The best Nobuko Otowa’s movies
We present our ranking of the best Nobuko Otowa’s movies. Do you love cinema? Or are you looking for a movie of your favorite actor to watch tonight? Surely you have some to see or that you did not know yet about Nobuko Otowa.
Onibaba
7.9/10
While her son, Kichi, is away at war, a woman and her daughter-in-law survive by killing samurai who stray into their swamp, then selling whatever valuables they find. Both are devastated when they learn that Kichi has died, but his wife soon begins an affair with a neighbor who survived the war, Hachi. The mother disapproves and, when she can't steal Hachi for herself, tries to scare her daughter-in-law with a mysterious mask from a dead samurai.
The Naked Island
8/10
A family of four are the sole inhabitants of a small island, where they struggle each day to irrigate their crops.
Kuroneko
7.7/10
In the Sengoku period, a woman and her daughter are raped and murdered by soldiers during a time of civil war. Afterwards, a series of samurai returning from the war through that area are found mysteriously dead with their throats torn out. The governor calls in a wild and fierce young hero to quell what is evidently an Onryō ghost. He encounters the two beautiful women in an eerie, beautiful scene. After spiritual purification, he meets the demon in a thrilling fight.
The Strange Tale of Oyuki
7/10
A story of Japanese writer Kafu Nagai (1879-1959), a man about sixty with a huge reputation of seducer who falls madly in love for a young geisha named Oyuki. Meticulous and smartly dressed, Nagai patiently wrote in his diary his thoughts during many years. A melancholy reflection on the passage of time and a brilliant interpretive exercise.
The Ceremony
7.3/10
Oshima’s magisterial epic, centering on the ambivalent surviving heir of the Sakurada clan, uses ritual and the microcosm of the traditional family to trace the rise and fall of militaristic Japan across several decades.
Red Lion
6.9/10
Impersonating an Imperial Army officer by wearing a "red lion's mane", a poor servant returns to his village after 10 years of absence to end the village's suffering caused by corrupt officials.
Immortal Love
7.3/10
The year is 1932, and a woman, whose tenant-farmer fiancé is fighting in China, is raped by the landowner's son, who has returned from the war with a crippling injury, and then forced into marriage with him. In four more chapters, presented over three decades, their children undertake their own searches for love, while the parents try to make each other as miserable as possible.
Lucky Dragon No. 5
6.8/10
An ageing fishing boat, Dai-go Fukuryu Maru ("Lucky Dragon No. 5") sets out from the port of Yaizu in Shizuoka Prefecture. It travels around the Pacific line fishing. While the ship is near Bikini Atoll, the ship's navigator sees a flash. All the crew come up to watch. They realize it is an atomic explosion, but take time to clear their fishing gear. A short time later, grey ash starts to fall on the ship. When the ship returns to port the sailors have been burned brown. They unload the fish, which are then transported away. They visit the local doctor and then go to Tokyo for an examination. It turns out they are all highly radioactive. Their symptoms become worse, and the contaminated fish causes a panic.
Tree Without Leaves
7.7/10
Haru, an aging scriptwriter, has isolated himself somewhere in the woods of Nagano to work on his first novel. As the last surviving member of his kin, he intends to chronicle the family he grew up in.
By Player
7.2/10
The film is a series of vignettes from Taiji Tonoyama's life and film clips, interspersed with a dialogue to camera by Nobuko Otowa, addressing the camera as if she is addressing Tonoyama himself, recollecting events in his life. The film focuses on Tonoyama's alcohol dependence and his various sexual relationships, as well as his film work with Shindo.
The Incident
6.6/10
The body of Sakai Hatsuko, a woman of 23 who has been slain with a knife, has been found in a forest. Some days later, Ueda Hiroshi, a 19-year-old shipyard worker, is arrested and charged with the murder. At Ueda's trial, a complex story unfolds.
The Radish and the Carrot
6.4/10
One day a company executive learns that his younger brother, whom he recommended, embezzled company funds. To save the situation he withdraws his life savings and gives money to his younger brother. He then suddenly disappears…
Miss Oyu
7.4/10
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.
Live Today, Die Tomorrow!
6.9/10
Michio Yamada, a recent school graduate, is sent to Tokyo to work as a fruit-packer in a department store as part of a government programme. He takes a gun from a house on an American base and uses it to kill several people. The scene changes to Yamada's childhood. Yamada is born the child of a reprobate and a weak-willed woman. As a boy Yamada, experiences poverty and the rape of his sister at first hand.
Dorodarake no seishun
Shigeki Kachi, Tosuke Satomura, and Nanako, who belong to the theater company Vuanbert around Dosa, withdrew indignantly at the indignation of the chairman Hayashi.
Ryûri no kishi
7/10
Ryûri no kishi
Edo Porn
6.5/10
The world-famous woodblock artist Hokusai (1760-1849), a widower in need of a steady income, lives with his daughter Oei in the house of his friend Bakin.
Children of Hiroshima
7.6/10
Shows the devastation caused by the atomic bomb, and by use of a fictional storyline, portrays the struggle of the ordinary Japanese people in dealing with the aftermath.
The Ataka Family
Japanese drama film.
Demon
6.7/10
Shuji was once a feared member of the Yakuza crime syndicate, but he's reformed his ways, abandoned his old life and left the city for a small coastal fishing town where he's become an honest fisherman.
