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Katsumi Nishikawa

Katsumi Nishikawa

Directing

Biography

Katsumi Nishikawa (西河克己, Nishikawa Katsumi) (1 July 1918 – 6 April 2010) was a Japanese film director most famous for his youth films (seishun eiga). Graduating from Nihon University, he started out at the Shochiku studio in 1939 and directed his first film in 1952. He moved to Nikkatsu in 1954 and, while working in a variety of genres, became most famous for his youth films starring Sayuri Yoshinaga, Yujiro Ishihara, and Hideki Takahashi. In the 1970s, he remade some of these films with the idol singer Momoe Yamaguchi and her future husband Tomokazu Miura. The Katsumi Nishikawa Memorial Film Museum was opened in his hometown of Chizu, Tottori, in 2001. Nishikawa published several books, including one about his war experience and another about filming Yasunari Kawabata's The Dancing Girl of Izu several times. He died of pneumonia on April 6, 2010.

Known For

Sweet Revenge
6.8

Masao is falsely accused and jailed for the murder of a loanshark to whom he owed a lot of money. His sister Kiriko makes the long trip to Tokyo, specifically to accost Otsuka, Japan's top criminal defence lawyer, and plead with him to take her brother's case. They live in Kitakyushu which, though a city, she contends that the local lawyers are not up to the job. Otsuka contemptuously brushes her off. A year passes. Masao has suicided in jail, his appeal having failed due to the lack of interest and competence of the local defence lawyer. Kiriko returns to Tokyo, planning revenge on Otsuka for refusing the case and causing her brother's death.

Sweet Revenge

1977
One Bowl of Kakesoba
8.0

Set in Sapporo during the oil crisis of the early '70s, the film centers on the Hokkaitei soba stand run by a stoic patriarch and his perky wife. One New Year's day, a haggard-looking mother and her two adorable moppets poke their heads into the restaurant and ask for a single bowl of kakesoba. Noticing that the trio is looking a little low in the heels, she puts in an extra scoop of noodles. The youngest boy declares that the soba is delicious. The next year, the same threesome appears again asking for one bowl of kakesoba. This time the old man dumps in two helpings. He is struck by how much the youngest looks like their own son who was hit by a truck three years previous. The following year, the three return and this time the mother tells her story...

One Bowl of Kakesoba

1992
The Surf
6.7

Lonely youth Shinji meets Hatsue, a pretty pearl diver, on the beach and the two fall in love. But Shinji has a rival for Hatsue's affections, Yasuo. Yasuo spreads unpleasant gossip about his rival, and Hatsue's father forbids her to see Shinji. But when the boy saves the passengers on a boat owned by Hatsue's father, his luck in love begins to change.

The Surf

1975
The Last Song
7.4

Junkichi is the son of a rich landlord, while Koyuki is the daughter of a poor lumber worker. The mismatched pair soon finds love, and against his father's wishes, Junkichi decides to run away with Koyuki to start a new life. But when Junkichi is called off to war, they make a pledge to sing the song of engagement everyday until they are able to reunite

The Last Song

1975
The Izu Dancer
8.1

While vacationing in the Izu peninsula, a high school student Kawashima becomes intrigued by Kaoru, a pretty young dancer in a troupe of travelling performers, and he tags along with them on their journeys.

The Izu Dancer

1974
Windy Street
6.0

Adapted from the original work by the literary giant Yasunari Kawabata. Through the lives of three sisters each following their own path, the film offers a richly poetic exploration of what constitutes happiness for women.

Windy Street

1959
The Four Loves
N/A

A father gives his four daughters his substantial retirement allowance on the stipulation that they leave him alone, as he wants some freedom. Each of the daughters has a romantic interest and it's noticeable that the father, too, has someone in mind.

The Four Loves

1965
No Greater Love
N/A

In 1943, Japan is amidst the Pacific War. Sobei Sonoda is one of the wealthiest landowners of the San'in region. His land spread for miles, as far as the eye can see. People treated him with respect. But even the richest must think about the future. One day, he decides to arrange a marriage between his only son, Junkichi and the daughter of an even more powerful family. Sobei, hoping to benefit from this union, soon discovers that his son was in love with a lower class girl.

No Greater Love

1966
Love Comes with Youth
8.0

During his idle journey on the Izu Peninsula, a university student, Kawasaki, encounters a group of traveling entertainers – including Kaoru (Sayuri Yoshinaga), one of the “odoriko”. Kawasaki is taken and cannot take his eyes off her. When he is invited to stay at the same lodgings, the two grow closer. In time, the two come to learn the pain of love.

Love Comes with Youth

1963
Beyond the Green Hills
7.0

Shinko Terasawa was always considered to be the odd ball of the bunch. At a time when romance was against school regulations, Shinko was the first to take a bite out of the forbidden fruit. Expelled from her former school, she finds herself in an all-girls school in Jokamachi, where rumors fly. One day, Shinko delivers an anonymous love letter addressed to her English teacher, Ms. Shimazaki. Convinced that the students are playing a prank, Ms. Shimazaki is adamant about getting to the bottom of this "problem”.

Beyond the Green Hills

1963
Red Bud and White Flower
7.0

A high school boy and girl in the midst of their youth try to get their parents to remarry.

Red Bud and White Flower

1962
A Portrait of Shunkin
7.8

Okoto is blind since childhood. Her young servant Sasuke is in love of her. One day Koto is badly scarred on her face. In order to preserve the memory of her once beautiful face, Sasuke takes away his own sight.

A Portrait of Shunkin

1976
Doing What I Please
N/A

Koichi Haruyama, who works at the Morita Automobile Factory, was driving a convertible through Ginza in search of accident sites. He buys cars that have been damaged in accidents at a low price and scraps them for his own company. He uses the money he earns in this way to pay back Kanda Trading. Morita, the president of the company, is suspicious about the identity of Kanda Trading, from whom he borrowed money. However, what is borrowed must be repaid, and Koichi drives to Toyokawa to beg his grandfather for money as his scrap business is not going well. In addition to begging for money, Koichi has another secret purpose...

Doing What I Please

1961
Striving to Live
N/A

Yasuichiro Isa, who works in the labor section of Sone Mining Tokyo Headquarters, paid a monthly fee for his younger brother, Reiji, who was in trouble because he had a bonus of 10,000 yen more.

Striving to Live

1955
Night of Sorrow
N/A

A young lawyer looking for a true culprit to save his innocent friend. But behind the case is the father of a woman he loves.

Night of Sorrow

1966
Women of the Night - Butterfly Flower
N/A

A flower is a woman or a man is a butterfly... Love and melancholy bloom wildly in the nighttime garden! This is a moody entertainment work depicting the love, laughter, melancholy, and human drama of an iron-fisted daughter of a family of expositors who, after her father's death, disbanded her gang and moved to Tokyo by herself, where she becomes a hostess and demonstrates her natural chivalrous temperament, risking her life in the neon-lit Ginza district.

Women of the Night - Butterfly Flower

1969
Song of Farewell
N/A

After her mother's funeral, Yuriko, dressed in mourning clothes, sees off her lover Shintaro as he leaves in the powdery snow, and resolves to part ways with him forever. However, in Yuriko's heart... Pure love duo Yoshinaga and Hamada rigorously pursue a life of sincerity and love of the younger generation, and love but parting, in this lyrical and melancholy touching story of Ishizaka literature.

Song of Farewell

1965
Journey to the North
N/A

Winter holidays at the university. Eikichi visits a city in the north of the country, the hometown of Yuko, a classmate for whom he has feelings. However, Yuko, having returned home, has just become engaged to a local young man, and the sudden appearance of Eikichi makes others worry that their good relationship will be spoiled. An epic about pure love, which tells the story of a man who leaves his beloved woman, praying for her happiness. Adapted from the novel "Kiri no Naka no Shojo" Yojiro Ishizaka.

Journey to the North

1967
Black Art Collection -Testimony-
N/A

Ishino Teiichiro (Tanihara Shosuke) married his wife Sachiko (Nishida Naomi) and took over her family’s clinic in Kanazawa. Although he is a respected doctor and seems to have a happy family life with Sachiko and their two children

Black Art Collection -Testimony-

2020
Natsuko’s Adventure in Hokkaido
N/A

Born to a prestigious family, Natsuko is not impressed by any one of her suitors. Determined to spend her life serving god, she sets off to a convent in Hakodate, Hokkaido, and meets along the way a young bear-hunter with whom she begins an adventure.

Natsuko’s Adventure in Hokkaido

1953