Movies: Sachio Sakai

1964 Japanese movie...

A killer-for-hire gets mixed up with a cast of wacky characters involved in a gold smuggling route from Beirut to Tokyo....

1967 Japanese movie...

TV film about the "Nishiyama Incident", a scandal surrounding the 1972 return of Okinawa to Japan. Produced to commemorate the 20th anniversary of TV Asahi in 1978 and released theatrically by Office Henmi in 1988....

Teacher Yukiko finds herself in opposition to conservative faculty and villagers after defending a student for being in a relationship with a young man from Tokyo....

Sequel to "何処へ" (1966). A coming-of-age drama adapted from the novel by Yojiro Ishizaka....

Following the Second World War, the lives of various people in a poverty-stricken area of Tokyo are entertwined. Pachinko parlor girls, shoeshine boys, a maker of costume jewelry, and a streetcorner artist all struggle to make their livings and to fi...

Soldiers on the front lines in China during World War II are besieged by guerrilla attacks and attempt to destroy an enemy fort....

When noble wanderer Moritaro saves a disowned merchant’s son from gangsters, he becomes entangled in a town’s struggle against corruption. Teaming up with a rogue monk, bold tea-picking girls, and even a reformed thug, he battles a violent crime boss...

A hard-working section chief, fast approaching retirement and beset by stress from all directions, joins a jazz band and reignites his youthful passion for the music, giving him a chance to set things right in his life....

Adapted from the Seicho Matsumoto story "Tazutazushi". Ryohei Suzuki, a manager at a travel company, is married to his superior's daughter, but tires of their authority over his life. A chance encounter with Yukiko Hirai one rainy night brings a new...

During the military phase of the Meiji Restoration of 1868, Sentaro joins a local militia loyal to the Tokugawa Shogunate in order to fight Imperial troops. But Sentaro's friendship with a pickpocket, who switches sides whenever it suits his needs, l...

The 14th and final "Crazy" feature. The Crazy Cats reunited (minus Ishibashi, who had by then retired from the team) for one last feature, Jun Ichikawa's odd Memories of You (Kaisha mono-gatari, 1988) released by Shochiku. Most of the cast of Crazy l...

Chuji Kunisada returns to his home village to find that Jubei Matsui, the corrupt magistrate, has been responsible for virtually destroying Kunisada's family. A final tragedy leads Kunisada to join with a band of rogues living in the forest in robbin...

Captain Murakami takes over as skipper of the Azuma Maru, replacing the well-liked former captain. Murakami forces the crew to work harder than they ever have, creating enmity and exhaustion. Just when the ship has taken a huge catch of tuna in its n...

Comedy of manners set on the "Kodama" train between Tokyo and Osaka, before the opening of the Shinkansen. In the leading role, Frankie Sakai plays a straightforward but indecisive hero. The passengers also include the bubbly Dan Reiko, and Ozawa Eit...

Ryuta and Mineo Komatsu are brothers, both yakuza (gangsters). Mineo, although complicit in crime, even murder, wants out of the gangster life, hoping to become a successful singer instead. Ryuta loves his brother, but Mineo's possible defection pres...

An American scientist tells two colleagues about the finding of an abominable snowman living in the Japanese alps, where it is worshipped by a remote tribe as a god, and how it was discovered by modern man after it raided a skiers shelter following a...

Wataru Naohiko who has the prosecutor general as his father became a young composer and its symphony "saint" invoked the world echoed. But his disciple Uchiyama and his best friend prosecutor Daisuke Toki accused his music as a sesame of pause-only t...

Based on the novel "Ekimae Ryokan" by Masuji Ibuse, a longtime hotel employee struggles to bring his old-fashioned ryokan in line with postwar Japanese business practices....