Kenji Mizoguchi — Director (18)
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Movie

Song of Home (1925)
ふるさとの歌 IMDb TMDB
Kenji Mizoguchi actor: Shigeru Kido / Masujirô Takagi …
other title: La Chanson du pays natal / ふるさとの歌
Mizoguchi’s 30th film is the earliest surviving example of his work, and his only film of the 1920s to survive complete. Song of Home finds the director already concerning himself with the collision of traditional and modern values. The film is structured around the contrast of two country-bred boys: a coach driver who has never left his home, and a student who returns from Tokyo with city-slicker affectations and Western jazz records. Produced by the Ministry of Education, the film has a simplistic lesson-plan at its heart, but what lingers in the mind after viewing are its more ineffable qualities: The dulcet, lyric, evocation of a disappeared rural past.
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Movie

Poppy (1935)
虞美人草 WikiData IMDb TMDB NeoDB
Kenji Mizoguchi actor: Yukichi Iwata / Kasuke Koizumi …
other title: Les Coquelicots / 虞美人草 …
Fujio is beautiful, talented, well-heeled, and engaged to up-and-coming diplomat Munechika. She has promised him a gold watch, a family heirloom, as an emblem of their engagement. However, she becomes enamoured with Ono, a student employed to tutor her in English, who is attracted by her beauty and wealth. Ono himself is bound by an engagement to Sayoko, daughter of his mentor, Professor Inoue.
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Movie

Victory of Women (1946)
女性の勝利 IMDb TMDB
Kenji Mizoguchi actor: Kinuyo Tanaka / Michiko Kuwano …
other title: La Victoire des femmes / 女性の勝利
Representing a destitute mother in an infanticide trial, a female lawyer attempts to convince a conservative prosecutor of the benefits of Japan's democratized post-war legal system.
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Movie

Miyamoto Musashi (1944)
宮本武蔵 WikiData IMDb TMDB NeoDB
Kenji Mizoguchi actor: Chōjūrō Kawarasaki / Kan'emon Nakamura …
other title: L'Histoire de Musashi Miyamoto / 宮本武蔵 …
Shinobu and her brother Genichiro plead with famous swordsman Musashi Miyamoto to teach them to avenge their father's death. The perpetrators of their father's demise see the siblings practicing, and so enlist the help of another revered swordsman, Kojiro Sasaki, giving the latter an excuse to battle Miyamoto.
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Movie

The Downfall of Osen (1935)
折鶴お千 WikiData IMDb TMDB
Kenji Mizoguchi actor: Isuzu Yamada / Daijiro Natsukawa …
other title: O-Sen delle cicogne di carta / La Cigogne en papier …
In Tokyo, Osen is the servant girl of an unscrupulous antiques dealer, Kumazawa, who takes in the penniless Sokichi Hata. Kumazawa mistreats Sokichi and Osen, while swindling some Buddhist monks out of their temple treasures. When Kumazawa is arrested, Osen agrees to help Sokichi finance his dream of going to medical school. They live in a humble room, and eventually the only way Osen can find enough money for them is to prostitute herself during the day, without Sokichi knowing. (Will Gilbert)
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Movie

Flame of My Love (1949)
わが恋は燃えぬ WikiData IMDb TMDB NeoDB
Kenji Mizoguchi actor: Kinuyo Tanaka / Mitsuko Mito …
other title: Il mio amore brucia / Flamme de mon amour …
In 1880s Japan, women's struggle for equality rages on. Eiko Hirayama leaves Okayama for Tokyo, where she helps the fledgling Liberal Party and falls in love with its leader Kentaro Omoi, just as the party is being disbanded by the government.
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Movie

The Lady of Musashino (1951)
武蔵野夫人
Kenji Mizoguchi actor: Kinuyo Tanaka / Yukiko Todoroki …
other title: La signora Musashino / La Dame de Musashino …
In post-war Japan, Michiko, a disillusioned young woman trapped in a loveless marriage, confides in her younger cousin, Tsutomo, and the two become close, but decide not to consummate their affair. He instead becomes involved with the flirtatious Tomiko, who is also conducting an affair with Michiko's husband. When Michiko finds that her husband has abandoned her, she decides to take her fate into her own hands.
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Movie

Princess Yang Kwei-fei (1955)
楊貴妃 WikiData IMDb TMDB NeoDB
Kenji Mizoguchi actor: Machiko Kyō / Masayuki Mori …
other title: L'imperatrice Yang-Kwei-Fei / A Imperatriz Yang Kwei Fei …
In 8th-century China, the Emperor grieves the death of his wife. The Yang family wants to provide the Emperor with a consort so that they may consolidate their court influence. General An Lushan finds a distant relative working in their kitchen, whom they groom to present to the Emperor. The Emperor falls in love and she becomes the Princess Yang Kwei-fei. The Yangs are then appointed important ministers, though An Lushan is not given the court position he covets.
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Movie

Sisters of the Gion (1936)
祇園の姉妹 WikiData IMDb TMDB NeoDB
Kenji Mizoguchi actor: Isuzu Yamada / Yōko Umemura …
other title: Le sorelle di Gion / As Irmãs de Gion …
A geisha in the Gion district of Kyoto feels obliged to help her lover when he asks to stay with her after going bankrupt and leaving his wife. However, her younger sister opposes this, thinking that they should both find wealthy patrons to support them.
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Movie

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (1939)
残菊物語
Kenji Mizoguchi actor: Shōtarō Hanayagi / Kakuko Mori …
other title: La storia dell'ultimo crisantemo / O Conto dos Crisântemos Tardios …
In late 19th-century Tokyo, Kikunosuke Onoue, the adopted son of a legendary actor, himself an actor specializing in female roles, discovers that the praise he receives is only due to his status as his father's heir. Devastated, he turns to Otoku, a servant of his family, for comfort, and they fall in love. Kikunosuke becomes determined to leave home and develop as an actor on his own merits, and Otoku faithfully joins him.
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Movie

Miss Oyu (1951)
お遊さま
Kenji Mizoguchi actor: Kinuyo Tanaka / Nobuko Otowa …
other title: La signora Oyû / A Senhora Oyu …
Shinnosuke is introduced to Shizu as a prospective marriage partner, but he falls in love with her widowed sister Oyu. Convention forbids Oyu to marry because she has to raise her son as the head of her husband's family. Oyu convinces Shinnosuke and Shizu to marry so that she can remain close to Shinnosuke.