Movies: Kiyoko Hirai

Shinnosuke is introduced to Shizu as a prospective marriage partner, but he falls in love with her widowed sister Oyu. Convention forbids Oyu to marry because she has to raise her son as the head of her husband's family. Oyu convinces Shinnosuke and ...

Set in post-war Japan, The Lady of Musashino tells the story of Michiko, a disillusioned young woman trapped in a loveless marriage. She confides in her younger cousin, Tsutomo, and the two become close, but decide not to consummate their affair. He ...

Large star-shaped aliens travel to earth in hopes of warning them about an oncoming catastrophe. To prevent panic about their appearance, one alien takes the form of a popular singer....

When a young woman is named as the prime suspect in a murder, her girlfriend and her girlfriend's boyfriend set out to prove her innocence. Their investigation leads them to an isolated, creepy house in the middle of nowhere, where sinister goings-on...

The story contrasts the life of two doctors, former classmates and now both assistant professors at Naniwa University Hospital in Osaka. The brilliant and ambitious surgeon Goro Zaizen stops at nothing to rise to a position of eminence and authority,...

Hikaru Genji, the haunted romantic hero of Lady Murasaki Shikibu’s “Genji Monogatari” (Tale of Genji) comes to life in this new tale of his further romantic adventures. Young Genji, the emperor’s illegitimate son cuts a swath through the women of the...

A young girl is rigorously trained in the feminine arts so that she can become a geisha. As she struggles through life, she learns to live not just as a woman but as a complete person....

In a rural district of Tokyo, the owner of a farm is abandoned by his two daughters who are attracted to the life of the big city....

Kuramoto, who works for a large trading company, is a skilled employee who is well-liked by the company president. He is engaged to an employee named Nishino Etsuko, but he used her for his own career advancement and kills her so that he can marry th...

Ichikawa's 1956 adaptation of Nihonbashi was the first to take the work of Kyoka Izumi— until then regarded as a writer of common tragic melodramas—and re-evaluate it as a tanbi-ha work of decadence, aestheticism, and intrigue. Ichikawa's film prese...

Pu Zhe, the younger brother of the Emperor of Manchukuo, marries Ryuko the daughter of an aristocratic family. To the surprise of all, a deep love between Pu Zhe and Ryuko develops and is put to the test when Japan loses the war....

"When human beings venture too far along a trail made by wild beasts, it is said, they quite often discover themselves on a road of no return." Based on the novel of the same name by Seichô Matsumoto....

Hayase, a schoolteacher, assists Sakai in editing a German-Japanese dictionary. Hayase owes much to Sakai, as Sakai raised him for 13 years after Hayase lost his parents in a war. Hayase has been secretly married to Otsuta, a former geisha, and has b...

This unique melodrama depicts the anguish of a new wife whose husband confesses to her his infertility on their wedding night. The virgin wife, who spends her days in a state of unfulfillment, is gradually attracted to a young playboy, but she is una...

An attempt is made to suppress a journalist's investigation of collusion between a rural police chief and the local gangster bosses....

Aya successfully stages a fashion show in Osaka and in the train on her way home to Tokyo accidentally treads on a man's foot. The man whose name is Rentaro is not amused. Just afterwards she notices that he is reading a magazine which carries her pi...

An intellectual couple in a staid and tedious marriage are surprised when the wife’s niece, who has run away from home, turns up unexpectedly to stay with them. Their mundane lives are sent into disarray by the emotional and energetic Ako....

An exciting film about thugs, in which murders and drugs, justice and resentment explode in the dark city of Tokyo with the help of guns and violence....

1953 Toho adaptation of Natsume's novel....

1961 Theater of Life adaptation....