Taiji Tonoyama
Birthday: 1915-10-17 Place of Birth: Tokyo, Tokyo Prefecture, Japan
Synopsis
Taiji Tonoyama (殿山 泰司, Tonoyama Taiji, 1915–1989) was a Japanese character actor who made many appearances in films and on television from 1939 to 1989. He was a close friend of Kaneto Shindo and one of his regular cast members. He was also an essayist. In 1950 he helped form the film company Kindai Eiga Kyokai with Shindo and Kōzaburō Yoshimura.
Acting
Dixieland Daimyo
Shipwrecked African-American slaves arrive in the midst of Bakumatsu-era Japan; they soon carve out a niche in the market with their musical talents.
The Ballad of Narayama
In a small village in a valley everyone who reaches the age of 70 must leave the village and go to a certain mountain top to die. If anyone should refuse they would disgrace their family. Old Orin is 69. This winter it is her turn to go to the mountain. But first she must make sure that her eldest son Tatsuhei finds a wife.
Day Dream
Loosely based on a 1926 short story by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, the film opens as an artist and a young woman are in a dentist's waiting room. Though he is attracted to the woman, he says nothing to her. They are later in the same examining room. When he is given an anesthetic, he begins to imagine a series of scenes in which the woman undergoes various forms of sexual abuse, including rape and torture. When the artist recovers from the anesthetic, he finds clues showing that he may not have been hallucinating.
Edo Porn
The world-famous woodblock artist Hokusai (1760-1849), a widower in need of a steady income, lives with his daughter Oei in the house of his friend Bakin.
Vengeance Is Mine
A thief, a murderer, and a charming lady-killer, Iwao Enokizu is on the run from the police.
In the Realm of the Senses
A passionate telling of the story of Sada Abe, a woman whose affair with her master led to an obsessive and ultimately destructive sexual relationship.
Rika 3: Juvenile's Lullaby
Reform schools are a way of protecting society by ridding it of lawless juvenile delinquents. But who's protecting the juvenile delinquents from corrupt reform schools? Rica could be considered a bit of an expert on reform schools, having spent most of her early life in and out of them. When Rica is dragged back once again, she gets a severe beating and is finally sent off to a mental hospital with the intention of selling her and her pals into a slave trade. A trader takes Rica's friend Jun to a mountain cottage where she's pegged for the lead in his clandestine porno film operation. Once again, it's up to tough-as-nails Rica to bust up this corrupt racket once and for all!
Rika 2: Lonely Wanderer
Rica wanting a fresh start leaves her friends and past life behind or at least that is what she thinks as trouble always seems to find her. Rica's looks into a ship that exploded and everyone who survived this disaster who comes in contact with her dies. Rica only chance of solving the mystery of the sunken ship is if she can locate a old friend of hers who just happened to be on that ship the night it blew up.
Human
The ship Kaijin Maru is left adrift after losing all means of navigation in a storm. The four people on the ship are becoming increasingly desperate as food and water run out.
My Second Brother
The film tells the story of four orphans living in an impoverished mining town. An adaptation of a best-selling book based on the diary of a ten-year-old zainichi (ethnic Korean Japanese) girl, it was one of the first films to deal with the subject of zainichi identity and struggles in Japan.
Birth of a Jazz Maiden
Kawai Midori's father left the family a long time ago and since her mother passed away, she has taken care of her younger siblings by herself by working with a group of itinerant camellia oil peddlers. While she is In Izu selling camellia oil, she meets a young student, Katō Yutaka, who asks her to let him take her picture. The peddlers also meet a jazz band, and when Midori sings a song, teased by the band's star singer Nanjō Haruo, the band members are enraptured by her beautiful voice. She eventually joins the band and quickly becomes a popular jazz singer.
Drunken Angel
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 uneasy friendship until Matsunaga's old boss Okada returns from prison.
