Daiei-dōri, the street named after a dead studio大映通り商店街 · Daiei-dōri shōtengai
The shopping street runs 600 to 700 metres (sources differ) along the south side of the tram tracks, between Katabiranotsuji and Uzumasa-Kōryūji stations. It is named after Daiei (大映), the studio that stood on its south side from 1942. Daiei made Rashomon, which won the Golden Lion at Venice in 1951, and later the Zatoichi and Daimajin series. Ichikawa Raizō, Katsu Shintarō and Kyō Machiko made their names here. The company went bankrupt in 1971, and the street lost most of its reason to be busy.
What you see now is a neighbourhood rebuilding an identity out of that loss. From the late 1990s the shopkeepers' association began branding the street around its film history, and it has since been promoted as "Kinema Street". The pavement is laid in a film-strip pattern and the street lamps are shaped like movie cameras. At the Katabiranotsuji end, in front of a supermarket, stands a full-size figure of Daimajin, the stone god of Daiei's 1966 films, put up in 2013. Locals use it as a meeting point. It is a prop made for an event rather than a screen-used one.
About 300 m from Katabiranotsuji, on the left, Kinema Kitchen (キネマ・キッチン) in the Uzu Kinema-kan building serves home-style set meals among old scripts and cameras. It is the easiest place on the street to sit down.
Getting there: Randen from Shijō-Ōmiya Station (四条大宮駅), about 13 min to Uzumasa-Kōryūji Station (太秦広隆寺駅); Katabiranotsuji Station (帷子ノ辻駅) is the next stop. Flat fare ¥250; a Randen one-day ticket is ¥700.
When: Daytime, when the shops are open. Kinema Kitchen: 11:00–18:00, last order 17:30, closed over New Year. Cards and IC cards accepted.
Reality check: It is a working local shopping street, not a themed one. Expect a pharmacy and a supermarket between the film references. The Daimajin statue was standing as of the most recent reports found; no 2026 confirmation turned up.
Watch one before you go. Everything on this street is small and only means something if you know the films. All of these were made within about a kilometre of where you are standing: Rashomon (1950), the first Zatoichi (1962), Daimajin (1966), and Uzumasa Limelight (2014), shot at Toei about the people who still work there.
Sankichi Inari, where the stars paid for the fence三吉稲荷 · Sankichi Inari
Down an alley off the street is a small shrine with a long formal name, Sankichi Inari Daimyōjin and Nakazato Hachiman Daibosatsu. According to Kyoto's film office, when Nikkatsu cleared the ground for its studio in the early Shōwa years, two sacred objects were found in the bamboo, and the film people enshrined them together. It became the studio's shrine and outlived the studio.
Read the stone posts of the fence. The donors' names include Ōkōchi Denjirō, who played the one-eyed swordsman Tange Sazen in the 1930s, the actress Irie Takako, and the comedian Ban Junzaburō. The ema prayer plaques are shaped like clapperboards. In the precinct is a memorial to Makino Shōzō (牧野省三), called the father of Japanese film, whose list of supporters includes his grandsons, the actors Nagato Hiroyuki and Tsugawa Masahiko. Kurumazaki Shrine (車折神社), further down the line toward Arashiyama, is the famous one for celebrity fence posts. The names here belong to the people who worked in the studio next door.
Getting there: In an alley on the south side of Daiei-dōri, between the two stations. Look for 三吉稲荷 on the sign.
When: Any time in daylight. No office, no fee.
Reality check: It takes five minutes. The names are carved in kanji only, so bring a phone with a camera translator if you want to read them.
The studio under the school大映京都撮影所跡 · Daiei Kyoto satsueijo ato
South of the street, the studio lot is now housing and Uzumasa Junior High School (太秦中学校). By the school's main gate is a stone reading 大映京都撮影所跡地, the Site of Daiei Kyoto Studio, dated August 1988 and put up by locals and former studio staff. Beside the school is Grand Prix Square, a small memorial with a monument modelled on the Golden Lion and the Oscar that Rashomon won. There is nothing else. That is the point: the films that made Japanese cinema known abroad were shot on ground that now has a school timetable.
The monument is easy to walk past. If you cannot find it, ask in one of the shops on Daiei-dōri:
大映の撮影所の跡はどこですか (Daiei no satsueijo no ato wa doko desu ka). Say it to a shopkeeper while showing the kanji on your phone.
Getting there: South of Daiei-dōri at Uzumasa Tayabu-chō (太秦多藪町); Grand Prix Square is about two minutes on foot from the stone.
When: Daytime. It is a school: do not go in the gate, and keep cameras off the students.
Reality check: Two stones and a plaque. Worth it only if you know what was here, which you now do.
The studio that is still working東映京都撮影所 · Toei Kyoto satsueisho
North of the tracks, Toei Kyoto Studio still makes period drama for film and television, as does Shochiku's Kyoto studio, which Makino Masahiro founded as a talkie studio in 1935. Neither is open to the public. Kyoto's film office says Toei's lot can be seen during the Uzumasa Cinema Festival and related events; dates vary, so check before planning around it.
The people this district depended on were the kirareyaku (斬られ役), the specialists who are cut down in sword fights. The best known, Fukumoto Seizō, was billed as "the man killed 50,000 times". Western audiences saw him as the silent samurai in The Last Samurai (2003), and the 2014 film Uzumasa Limelight, in which he plays an ageing kirareyaku, is the best preparation for this walk. He died in 2021, aged 77. You can stand at the studio gate on the walk from Satsueisho-mae Station; inside, you will not get.
Getting there: Satsueisho-mae Station (撮影所前駅) on the Randen Kitano Line, one stop from Katabiranotsuji.
When: The gate is a street-side view only. The festival opening is occasional.
Reality check: You will see a gate and a wall. This is the inconvenient part of a real studio: it is busy working.
The park, used as the last stop太秦映画村 · Uzumasa Eigamura
Toei opened part of its back lot to visitors in 1975. On 28 March 2026, after a month-long closure, it reopened as Uzumasa Kyoto Village with a new concept, a stroll into Edo-period Kyoto aimed at adults rather than school trips. The first phase added a live drama that uses the whole park as its stage, food stalls, tea and flower-arrangement sessions, and evening opening until 21:00, with gambling-game and "torture house" experiences for over-18s after dark. A pleasure-quarter zone is scheduled for spring 2027 and a kabuki-style theatre in spring 2028.
Seen after the walk above, the park is easier to read. The new streets were designed by Toei Kyoto Studio's art staff, the trade this whole district grew up around. Go late, on the cheaper night ticket, when the crowds thin and the lanterns are lit.
At the ticket window after 17:00: ナイトタイムで大人一枚 (naito taimu de otona ichimai).
Getting there: Satsueisho-mae Station, about 2 min on foot; Uzumasa-Kōryūji Station, about 5 min; JR Uzumasa Station (太秦駅), about 5 min to the main gate, roughly 14 min from Kyoto Station on a local train (rapids skip Uzumasa).
When: Open until 21:00; night entry from 17:00. Opening time and closing days vary by season: check the official site. The studio-side entrance (撮影所口) stops admitting at 17:00, so use the main gate (正面口) at night.
Price: 1-day ¥2,800 adults; night ¥2,000 adults (prices fixed until the spring 2027 phase opens). Paid activities are daytime only.
Reality check: Restaurant queues can be long at peak times, and the live shows are in Japanese. The spring live drama, with its Shinsengumi swordfights, ran until 31 May; check the show schedule for what is on during your visit.