Movies: Chōko Iida

In Depression-era Tokyo, a struggling middle-aged single father with a young son comes across a homeless young lady and convinces a bar owner to take her in....

An errant salaryman's son gets lost until a man from the Tokyo tenements brings him to vendor Tane, who's reluctant to let the kid board....

Doctor Sanada treats gangster Matsunaga after he is wounded in a gunfight, and discovers that he is suffering from tuberculosis. Sanada tries to convince Matsunaga to stay for treatment, which would drastically change his lifestyle. They form an unea...

A silk factory worker is persuaded to support her son's education up to a college level despite their poverty. Many years later, she travels to Tokyo to visit her son....

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 lif...

An aging actor returns to a small town with his troupe and reunites with his former lover and illegitimate son, a scenario that enrages his current mistress and results in heartbreak for all....

After the death of her husband, an elderly woman and her youngest, unmarried daughter are forced to sell their house to cover his debts and decide to move in with one of the former's children, each of whom is scarcely happy to accommodate....

An unemployed Japanese man and his two sons wander the industrial flatlands of Depression-era Tokyo, until he chances upon an old friend and befriends a woman and her daughter, who are in a similar predicament....

The few residents left on the streets in Tokyo share their individual stories and come to understand the melancholy of saying goodbye....

A professor, Komiya, and his bossy wife, Tokiko, are to look after Setsuko, their high-spirited niece from Osaka. Despite being a minor, Setsuko is a liberated woman who does whatever she wants, including smoking. She even convinces Koyima to take h...

A poor rickshaw driver finds himself helping a young woman and her son after the woman's husband dies suddenly....

In "The Other Woman" the children of a distinguished professor find that the woman they have come to regard as their racy and slightly disreputable Ginza aunt is really their mother....

A group of hustling peddlers swindle rural towns with fake goods, facing betrayals, close calls, and constant setbacks as they chase survival and dream of a better future....

In Depression-era Tokyo, a young man struggles to provide for his family after he is fired from his job....

Saheita, the final heir of a once rich and respectable family, can't refuse the many villagers that come to him for favours and money, even though he is on the brink of bankruptcy. Around town he is better known by his nickname Mr. Shosuke Ohara....

Three humorous love stories set in rural Japan....

Fumiko, mother of two children and wife of an unfaithful man, shares her family life with her budding vocation as a poet. The beginning of her successful literary career coincides with her divorce and her breast cancer diagnosis. In the last stage of...

Based on a 1956 television feature on Japan’s national network, NHK, this is one of Uchida’s rarest films. A socially conscious drama with a contemporary backdrop, Dotanba focuses on the attempts to rescue a group of trapped miners. The title is a fi...

Alongside Tokyo's Sumida River is a ragpickers' settlement known as Ant Village. One night, a young Catholic girl, Satoko Kitahara, who has been baptized under the name of Maria, comes to offer her services. However, Ant Village is not just an ordina...

Masako is a humble waitress who has a chance encounter with playboy Tamotsu. With the aid of his sister, Tamotsu seeks to win Masako's affection despite the disapproval of his wealthy parents and Masako's own feelings towards the working-class cabbie...