Yumi Shirakawa Movies

Toshiro Mifune stars as a shipwrecked sailor who joins a Japanese priest in his search for the bones of Buddha in this children's adventure. The duo are hounded by the forces of a nearby king from his castle fortress. The heroes show the king the error of his ways and even provide him with a pretty woman to take as his queen. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

In this Japanese romantic comedy, a Japanese-American nuclear scientist returns to Japan to search for a wife to cater to his every need back home. He is guided by a lovely woman who secretly shares her mission with a reporter. The guide wants to help the scientist and introduces him to a modern Japanese woman. The scientist isn't impressed, but the reporter falls for her. The scientist is deeply awed by Japanese culture and ends up falling in love with the guide. In the end though, the partners change again and the scientist takes home the modern girl while the traditional guide and reporter remain in Japan. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this uneven but still challenging drama, director Eizo Sugawa tackles the problem of the effects of killing on the human psyche, even when the killing is condoned as a form of euthanasia. Izaki (Tatsuya Mihashi) is a successful executive who leads an oil company to break the embargo against importing petroleum from Iraq. His motivations are humanitarian as well as profit-seeking, but as a result of that decision he is forced to break off his engagement to the daughter of the company's president. At the same time, his former fiancée is the sister of his best friend -- the friend whom Izaki was forced to kill in a gesture of mercy during World War II. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

The highly accomplished Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu demonstrates his stylistic touch for deceptive simplicity, rapier wit, and nuances of melancholy in this well-wrought drama about a man in the declining years of his life. Manbei Kohayagawa (Ganjiro Nakamura) has a rich life on three different fronts. He is the head of a brewery that is having problems at the moment, the head of a family in which one widowed daughter needs his help in finding a new mate and the other needs him to help her make the right choice in a future spouse. Manbei has a strong devil-may-care streak and his solution to his burdens at the moment is to look up his old mistress and resume a relationship with her. His decision has unexpected consequences for himself and his family. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

The Japanese Secret of the Telegian features Koji Tsurata as a reporter and Akihiko Hirata as a detective, both investigating a series of interrelated murders. All the victims had been in on a wartime scheme to steal a fortune in gold. The killer (Tadao Nakamaru) also one of the thieves, has stumbled upon a scientific discovery that enables him to reduce himself to mere particles, thereby enabling him to escape without detection. The murderer utilizes a transmission machine to ship himself from one place to another--so long as the machine is kept in a state of "4.2 degrees below zero." The villain's complex scheme to eliminate his old comrades in crime and claim the gold for himself comes to grief when his marvelous machine malfunctions. Our question: if Nakamaru is in possession of a revolutionary machine that could potentially net him billions in marketing, why does he bother with such mundane matters as murder and theft? ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The H-Man rates as one of the most genuinely frightening Japanese horror films of the 1950s. When a minor-league drug runner completely vanishes, leaving only his clothes behind, detective Tominaga (Akihiko Hirata) investigates. Along the way, Tominaga makes the acquaintance of scientist Masada (Kenji Sahara), who theorizes that the missing doper was melted into a liquid "H-Man" as a result of being exposed to nuclear radiation. Sure enough, the H-Man soon resurfaces, seeking out victims to "dissolve" so that he can continue to survive. Director Inoshiro Honda's matter-of-fact approach to the material is far scarier than any of Honda's scream-and-shout "giant monster" pictures from the same era. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The second major addition to Toho Studios' giant-monster series after Gojira (aka Godzilla, 1954), was Rodan (or Radon), a giant pterodactyl whose wings create massive, destructive winds as it flies by. There are actually two of them in this film, mates who finally get together (after the traditional destruction of various Japanese cities) and die in an oddly touching lovers' death-swoon into an active volcano. The film's best sequence is the chilling opening, in which Rodan's egg is discovered in a cave by doomed miners. The first color film in the series, Ishiro Honda's effective thriller features some interesting special-effects work by Eiji Tsuburaya and was dubbed into English by actors including Keye Luke and future Star Trek crewman George Takei. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi