his old gambling haunts, he meets Saeko, a striking young upper-class woman who is out seeking thrills, and whose presence adds spice to the staid masculine underworld rituals. Muraki becomes her mentor while simultaneously coping with the shifts of power that have affected the gangs while he was interred. When he notices a rogue, drug-addicted young punk hanging around ...

NR

7.3

1964 Crime 96 min Spielen

5.3

Killers on Parade

Mod-sixties visuals and black humor mark this wild New Wave masterpiece about a vengeful contractor who hires a series of young killers to target a woman muckraker. Trouble brews when an amateur marksman shows up his eclectic competition.

NR

5.3

1961 Crime 82 min Spielen