Best movies like History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess

When the man who seduced the famous painter Otoko as a teenager--and then wrote a bestselling novel about it--reappears in her life, her pupil--and lesbian lover--hatches a plot to destroy the man and his family.

A family of four are the sole inhabitants of a small island, where they struggle each day to irrigate their crops.

A young delinquent takes part in a robbery and is sentenced to a juvenile detention center, where he clashes with other youths and reflects on his life experiences.

Two brothers compete for the amorous favors of a young woman during a seaside summer of gambling, boating, and drinking.

A budding gangster enthralls a freeloading young woman, soon taking advantage of her knack for hitch-hiking to rob middle-class, middle-aged men.

In late 60s Tokyo, Eddie, a young drag queen, is the favourite of Gonda, the owner of the bar where she works. This relationship provokes the jealousy of Gonda's mistress, Leda, the bar's matron. Eddie and Gonda decide to get rid of her...

In the shady black markets and bombed-out hovels of post–World War II Tokyo, a tough band of prostitutes eke out a dog-eat-dog existence, maintaining tenuous friendships and a semblance of order in a world of chaos. But when a renegade ex-soldier stumbles into their midst, lusts and loyalties clash, with tragic results. With Gate of Flesh, visionary director Seijun Suzuki delivers a whirlwind of social critique and pulp drama, shot through with brilliant colors and raw emotions.

In postwar Japan, a new terror rises. Will the devastated people be able to survive... let alone fight back?

Desensitized and dissatisfied, a young yet jaded sexual veteran sets out on a journey of self-discovery while teetering on the threshold of womanhood. Yasuko is taking part in an orgy when she realizes that she has lost all feeling - not just physically, but emotionally as well. Now, with the weight of responsibility and adult expectation weighing down on her shoulders, Yasuko attempts to better understand how she could be so empty at such a tender age.

Shiratori Tatsuhiko works as a scout for Burst, a talent agency in Kabukichō, Shinjuku's red light district. In a business where money means everything Tatsuhiko finds himself in a constant struggle between rival talent scouts and the yakuza.

A Man Vanishes examines the concept of Johatsu, tackling the phenomenon of people missing in Japan over the years. It picks one such person from the list, someone who had seemed to disappear from the face of the earth due to embezzlement from his company, and the filmmakers begin an investigative documentary into the reasons behind and attempt at tracking him down.

In the city of Yokosuka, Kinta and his lover Haruko, both involved with yakuza, brave the post-occupation period with a goal to be together.

The lives of five prostitutes employed at a Japanese brothel while the nation is debating the passage of an anti-prostitution law.

Like a girl runaway, Tsuyu moves to Osaka to work as a bar hostess. She meets the owner of a model school, Yoko, and seriously thinks about becoming a fashion model. Yoko tells her that she can move in to Yoko’s house to take lessons, while making a living at the same time.

Anzukko (Little Peach) is the daughter of a successful writer. She turns down each one of her suitors, until she marries a beginning writer named Ryokichi. Their life quickly sinks into despair.

Oshima’s magisterial epic, centering on the ambivalent surviving heir of the Sakurada clan, uses ritual and the microcosm of the traditional family to trace the rise and fall of militaristic Japan across several decades.

This Japanese melodrama chronicles the exploits of a geisha's beautiful daughter. The daughter is the geisha's pride and she spares nothing to insure that she has a bright future. But the hard-working young woman's dreams of becoming a dressmaker are shattered.... She then becomes a nightclub hostess who plays cards with male patrons using her body as the prize.

A university student moves into an apartment building and becomes involved with a waitress. The landlord then attempts to evict the tenants and sell the building through illicit means.

Confusingly, this is actually the first “Stop the…” movie of what (to date) has been a trilogy. Kuni (Kenichi Endo) runs a Phone Sex service, where middle-aged men talk too, and arrange to meet, schoolgirls for “Compensated Dating” (enjo kosai) – the men provide gifts in return for “dating” the schoolgirl (although no money changes hands, this is effectively teenage prostitution). Kuni discovers that one group of schoolgirls are using his service to ambush (and then blackmail) his clients and decides to embark on a moral crusade against them (hence the title, Stop the Bitch…). Unfortunately, this crusade takes the form of arranging to meet the schoolgirls, having (kinky and degrading) sex with them and then running off without paying. The logic goes that if these girls are not making money from their “dating”, they will give it up, making the world a safer place for everyone. Unfortunately for Kuni, these schoolgirls decide to fight back….

Yoshie Nogami, a factory worker by day, moonlights as a hostess at a bar. One of the regulars, Eiji Kitami, invites her out on a date. Still only 19, she goes along out of curiosity and ends up spending the night at a hotel where she gives herself to him. They begin a passionate love affair and move in together, after which Yoshie begins skipping work at the factory and rarely returns to her family home. Before long, Eiji’s demeanor changes and he begins to constantly ask her for money. Despite claiming to be a businessman, he is actually a local thug, and his inability to pay his dues to his gang leads him to force Yoshie into prostitution.

In postwar London a young graduate and his girlfriend decide to marry. Her well-to-do parents are not convinced, but they agree once he has got a £5.10.0 job and a 30/- a week single-room flat. The newly-weds find money fearfully tight, the flat cramped, the neighbours a trial, and her parents always hovering. Can faith conquer all? Is there some way of getting rid of tea-leaves except down the sink?

In Osaka's slum, youths without futures engage in pilfering, assault and robbery, prostitution, and the buying and selling of identity cards and of blood. Alliances constantly shift. Tatsu and Takeshi, friends since boyhood, reluctantly join Shin's gang. Shin's an upstart and moves his gang often to avoid the local kingpin. Hanoko is a young woman with ambitions: first she's in the blood business with her father, then she joins forces with Shin. She soon breaks off that partnership, even though she's taken the sensitive Takeshi under her wing. Double crosses multiply. Those with the closest bonds become each others' murderers.

Abandoned by her lover, a woman becomes the main "hostess" in a decadent nightclub, but tries to put her past behind her on a steamer to Mandalay.

Fusako, a drug dealer's young mistress in postwar Japan, loses her tenuous grasp on life upon learning about her lover's affair.

The young houseboy in Uta wakes up every night to patrol the house of a teacher with a flashlight. He leads an austere life of meditation and he focuses his devotional attention on writing inscriptions for tombstones.

In a housing complex, a college prep student is spying on his neighbor, a former peace activist, who now leads an ordinary life as a housewife, having a secret affair with an ex-lover.

The plight of U.S. Army deserters from Vietnam on the run in Japan, centering on the culture clash between the troubled Americans and the Japanese who try to help him.

Following the journey of a caterpillar along the Japanese islands from Nagasaki to Hokkaido, this allegorical and oblique first feature film by Kuroki depicts in exquisite images a series of encounters and life's turning points.

Inspired by the true story of a Geisha murdered in a city famous for its baths, Adachi forged here his favorite style, a kind of conceptual documentary recounting the incident in monotone. The same event that at the beginning of Violated Angels escaped every principle of causality, is portrayed here as a singular anti-spectacle.

It is difficult to stand out at a Ginza club where every hostess wants to be number one. It is competitive. One of them is a virgin and also just eighteen years old. She wants to become the number one hostess to help pay the bills for her family. She advertises herself as 'virginity for sale.' It is an auction and the prize goes to the highest bidder. She doesn't have hostess skills however. The club's manager was the number one hostess in all of Ginza and helps the younger woman.

Two college buddies try to understand a young woman's suicide through her Super-8 films and clips from their summer trips together.

As her husband Eiichi becomes more entangled in his life as businessman, Naoko looks for ways to expand her own life even as her husband's life shrinks in scope and intimacy. She finds new interests, new love, and a greater sense of her place in the world.

Yoshida’s first big-budget production and colour film is a haunting tale of unrequited love and postwar disillusion. The story of the fatal attraction between a spineless intellectual and a strong woman is conventional, but its enactment is radically new.

In postwar Japan a young woman is unable to marry her sweetheart because her family's in difficult circumstances and needs her income to keep afloat.

In order to support her son, single-mother works at a bar that operates an undisclosed adult entertainment business. One day, Ishioka Kazuya comes into the store as a customer, but Ishioka never sleeps with her, and instead just looks at the scenery outside the window.