Topic: Feudal Japan

Direction Masaki Kobayashi

Cast Tatsuya Nakadai · Rentarô Mikuni · Akira Ishihama · Shima Iwashita

Plot A ronin, a masterless samurai, requests permission to commit an honorable ritual suicide at the home of a powerful but sadistic warlord. The warlord is reluctant to permit this as...

Direction Akira Kurosawa

Cast Toshirô Mifune · Takashi Shimura · Yoshio Inaba · Seiji Miyaguchi

Plot Set in 16th Century Japan, Akira Kurosawa's 'Seven Samurai' follows the plight of a defenseless farming village that lives in constant fear of marauding bandits. The farmers know that when...

Direction Kenji Mizoguchi

Cast Kinuyo Tanaka · Yoshiaki Hanayaki · Kyôko Kagawa · Eitarô Shindô

Plot 'Sansho Dayu' reaches back to a Japanese folk tale of the 12th century to depict the barbarism of a dark age, when people didn't know how to be human. When...

Direction Kenji Mizoguchi

Cast Machiko Kyô · Mitsuko Mito · Kinuyo Tanaka · Masayuki Mori

Plot In the civil wars of 16th century Japan, two ambitious peasants want to make their fortunes. The potter Genjuro intends to sell his wares for vast profits in the local...

Direction Masaki Kobayashi

Cast Toshirô Mifune · Yôko Tsukasa · Go Kato · Tatsuya Nakadai

Plot In 1725, during a peaceful period in Japan, Isaburo, a veteran samurai, lives placidly with his wife and his son. One day, his honor and moral principles will be at...

Direction Kenji Mizoguchi

Cast Kazuo Hasegawa · Kyôko Kagawa · Yôko Minamida · Eitarô Shindô

Plot Set in 17th century Kyoto, Osan is married to Ishun, a wealthy miserly scroll-maker. When Osan is falsely accused of having an affair with the Ishun’s most trusted servant, Mohei,...

Direction Michael Green · Amber Noizumi · Earl A. Hibbert · Ryan O'Loughlin

Cast Maya Erskine · Masi Oka · Darren Barnet · Brenda Song

Plot A mixed-race master of the sword lives a life in disguise while seeking revenge in Edo-period Japan.

Direction Akira Kurosawa

Cast Tatsuya Nakadai · Akira Terao · Jinpachi Nezu · Pîtâ

Plot A reinterpretation of William Shakespeare's 'King Lear'. The Lear counterpart is an elderly 16th-century warlord (Tatsuya Nakadai), who announces that he's about to divide his kingdom equally among his three...

Direction Akira Kurosawa

Cast Toshirô Mifune · Isuzu Yamada · Takashi Shimura · Akira Kubo

Plot 'Macbeth' is reimagined as a samurai in feudal Japan. Taketoki Washizu (Toshiro Mifune) is a valiant warrior whose life is transformed by an encounter with a ghostly female spirit. The...

Direction Akira Kurosawa

Cast Toshirô Mifune · Tatsuya Nakadai · Yôko Tsukasa · Isuzu Yamada

Plot In the 19th century, in a Feudal Japan, a samurai arrives to a rural village that is divided between two groups; neither side is particularly honorable. As he shows his...

Direction Akira Kurosawa

Cast Toshirô Mifune · Machiko Kyô · Masayuki Mori · Takashi Shimura

Plot In 12th century Japan, Masako (Machiko Kyo) and her husband Takehiro (Masayuki Mori) are attacked in the woods by armed bandit Tajomaru (Toshiro Mifune), who then murders her husband. After...

Direction Kenji Mizoguchi

Cast Kinuyo Tanaka · Tsukie Matsuura · Ichiro Sugai · Toshirô Mifune

Plot It tells the story of Oharu, a 50-year-old woman who suffers the strict conventions of 17th century Feudal Japan. She becomes the lover of a man, but when they are...

Direction Kazuhiro Furuhashi

Plot Taken by slavers when he was a child, Himura Kenshin is rescued only when an encounter with bandits kills off everyone but him. He is found by a master of...

Direction Shin'ichirō Watanabe

Plot TV Series (2004-2005). 1 season. 26 episodes. Mugen's a buck wild warrior: violent, thoughtless and womanizing. Jin is a vagrant ronin: mysterious, traditional, well-mannered and very strong. These two fiercely...

Direction Akira Kurosawa

Cast Tatsuya Nakadai · Tsutomu Yamazaki · Kenichi Hagiwara · Daisuke Ryû

Plot In 16th century Japan, Shingen, a powerful warlord, has become as legendary as the motto emblazoned on his war banners: "Swift as the wind, silent as the forest, fierce as...

Direction Akira Kurosawa

Cast Toshirô Mifune · Tatsuya Nakadai · Keiju Kobayashi · Yûzô Kayama

Plot In Japan circa Eighteenth Century, nine young men decide to present an accusation of corruption in their clan to the local superintendent. However, the group is betrayed, but the ronin...

Direction Justin Marks · Rachel Kondo · Fred Toye · Charlotte Brändström

Cast Hiroyuki Sanada · Cosmo Jarvis · Anna Sawai · Nestor Carbonell

Plot TV Miniseries (2024). 10 Episodes. In Japan in the year 1600, at the dawn of a century-defining civil war, Lord Yoshii Toranaga is fighting for his life as his enemies...

Direction Kaneto Shindô

Cast Nobuko Otowa · Jitsuko Yoshimura · Kei Sato · Taiji Tonoyama

Plot After enlisting as a volunteer in a war in 14th century Japan, his wife and mother remain living in a swamp. They eke out their living by ambushing worn-out warriors,...

Direction Kazuhiro Furuhashi · Kaeko Sakamoto · Hiroshi Morioka · Yûji Mitsuya

Plot TV Series (1996-1999). 3 seasons. 95 episodes. Himura Kenshin is a vagabond with a dark past and sunny disposition. Not a ronin but a rurouni, he was never a samurai,...

Direction Yôji Yamada

Cast Hiroyuki Sanada · Rie Miyazawa · Nenji Kobayashi · Min Tanaka

Plot 19th century Japan. Seibei, a just-widowed samurai, struggles to care for his senile mother and two young daughters. He holds back from a possible remarriage, self-conscious about his poverty. When...