FEEL IT.STREAM
Sōjirō Motoki

Sōjirō Motoki

Production

Biography

Producer, director, and writer.

Known For

Seven Samurai
8.5

A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food.

Seven Samurai

1954
Ikiru
8.3

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.

Ikiru

1952
Throne of Blood
7.9

Returning to their lord's castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the spirit's prophecy comes true, Washizu's scheming wife, Asaji, presses him to speed up the rest of the spirit's prophecy by murdering his lord and usurping his place. Director Akira Kurosawa's resetting of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" in feudal Japan is one of his most acclaimed films.

Throne of Blood

1957
Stray Dog
7.6

A bad day gets worse for young detective Murakami when a pickpocket steals his gun on a hot, crowded bus. Desperate to right the wrong, he goes undercover, scavenging Tokyo’s sweltering streets for the stray dog whose desperation has led him to a life of crime. With each step, cop and criminal’s lives become more intertwined and the investigation becomes an examination of Murakami’s own dark side.

Stray Dog

1949
Drunken Angel
7.6

In postwar Tokyo, a blunt, alcohol-soaked doctor diagnoses a swaggering young yakuza with tuberculosis, forging an uneasy bond that’s tested when the gangster’s ruthless former boss returns and drags him back toward the swampy underworld he can’t escape.

Drunken Angel

1948
The Lower Depths
7.1

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.

The Lower Depths

1957
The Quiet Duel
7.3

A young army surgeon, Kyoji Fujisaki, accidentally contracts syphilis during a WWII field operation. Back at his father’s clinic, he treats himself in secret and breaks off his engagement rather than risk his fiancée’s future, even as he confronts the irresponsible patient who infected him—testing his ethics, pride, and capacity for sacrifice.

The Quiet Duel

1949
I Live in Fear
7.3

An aging foundry patriarch, gripped by terror of nuclear annihilation, tries to uproot his family to Brazil. When they petition to have him declared incompetent, a family-court counselor witnesses his obsession slide into ruin—and asks whether ignoring the atomic threat is any saner.

I Live in Fear

1955
Scandal
6.9

A celebrity photograph sparks a court case as a tabloid magazine spins a scandalous yarn over a painter and a famous singer.

Scandal

1950
One Wonderful Sunday
7.2

Two broke sweethearts wander war-scarred Tokyo on a single Sunday, stretching 35 yen as they chase housing, small pleasures, and a little hope.

One Wonderful Sunday

1947
The Eagle of the Pacific
7.8

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, a brilliant tactician, is a loyal subject of the emperor, despite his grave misgivings about leading Japan's navy into war with the United States. He opposes the attack on Pearl Harbor, but, overruled, he leads his forces to the best of his ability.

The Eagle of the Pacific

1953
The Sands of Kurobe
7.0

Kitagawa is an engineer charged with construction of a gigantic tunnel through the Japan Alps for the transportation of equipment in the building of the massive Kurobe Dam. The tunnel crosses an earthquake fault and Kitagawa is beleaguered not only by cave-ins and flooding, but by strife between management and the workers's union. Adding to Kitagawa's stress is the knowledge that as his attention is pulled inexorably toward the tunnel construction, his youngest daughter is dying from leukemia.

The Sands of Kurobe

1968
Those Who Make Tomorrow
10.0

In postwar Japan, two sisters—a film studio script girl and a revue dancer—become swept up in the growing labor movement when workers around them strike for better conditions. As their conservative father opposes their activism, his own dismissal forces him to confront the realities of class struggle and join their fight for a fairer future. Now considered a lost film, Those Who Make Tomorrow was produced by Toho to promote unionization during Japan’s Allied Occupation.

Those Who Make Tomorrow

1946
Vendetta of a Samurai
6.6

Mataemon Araki, a renowned swordsman, helps a young man find vengeance.

Vendetta of a Samurai

1952
Last of the Wild Ones
8.0

A legendary gangster raises himself out of a small town and gathers followers on his rise to power.

Last of the Wild Ones

1954
A Man Among Men
8.0

Gangsters Ken and Maki are rivals in the ticket-scalping game. They make an uneasy truce, but Ken wrecks the truce by agreeing to fix a boxing match in which Maki has an interest in one of the fighters. After a terrible brawl, the two gangsters discover that they have both been played for suckers by their bosses. They join forces to turn the tables on the bosses.

A Man Among Men

1955
The Blue Pearl
7.5

The Blue Pearl depicts the interplay between a young man from Tokyo and two ama (pearl divers; literally “women of the sea”) in a superstitious coastal town. Though raised within the same tradition-bound crucible, the two women – Noe and Riu – are portrayed as diametric opposites; the former meek but affectionate, the latter strong-willed but jaded by a tryst with metropolitan life.

The Blue Pearl

1951
Spring Awakens
6.8

Slice of life film centered on a couple of years in the life of a rural high school girl.

Spring Awakens

1947
The Monkey King
7.0

A legendary pre-war comedy operetta starring Enomoto Kenichi, Hideko Takamine and Li Xianglan. The Sanzo Ikkou continues its westward journey, on a mission to prevent a demonic resurrection. As Genjo Sanzo, Cho Hakkai, Sha Gojyo, and Son Goku (Kenichi Enomoto) fight their way to their goal, their path is fraught with internal strife.

The Monkey King

1940
The Underworld
7.0

Yakuza boss Furuya leans more and more on his protege Takao Shoji, though Shoji has become romantically involved with Furuya's mistress, Natsue. Furuya himself has fallen in love, with a nurse after his recent hospital stay. As the gang grows more jealous of the favoritism Furuya shows Shoji, they decide to reveal Shoji's relationship with Natsue. But Furuya's affection for Shoji cannot be easily destroyed, even in the gang war that erupts.

The Underworld

1956