Poppy

Based on Soseki Natsume’s 1908 novel of the same title, Poppy is an ornately complicated story of desire and ambition. Fujio is beautiful, talented, well-heeled, and engaged to Munechika, a rising young diplomat. She has promised him a gold watch, a family heirloom, as an emblem of their engagement. But she falls in love with Ono, a student employed to tutor her in English, who is attracted by her beauty and wealth. Ono is himself bound by an engagement to Sayoko, the daughter of his mentor, Professor Inoue. The self-centered Fujio is ready ...

Kutsukake Tokijiro

A traveling gambler becomes duty-bound to the wife and child of the yakuza he had slain and desires to leave the criminal life for good. However, with no other skills but his sword, he is forced to hire himself out in the midst of a gang war.

The Ghost Cat and the Mysterious Shamisen

A quintessential example of the period "ghost cat" (bakeneko or kaibyo) movie, this was one of at least six such titles released by the studio Shinko Kinema between 1937-40 featuring Japan's first scream queen, Sumiko Suzuki. Here she plays Mitsue, the possessive onna-kabuki actress betrothed to apprentice shamisen player Seijiro. When one day Okiyo, a beautiful young girl of samurai class, is led to Seijiro's house by his lost cat Kuro, she becomes besotted with him. Dark jealous passions are invoked in Mitsue, which are intensified when Se...

Obsessive Snake

Utaji heard that her ex-lover Seijirou would get married to Ochiyo a daughter of Ise-ya. She murdered Ochiyo and took over the Ise-ya's shop with Hikoroku a head clerk of Ise-ya. Moreover Utaji killed Hikoroku. But...