Movies: Ayako Wakao

Fleeing a distressing family situation, Eiko, a very young girl, becomes an apprentice to Miyoharu, a veteran geisha. Both, determined to preserve their professional integrity, must face the selfishness and ambition of several petty people....

When a theater troupe's master visits his old flame, he unintentionally sets off a chain of unexpected events with devastating consequences. A remake of Ozu's own silent film The Story of Floating Weeds (1934)....

The lives of five prostitutes employed at a Japanese brothel while the nation is debating the passage of an anti-prostitution law....

A greedy, materialistic family attempts to cover-up the embezzlement committed by the son while keeping their other schemes active. They discover there are other, equally conniving players involved....

Shimada is a student of U College. When the college's baseball team wins the day, he and his friend Ito drug two girls they met at the game....

Shikiko Oba is nimble with her fingers and teaches dressmaking and designing. Among her pupils are Rinko, Katsumi and Tomie. Ginshiro, who is as shrewd as the shrewdest of the older generation of dyed-in-the-wool Osaka businessmen, steps into pictur...

In Edo Japan, a kabuki actor seeks revenge against the three men who drove his parents to their deaths years ago....

Otsuya, the daughter of a rich merchant, elopes with her lover Shinsuke, an employee of her father's. During their flight, Otsuya's beauty attracts the gaze of Seikichi, a mysterious master tattooist who sees her pristine white skin as the perfect ca...

In 1939, Sakura Nishi is a young army nurse who is sent to the field hospitals in China during the Sino-Japanese war. She has to assist the surgeon Dr. Okabe with an incredible number of amputations. In the crowded wards, she gives sympathy to some o...

With a price on his head, Ichi seeks tranquillity in a favorite village. Since his last visit, it has fallen prey to Boss Masagoro, the son of a merchant rumored to have stolen gold from the shogunate. The boss has hired Yojimbo as his hard-drinking ...

The first story concerns an attractive young woman who works in a Tokyo nightclub. Her plan for a solid financial future has a double whammy. In the second story, a beautiful young woman is employed by an unscrupulous real estate agent to convince ma...

In a match where professional baseball referee Yuzo Tagami was observing a young referee, Hara, a player who got angry at the indecisive judge, knocked the referee down. Tagami lived with his wife and five children, but when he returned home, Hara, w...

Tied to a mountain between her brutalizing spouse and her secret lover, disaster strikes; the authorities accuse her of murder and prompt a confession....

...

Group of women escape Chinese controlled area for Japanese occupied lands during Pacific War....

The four principals in a love affair collide when jealousy, blackmail and suicide enter the picture....

Ayako Wakao won the Blue Ribbon and the Kinema Jumpo for this film....

Yuko is sent to the coastal regions to be raised away from the rest of her sophisticated family where she finds out from her ill grandmother that she is not who she thought she was....

A young girl is rigorously trained in the feminine arts so that she can become a geisha. As she struggles through life, she learns to live not just as a woman but as a complete person....

After a random encounter at a bar, two couples collide. Two men, two women, embroiled in a love-and-hate drama that threatens to engulf them. The sexual anxiety between the interwoven couples tautens right up to the nearly unbearable tension of the c...