Japan's Tragedy
In 2010, 31,560 people ended their own lives and about 20,000 people died or went missing with the earthquake. Unemployed widower Fujio Murai’s family tragedy contains instances of both; diagnosed with lung cancer, Fujio refuses surgery and returns home with his son Yoshio.
Masahiro Kobayashi
Masahiro Kobayashi
Casts & Crew
Also Directed by Masahiro Kobayashi
Kuwahata Chokichi used to be a famous actor, but now he's suspected to be suffering from dementia. He is betrayed by his older daughter, Yukiko, her husband-cum-his-former-disciple, Ikuo, and Yukiko's lover, a mysterious driver, and gets sent to a high-class old folks' home. One day, Choukichi runs away from the home and wanders to the beach where he meets his younger daughter, Nobuko, who he had with his lover. Although he had thrown Nobuko out in the past, he begins to imagine seeing her as the image of Cordelia, who is the beloved daughter of King Lear, after talking to her. Gradually, his past memories start to come back to him, and Choukichi heads towards the world of insanity.
Mashike, a city on the Japanese island of Hokkaido. Nobuo Honma is a 63-year-old sake producer. He has lived with Yasuo since his wife died two years ago. Yasuo is his youngest son to whom he has entrusted his trade. Every day Nobuo goes for a walk which leads him to a fish-breeding center, located in the mountains. He fills his loneliness by attentively observing the development of thousands of little fish poured into the pool. The second anniversary of his wife's death approaches. Nobuo insists on the presence of Ryoichi, his elder son whom he hasn't seen for a long time. Nobuo and his two sons, along with their partners, gather for the commemoration. Unspoken feelings resurface and clash with each other.
Yuko is a Japanese girl who was taken hostage in Iraq while volunteering there as an aid worker. Finally released and back in her hometown, Yuko finds herself ostracized as a national disgrace by society that sees her helping a country other than Japan, and the embarrassment of getting captured but not killed, as things of which to be brutally ashamed.
Because of the desolate landscape, Kobayashi chose snow-covered Hokkaido (the most northern island of Japan) as the setting for Amazing Story, a light-erotic drama about a lonely man, Kenji, who kidnaps the woman of his dreams. The woman is Harumi, a hairdresser in the deserted town where Kenji has just arrived. It's never really busy in her business. Harumi's husband is a gambling addict and spends all Harumi's money. Maybe that's why Harumi doesn't try very hard to escape when Kenji kidnaps her. His concern about her and his boundless worship probably help, too. Something strange and beautiful blossoms between the kidnapper and his victim, but can this be the basis of a long and happy encounter?
Japanese pink film.
Stuck in a fishing village in Hokkaido, Tadao's grand-daughter Haru is desperate to visit Tokyo, a trip Tadao is reluctant to make.
Yuto Kobayashi stars as a down-on-his-luck 16-year-old named Ryo Kawai. Ryo grew up fatherless, and has been trying to make a living by working at a local convenience store ever since his mother was hospitalized with a prolonged illness. Unable to support himself on his meager earnings, he has to resort to sneaking money from the cash register and stealing rice balls to get by-a habit which eventually gets him fired. Just when it seems things can't get any worse, his mother dies and he's stuck with a hefty bill for the hospital and funeral expenses. Obviously unable to pay, but determined to send his mother off himself, Ryo steals her corpse and places it in a small rowboat. After the makeshift funeral ceremony, Ryo heads off to Tokyo on a journey to meet his absentee father.
Following the 2011 tsunami, three women reunite in the family home only to rekindle tense, ruinous relationships.
A down-and-out scriptwriter spends his days and nights in the bars of Tokyo. When he is thrown out of a joint because it is closing time, there is always a willing lady to spend the rest of the night with. In the street he has countless semi-philosophical discussions with fellow drinkers, male and female, (shot in black-and-white, as prologue to the different chapters) but in the end it often comes down to one thing: the bottle of whisky that has to be finished. An encounter with a homeless young man with AIDS marks a turning point in the life of the writer.
Two best friends—Tatsuo, a retiring Yakuza member, and Kiyoshi, a cop—travel to the funeral of a woman they both loved.