Haruo Tanaka

Actor

March 25, 1912 (79 years)

† March 21, 1992

Kyoto, Japan

Biography

Haruo Tanaka ( March 25 , 1912 – February 21, 1992 ) was a Japanese film actor noted for his supporting roles in a career that spanned seven decades. After the war, he appeared in films for Toho and Shintoho , but gradually he began to demonstrate his unique personality and became active as a character actor, appearing in works by many of the great directors who have shaped the history of Japanese cinema, including Akira Kurosawa , Yasujiro Ozu , Kenji Mizoguchi , and Shiro Toyoda. He died of l…

Filmography

8.3

Ikiru

Sakai

Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.

N/A

Minamoto no Yoshitsune

Ise Yoshimori

The chronicles of the life of Minamoto no Yoshitsune (1159 - May 17th, 1189). He was a late Heian and early Kamakura general of the Minamoto clan of Japan. Yoshitsune was the ninth son of Minamoto no Yoshitomo. His older brother Minamoto no Yoritomo founded the Kamakura shogunate.

7.7

Good Morning

Tatsuzo Haraguchi

A lighthearted take on director Yasujiro Ozu’s perennial theme of the challenges of intergenerational relationships, Good Morning tells the story of two young boys who stop speaking in protest after their parents refuse to buy a television set. Ozu weaves a wealth of subtle gags through a family portrait as rich as those of his dramatic films, mocking the foibles of the adult world through the eyes of his child protagonists. Shot in stunning color and set in a suburb of Tokyo where housewives gossip about the neighbors’ new washing machine and unemployed husbands look for work as door-to-door salesmen, this charming comedy refashions Ozu’s own silent classic I Was Born, But . . . to gently satirize consumerism in postwar Japan.

5.7

Inferno of Torture

Samejima

Japan nineteenth century. High demand for tattooed geisha generates an entire industry for their "production". Europeans pay more for tattooed beauties. Against this background, and considering the gorgeous tattooed women develop the history of confrontation between two highly skilled masters of tattoo.

7.2

The Pornographers

Banteki

Subu makes pornographic films. He sees nothing wrong with it. They are an aid to a repressed society, and he uses the money to support his landlady, Haru, and her family. From time to time, Haru shares her bed with Subu, though she believes her dead husband, reincarnated as a carp, disapproves. Director Shohei Imamura has always delighted in the kinky exploits of lowlifes, and in this 1966 classic, he finds subversive humor in the bizarre dynamics of Haru, her Oedipal son, and her daughter, the true object of her pornographer-boyfriend’s obsession. Imamura’s comic treatment of such taboos as voyeurism and incest sparked controversy when the film was released, but The Pornographers has outlasted its critics, and now seems frankly ahead of its time.

7.7

Street of Shame

Osaka Salesman

Follows five sex workers employed at a Japanese brothel while the nation debates the passage of an anti-prostitution law.

7.7

Tokyo Twilight

Komatsu's Customer

Two sisters find out the existence of their long-lost mother, but the younger cannot accept the fact that she was abandoned as a child.

7.5

A Geisha

Ogawa

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.

7.2

Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island

Kumagoro the horse thief

A humble and simple Takezo abandons his life as a knight errant. He's sought as a teacher and vassal by Shogun, Japan's most powerful clan leader. He's also challenged to fight by the supremely confident and skillful Sasaki Kojiro. Takezo agrees to fight Kojiro in a year's time but rejects Shogun's patronage, choosing instead to live on the edge of a village, raising vegetables. He's followed there by Otsu and later by Akemi, both in love with him. The year ends as Takezo assists the villagers against a band of brigands. He seeks Otsu's forgiveness and accepts her love, then sets off across the water to Ganryu Island for his final contest.

7.5

Floating Weeds

Yatazo

A theater troupe master's visit with his old flame unintentionally sets off a chain of unexpected events with devastating consequences.

7.8

Chikamatsu Monogatari

Gifuya Dôki

When the wife of a 17th-century Kyoto scrollmaker is falsely accused of having an affair with his best employee, the pair flee the city and find themselves truly falling for one another.

N/A

The Detective Journey

A comedy directed by Mitsumasa Saito about a pair of clumsy detectives who solve a case they become involved in by chance. Shosuke Ikashima and Ryuji Kabaya, who repeatedly screw things up, encounter a real robbery during a bank robbery simulation training...

7.1

The Lower Depths

Tatsu

Residents of a rundown boardinghouse in 19th-century Japan, including a mysterious old man and an aging actor, get drawn into a love triangle that turns violent. When amoral thief Sutekichi breaks off his affair with landlady Osugi to romance her younger sister, Okayo, Osugi extracts her revenge by revealing her infidelity to her jealous husband.

7.5

Early Spring

Nomura

A young salaryman and his wife struggle within the confines of their passionless relationship while he embarks on an extramarital affair.

6.1

The Legend of the White Serpent

Li Gong Fu

Lavish Japanese-Chinese coproduction based on an ancient Chinese legend about a man who falls in love with a snake goddess in human form.

7.3

The Woman in the Rumor

Kawamoto

After living a traumatic experience in Tokyo, Yukiko returns to Kyoto, where Hatsuko, her mother, runs a brothel, which upsets Yukiko very much.

N/A

The Shingo Case Files

Shingo is back! As an associate to magistrate’s office, Shingo rises up against evil to protect Edo’s modest people. Hard-boiled Jidaigeki staring Ryotaro Sugi.

7.1

The Funeral

Old Man

When Wabisuke's father-in-law unexpectedly dies, the family goes through a series of random events and occurrences as the funeral unfolds over three days in their home.

7.2

The Rickshaw Man

A poor rickshaw driver finds himself helping a young woman and her son after the woman's husband dies suddenly.

6.9

No Regrets for Our Youth

Student

After her anti-fascist professor father is dismissed, Yukie navigates love, political repression, and wartime upheaval—ultimately forging her own path in pre- and post-WWII Japan.