The best Bokuzen Hidari’s drama movies

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.

Aspiring to an easy job as personal physician to a wealthy family, Noboru Yasumoto is disappointed when his first post after medical school takes him to a small country clinic under the gruff doctor Red Beard. Yasumoto rebels in numerous ways, but Red Beard proves a wise and patient teacher. He gradually introduces his student to the unglamorous side of the profession, ultimately assigning him to care for a prostitute rescued from a local brothel.

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.

Kiichi Nakajima, an elderly foundry owner convinced that Japan will be affected by an imminent nuclear war, resolves to move his family to safety in Brazil. His family decides to have him ruled incompetent and Dr. Harada, a Domestic Court counselor, attempts to arbitrate.

A celebrity photograph sparks a court case as a tabloid magazine spins a scandalous yarn over a painter and a famous singer.

A man is involved in a fatal car accident, and though he is blameless, his company transfers him to a remote branch in a small town. Before he leaves, he gives the man's widow a large sum of money that she uses to move back to her hometown.

A woman marries, gives birth to a stillborn child, and divorces, falls in love with a hotel-keeper, only to find herself subordinated to his drive for success, takes up with a tailor who cannot console himself with her strong personality.

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.

The famous showdown at Kagiya corner has been told many times, but never before with the realism and intensity of this version scripted by Kurosawa Akira and starring Mifune Toshiro as the famed swordsman who must face his best friend as they are forced to take opposite sides in a vendetta caused by the murder of a family member. Told mostly in flashback as the avengers await the arrival of their quarry, this film displays true heroism in the face of fear as most of the combatants, while of the samurai class are not skilled swordsmen. They contrast sharply with the true warriors involved in this battle. Araki Mataemon (Mifune), who was not only a direct student of Yagyu Munenori, but the founder of his own sword style under the Yagyu name is a powerful force ready to assist his brother-in-law against the murderer's allies that include not only another noted sword teacher, but the deadly spear of Katsumi no Hanbei.

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.

A librarian is subject to a scientific experiment which goes wrong and transforms him into 'The Human Vapour'. He uses his new ability to rob banks to fund the career of his girlfriend, a beautiful dancer. The Human Vapour is ruthless in his quest for money and kills anyone who stands in his way, especially police. He soon becomes Tokyo's most wanted criminal. Can he be stopped before he kills again?

Kameda, who has been in an asylum on Okinawa, travels to Hokkaido. There he becomes involved with two women, Taeko and Ayako. Taeko comes to love Kameda, but is loved in turn by Akama. When Akama realizes that he will never have Taeko, his thoughts turn to murder, and great tragedy ensues.

U.S. Army Captain Clark Allen gains attention by walking back and forth, the length of Japan, gambling with U.S. servicemen in order to raise funds to rebuild an orphanage. Suspicious of Allen's motives, a Japanese newsman, Hiroshi Kitabayashi, traces the American's background until he discovers the motive behind Allen's long walk.

Remake of Kurosawa's films Sanshiro Sugata and Sanshiro Sugata part 2. A young man, Sanshiro Sugata, troubled by personal problems, takes up judo. His teacher, Shogoro Yano, is a devout man who has aroused the enmity of the local practitioners of jujitsu, the older and more accepted of the two sports. Sugata uses his newly learned prowess to gain a measure of respect from others; however, Shogoro insists that the sport has a spiritual side, a lesson Sugata has yet to learn. Eventually, in hand-to-hand combat with the father of a young woman he loves, he comes to understand the true meaning of judo.

Blind masseur Zatoichi is nursed back to health by a young woman after he is shot by a gang member. Zatoichi, who had come to the village to repay a debt, now feels further indebted. He commits himself to use his amazing sword skills to help the young woman's father, whose river-crossing service is under attack by the same gang responsible for Zatoichi's wounds.

Nobuko is a widow who lives with her daughter-in-law 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.

Lavish Japanese-Chinese coproduction based on an ancient Chinese legend about a man who falls in love with a snake goddess in human form.