Chôei Takahashi
In 1999, a general trading company in Tokyo celebrates because Shinkansen of Japan wins priority negotiating rights for the Taiwan High Speed Rail. Haruka Tada (Haru) has been working at the general trading company for 4 years and she is sent to Taiwan for work. When Haruka Tada was a university student, she visited Taiwan for the first time during the summer. During that time, she happened to meet young Taiwanese man Eric and he showed her Taiwan for a day. She lost contact with him after that and she could not find him again. She then sealed away her thoughts about him in her mind. 6 years later, Haruka Tada arrives in Taiwan again.
In a small village in the Kanto regioin, which is surrounded by mountains, residents and a management consultant (Shosuke Tanihara) struggle to rebuild the village through its only industry, farming.
Set within a hospital, located on the outskirts of town, mysterious phenomenons occur in sequence around a nurse. The nurse is suspected as the cause for some horrible cases and finds herself in danger.
In 2011, a journalist arrives in Nagaoka, a Japanese village that underwent destruction during both World War 2 and the 2004 Chuetsu Earthquake, and is now notable for the fireworks it launches annually in memory of the victims of war. She is there for two reasons: firstly, to learn about the experiences of Nagaoka's inhabitants, and secondly, to watch a stage play written by an enigmatic student of her ex-boyfriend, which depicts the bombing of the city during WWII.
A young man fights for his freedom after he is accused of groping a girl on train.
Haruo returns to his hometown for his mother’s second marriage and happens to meet his first love Miyuki in eight years. Haruo still has feelings for her, who left her hometown the day after they made love. Miyuki is back with her daughter Chiharu, after a failed marriage. They end up making love again in eight years, but Miyuki disappears again the next day. Haruo goes to meet Chiharu like Miyuki asked him to and spends the day with her. An awkward company at first, but as time passes he feels a certain responsibility for Chiharu, thinking that she might be his own daughter. Family relationship is changing in today’s Japan, as divorce and remarriage become commonplace. The film describes quietly but sharply how family relationship affects our other relationships through psychological changes in the main character.
Naoto Ogata plays Sadajiro, a young farmer fighting out the battle of the riot through to the end. Sadajiro's wife is played by Hiromi Iwasaki, his father is played by Go Kato and Ryuzo Hayashi plays a leader of the Riot. The Riot in Gujo is called one of the biggest three riots in the Edo Period as it took almost 5 years to settle and also involved the Edo government. This movie is a period film about the riot and Gujo farmers fighting for their tenacity of purpose. The farmers had suffered enough from heavy taxes and decided to rise up in riot when the domain lord, Yorikane, issued a new act, which practically forced tax increases. Asking the lord to retract the act, they pour down to the Hachiman Castle. For once they attain the repeal deed signed by the chief retainer. However the promise is broken. Now the farmers decide to make a direct plea to the Edo Residence…This film is full tension and breathless moments.
In Somai's final film, an alcoholic civil servant wakes up under a cherry tree in Tokyo next to a bar hostess with whom he's impulsively made a suicide pact. Though he's now changed his mind, he agrees to travel with her to Hokkaido, her preferred site for ending it all. An elegiac road movie of restrained emotion.
In this made-in-Japan drama/comedy/gangster movie from director Juzo Itami a star actress, Biwako (played by Nobuko Miyamoto), is the sole witness to a grizzly murder. The cops persuade Biwako to play the bait to catch the killers. Two veteran detectives are assigned to protect her at all times, and as the film progresses the guardians have no choice but to deal with the overly dramatic, hilarious, and sometimes harrowing ups-and-downs of Biwako's life. Beautifully shot and dynamically structured in a way that only the Japanese are capable of, Marutai reminds us that sometimes the most loyal friendships are formed under the darkest circumstances.
Goro's supermarket is not doing well; the rival "Bargains Galore" threatens his business. A chance encounter with Hanako, an energetic woman he knew in grade school, results in big retail and life changes.
Melodrama about the life of a mentally handicapped young man and his devoted sister after their famous novelist father and housewife mother go to Australia on a business trip.
Shuji Kanzaki, who lives in the underworld of Manila, winds up in a fierce battle with Japan's biggest gangster.
A successful Japanese movie director in his 60s becomes increasingly ill while working on his latest film. His family, friends, and doctor try to keep the secret of his terminal cancer from him, but it gradually becomes clear. Coming to terms with his own mortality is painful, and involves some major conflicts with his wife and the hospital staff.
Ryoko Itakura returns as the government tax agent willing to tackle the toughest cases. This time she takes on a fanatical but lucrative religious cult run by a vile lecher.
An alien is pursued as a traitor by his own race because he refuses to kill humans.
Ryoko Itakura is a government tax agent who has just landed a big promotion. Her first assignment is to catch wheeler-dealer Hideki Gondo. She has a tough job, since in Japan tax evasion is an art and Gondo is, in effect, Rembrandt.
In this second film compiled from two episodes of a Japanese TV serial, Captain Joe, reformed interstellar marauder Ken and the rest of the crew of the Backus-3 set off to destroy an alien race's super-weapon, face off with Ken's vengeful ex-lover Rita and confront the sinister leader of the marauding Star Wolves.
A young man returns home from the bar only to find a woman who was about to kill herself. Taking her home and protecting her, he learns that she’s escaped from a violent husband… but there’s more to her story than she’s willing to tell at first.
A photographer who takes pictures of a rendezvous between a politician, company president and yakuza boss is later found dead and the film missing.
Sen Rikyu is a ceremonial tea master who advises warlord Hideyoshi in sixteenth-century feudal Japan. His daughter, the beautiful Lady Ogin, has an unrequited love for Lord Ukon, who has angered Hideyoshi by becoming a Christian convert. Ogin's father Rikyu also displeases Hideyoshi by opposing the warlord's plan to invade China and Korea. When the animalistic Hideyoshi is rejected by Ogin, he threatens her and her father with arrest and worse.
Yukie, Koichi and Akira are rogues looking for a place to crash. They move into a house which Etsuko (Kaori Momoi) inherited from her parents. Soon after getting settled, the hippies slip into a communal lifestyle. They eat, have sex, and generally share everything together.
Richness, severity and pureness of love is beautifully and sentimentally depicted.
A top police-guard, charged with protecting a visiting politician and ruthless dictator, contends with an assassin set to kill the man.
This anthology film consists of nine incidents in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when assassins changed the course of Japanese history.
