An adventure film with Benshi performers. Sometimes considered the 'first Japanese feature film', it survives today as a compilation of scenes from various different 1910s adaptations totaling nearly three hours in length. The bulk of the content comes from the 1911 adaptation by legendary Japanese...
In 1908, Director/Producer Shozo Makino (father of Japanese cinema) directed and produced the first dramatic film in Kyoto. “Honnô-ji Gassen” was shot at Shinnyo-Do Temple. Considered a lost film.
The first version of a kabuki ghost story which would be filmed numerous times, the story is based on a historical incident which occurred in 1622 when an assassination attempt Tokugawa lemitsu, during his visit to Utsunomiya Castle. This alleged plan involved luring lemitsu into a "death-trap"...
Perhaps a depiction of the mythic yanagi-baba, or "willow witch", a spirit which emerges when a willow tree is 1,000 years, Featuring the Matsudaira Ryutaro kabuki troupe.
Sugawara no Michizane was a poet/politician of the Heian period, who fell from grace and died in exile. It was said that his vengeful ghost was the cause of subsequent plagues, natural disasters, and deaths.
Legend tells the Watanabe-no-Tsuna, one of Raiko's demon-hunters, was summoned to Rashomon where an evil she-demon, Idaraki-doji, was praying on traveler's. He hacked off the demon's arm, but she later tricked him into returning it.
One of the most popular of all Japan folk-tales is the famous undersea myth of Urashima Taro, the fisherman who is taken by a turtle to an underwater kingdom; in the palace of the Dragon King, he dreams for three centuries before returning to find himself in the distant future.
The first film vision of another seminal Japanese folk legend. Momotarô, the boy who was conceived when his elderly parents ate a magic peach and were rejuvenated for one final night of passionate sex. He proved to be a mighty hero, and an invincible defender of the Japanese people, travelling to...
