Yasutaro Yagi — Playwright (8)
Rice (1957) [Movie] IMDb TMDB
director: Tadashi Imai actor: Shinjirō Ehara / Eijirō Tōno
other title: Le Riz /
A touching story depicting the harsh lives of farmers in Kasumigaura. An attempt to start a fishery business to revive an ailing farming community creates friction amongst the proud residents.
A Hole of My Own Making (1955) [Movie] IMDb TMDB
自分の穴の中で
director: Tomu Uchida actor: Yumeji Tsukioka / Mie Kitahara
other title: Chacun dans sa coquille / 自分の穴の中で
Nobuko is a widow who lives with her stepchild Tamiko and her brother Junjiro. The family's gatekeeper, Komatsu, is attracted to Tamiko, but she is encouraged to marry a doctor and he is afraid to tell her his feelings.
Unending Advance (1937) [Movie] IMDb TMDB
限りなき前進
director: Tomu Uchida actor: Isamu Kosugi / Hisako Takihana
other title: 限りなき前進
One of Uchida’s early sound films, Unending Advance is based on a curious story by Yasujiro Ozu, in which an examination of the quotidian problems of a middle-aged salaryman and his family segues into an idyllic dream of an implausible future. The surviving print, although incomplete, offers an essential glimpse into Uchida’s prewar period, when he was associated more with realist dramas than with the period films that dominated his work after the war.
Song of the Underworld (1956) [Movie] TMDB IMDb
Chitei no uta
other title: Chitei no uta
A conflict between two yakuza families in Tokyo, the Izus and the Yoshidas, has recently broken out. When an Izu underling starts a fight with a Yoshida man, Fuyu, the Izu family sends Tsuruta, a senior member of the clan, to make a personal apology to Fuyu. Tsuruta discovers that the woman he is in love with is Fuyu's sister, Tatsuko. Tsuruta ends up gambling with a swindler, who is in fact Tatsuko's husband. (The general plot of the film was re-used for Seijun Suzuki's Kanto Wanderer).