Background
Tono Eijiro was born on September 17, 1907 in Tomioka, Gumma, Japan. He was the son of a sake brewer.
(The film takes place during a heatwave in the middle of s...)
The film takes place during a heatwave in the middle of summer in post-war Tokyo. Rookie homicide detective Murakami (Toshiro Mifune) has his Colt pistol stolen in a crowded trolley ride. He chases the pickpocket, but loses him. Remorsefully, he reports the theft at headquarters. After some preliminary investigation, he then goes undercover in the city backstreets for days, trying to infiltrate the illicit arms market. He eventually picks up the trail of a gun racket.
https://www.amazon.com/Stray-Criterion-Collection-Toshir%C3%B4-Mifune/dp/B0001UZZSG/?tag=2022091-20
1949
(Yukiko Tsuji (Kinuyo Tanaka) is a gentle, affectionate ta...)
Yukiko Tsuji (Kinuyo Tanaka) is a gentle, affectionate take on a middle aged bar hostess, struggling to bring up a child alone and facing financial, sexual and end of career issues, as well as the implied disapproval of society.
https://www.amazon.com/Ginza-Cosmetics-gesho-REGION-Audio/dp/7885726665/?tag=2022091-20
1951
(Bandits discuss raiding a mountain village, but their chi...)
Bandits discuss raiding a mountain village, but their chief decides to wait until after the harvest seeing as they had raided it fairly recently. The plan is inadvertently overheard by a farmer, whereupon the villagers ask Gisaku, the village elder and miller, for advice. He states that he once saw a village that had hired samurai had remained untouched by raiders, and declares they should hire samurai to defend themselves. Since they have no money, Gisaku advises them to find hungry samurai.
https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Samurai-Criterion-Collection-Blu-ray/dp/B003KGBISY/?tag=2022091-20
1954
(Office worker Shoji Sugiyama (Ryō Ikebe) wakes and goes a...)
Office worker Shoji Sugiyama (Ryō Ikebe) wakes and goes about his morning routine, attended by his wife, Masako (Chikage Awashima), before commuting to his job in the Tokyo office of a fire brick manufacturing company. During a hiking trip with office friends, Shoji spends time alone with a fellow worker, a typist nicknamed "Goldfish" for her large eyes (Keiko Kishi). After the trip Goldfish makes advances to Shoji and the two begin an affair. Masako suspects something is amiss but is reluctant to confront her husband. After Shoji fails to mark the anniversary of their son's death, he and Masako become progressively estranged.
https://www.amazon.com/Early-Spring-Japanese-Classic-English/dp/B078ZXQF7B/?tag=2022091-20
1956
(In a run-down Edo tenement, an elderly man (Rokubei) and ...)
In a run-down Edo tenement, an elderly man (Rokubei) and his bitter wife (Osugi) rent out rooms and beds to the poor. The tenants are gamblers, prostitutes, petty thieves and drunk layabouts, all struggling to survive. The landlady’s younger sister (Okayo) who helps the landlords with maintenance, brings in an old man (Kahei) and rents him a bed. Kahei quickly assumes the role of a mediator and grandfatherly figure, though there is an air of mystery about him and some of the tenants suspect his past is not unblemished.
https://www.amazon.com/Lower-Depths-Akira-Kurosawa/dp/B01IO62YPA/?tag=2022091-20
1957
(In 1860, during the final years of the Tokugawa shogunate...)
In 1860, during the final years of the Tokugawa shogunate,[a] a rōnin (masterless samurai) wanders through a desolate Japanese countryside. While stopping at a farmhouse, he overhears an elderly couple lamenting that their only son has given up farm labouring in order to run off and join the rogues who have descended on a nearby town that has become divided by a gang war. The stranger heads to the town where he meets Gonji, the owner of a small izakaya who advises him to leave. He tells the rōnin that the two warring clans are led by Ushitora and Seibei. Ushitora was the right-hand man of Seibei, but rebelled when Seibei decided to hand over the reins to his son Yoichiro, a useless youth. The mayor of town and silk merchant, Tazaemon, had long been in Seibei's pocket, and Ushitora aligned himself with the sake brewer, Tokuemon, proclaiming him the new mayor. After sizing up the situation, the stranger says he intends to stay as the town would be better off with both sides dead.
https://www.amazon.com/Yojimbo-English-Subtitled-Toshiro-Mifune/dp/B004DDG8UQ/?tag=2022091-20
1961
(A wealthy executive named Kingo Gondo (Toshiro Mifune) is...)
A wealthy executive named Kingo Gondo (Toshiro Mifune) is in a struggle to gain control of a company called National Shoes. One faction wants the company to make cheap, low quality shoes for the impulse market as opposed to the sturdy and high quality shoes currently being produced. Gondo believes that the long-term future of the company will be best served by well made shoes with modern styling, though this plan is unpopular because it means lower profits in the short term. He has secretly set up a leveraged buyout to gain control of the company, mortgaging all he has.
https://www.amazon.com/High-English-Subtitled-Toshiro-Mifune/dp/B004D18SWY/?tag=2022091-20
1963
(In August 1939, a trade embargo imposed by the United Sta...)
In August 1939, a trade embargo imposed by the United States is depriving a belligerent Japan of raw materials. Influential army figures and politicians push through an alliance with Germany and Italy in September 1940 and make preparations for war. The newly appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto reluctantly orders the planning of a pre-emptive strike on the U.S. Pacific Fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor, believing that Japan's best hope of achieving control of the Pacific Ocean is to annihilate the fleet at the outset of hostilities. Air Staff Officer Minoru Genda is chosen to mastermind the operation while his old Naval Academy classmate Mitsuo Fuchida is selected to lead the attack.
https://www.amazon.com/Tora-Martin-Balsam/dp/B00DW3GAEC/?tag=2022091-20
1970
東野 英治郎
Tono Eijiro was born on September 17, 1907 in Tomioka, Gumma, Japan. He was the son of a sake brewer.
Tono Eijiro attended Tomioka Middle School. After enrolling as a student in the Commerce Department of Meiji University he joined the left-wing Society for the Study of Social Science. This was politically dangerous, as the Peace Preservation Law of 1925 made members of any association whose object was the alteration of the kokutai (National Polity), or of the system of private property, liable to imprisonment for up to ten years.
In 1931 he became a student on the proletarian drama course run by the Tsukiji Little Theatre. He made his stage debut in the Tokyo Left-wing Theatre production of The Mount Osore Tunnel by Jūrō Miyoshi. Having completed the proletarian drama course, he joined the New Tsukiji Theatre Group and took the stage name Katsuji Honjō (本庄克二).
Through the 1930s, Tōno appeared in almost all of the New Tsukiji Theatre Group's productions, receiving favourable reviews. In 1936, he made his film debut in Older Brother, Younger Sister. In 1938 he appeared in Teinosuke Kinugasa's Kuroda seichū roku and subsequently had roles in pictures for the Shōchiku, Nikkatsu and Tōhō studios. Up to this point, he was credited under his stage name, "Katsuji Honjō".
In August 1940 the New Tsukiji Theatre Group was forcibly disbanded and Tōno and others were arrested for infringement of the Peace Preservation Law. Tōno was released without charge some nine months later and returned to acting, but was subject to an order by the Home Ministry that he should appear only under his real name. From this time on, he was credited as "Tōno Eijirō".
In 1943 Tono Eijiro appeared in Keisuke Kinoshita's debut film Port of Flowers. In 1944 Tōno, Eitarō Ozawa, Koreya Senda, Sugisaku Aoyama, Chieko Higashiyama and others formed the Actors' Theatre. During the last year of the Pacific War, he toured Japan under the auspices of the Japan Peripatetic Drama League, an officially-sponsored body whose remit was to raise morale, and therefore productivity, by bringing drama to factories, mines, farming communities and fishing villages.
After the war ended in August 1945, Tōno returned to the Actors' Theatre as one of its central figures, both actor and administrator. Between the end of the war and 1990 he also played supporting roles in well over 200 films.
Tōno died of heart failure on 8 September 1994, at the age of 86.
(Yukiko Tsuji (Kinuyo Tanaka) is a gentle, affectionate ta...)
1951(Office worker Shoji Sugiyama (Ryō Ikebe) wakes and goes a...)
1956(Bandits discuss raiding a mountain village, but their chi...)
1954(In 1860, during the final years of the Tokugawa shogunate...)
1961(A wealthy executive named Kingo Gondo (Toshiro Mifune) is...)
1963(In a run-down Edo tenement, an elderly man (Rokubei) and ...)
1957(In August 1939, a trade embargo imposed by the United Sta...)
1970(The film takes place during a heatwave in the middle of s...)
1949