Hatsuo Yamaya
There was a time when Japan’s housing projects, or “danchi,” were the dream homes of the masses. They produced a culture of residency unique to Japan, but today, these towers and their residents have aged. It is human nature to wish to deny the present and idealize the past the more one grows older. The man dedicates what life he has left to restoring the past, and chases after his ideal family and danchi. However, like a river, time can never go backwards. Aiming to bring back the danchi of the past for the sake of his granddaughter's future, the man's passion for his contradictory ideal gradually descends into madness.
Aki is an unsuccessful 29-year-old actress who eventually became a magician's assistant. While pretending to be hypnotised on the stage, Aki finds the boundary between reality and illusion becoming increasingly vague. For Aki, the only beautiful memory she has was the time spent with her lover Kaito.
In the summer of 1963, flats of modern construction begin to be built in the slums where vagrants and women of the night gather. The city hall's plan is to house the slum dwellers in cultural housing, complete with gas and running water. Kenji, a construction worker, and Yumiko, a waitress at a late-night rest house, meet in the slum, but only at dusk. One day, a Korean worker falls from scaffolding at an apartment building site and dies. The site supervisor and city hall workers bury the corpse in the concrete foundations of the apartment building...
Told from the viewpoint of the father Morio (Yutaka Mizutani), "A Boy Called H" follows a young boy named Hajime Senoh, nicknamed "H". His father, Morio runs a tailor shop. With the onset of World War II, their family must endure difficult times. Nevertheless, H is filled with curiosity and a sense of justice. Based on the autobiographical novel "Shonen H" by Kappa Senoh (published by Kodansha, July 9, 1999).
A widower's teenage daughter is murdered. A mysterious phone call tells him who the killers are and he plots revenge.
Toru is a young part-timer who has no interest in social issues. He gets called in as a juror in the trial of a woman labeled as a "witch", charged with a murder over an enormous inheritance. Though it appears that she is definitely guilty, one by one the jurors begin casting their votes for "not guilty." From the shadows, there is a mysterious organization buying control of the jury. At the same time, strange events start happening around Toru. When another juror is threatened, Toru is determined to save her. However, Toru's girlfriend, a newspaper reporter, seems suspicious of their relationship. And so, Toru begins his lonely fight for the truth.
The Night of Taneyamagahara is an anime short film directed by Kazuo Oga and released by Studio Ghibli. A DVD version was released for Japan on July 7, 2006.
This is the story about one small coffee shop located in the northern island of Hokkaido. Yukichi Wakui used to work as a successful businessman at a prestigious trading firm. He worked for several years in New York as well as other cities around the world. When his wife Megumi died at the age of 47 in a car accident three years ago, he decided to leave the company. He was only 57. When Megumi died in the accident, her 18-year-old son Takuro was at the wheel. Yukichi declined an offer to switch to an affiliate company after his retirement, and moved to Megumi's hometown Furano, Hokkaido instead. There he started a small coffee shop named "The Forest Clock."
A couple died in Lake Tazawa in Akita Prefecture, in an apparent double suicide, the circumstances of which were unclear.
Amon is a boy who can control the wind. Branik, ruler of the Empire of the Golden Snake, wants Amon's power to complete the ultimate weapon and sends his troops to capture the boy. Amon, using his talents, manages to runs away with Maria, one of the People of the Sea. Together, they try to stop the Empire of the Golden Snake from destroying and conquering everything.
Shinji and Masaru spend most of their school days harassing fellow classmates and playing pranks. They drop out and Shinji becomes a small-time boxer, while Masaru joins up with a local Yakuza gang. However, the world is a tough place...
Shoko and Mutsuki get married to satisfy their worried parents, but she is well past the age at which a 'good' Japanese woman should marry, and he is in love with a young male college student. The film is less a realistic exploration of gay life than a fairy tale of three young Japanese trying to construct an alternative to the sexual and familial roles given to them by a society turning increasingly emotionally barren.L.
Koji Wakamatsu adapted the Kouhei Tsuka's play of the same name into a human comedy about the members of a traveling acting troupe.
In the 50s, the complicated life of a popular writer who must share his life with his family, his numerous mistresses and his work
Etsuko, a female college student, tries to beat the con artists at their own game after she gets scammed one after another.
A young man working as a cameraman in Tokyo is visited for three days by his parents from the countryside.
Set in the icy wilderness of Hokkaido during the early days of the Meiji era, where the brutal warden of Kabato Prison terrorizes convicts sentenced to forced labor to build the roads needed to open up the territory.
Japan in the 1940s. A high school boy went into a magic encounter with Ozuka Hana, a geisha (pub-girl) when he traveled through Amagi Pass. A mysterious murder took place afterwards, an Ozuka was held responsible. 40 years later, the boy, who became a printing shop owner, was visited by a retired policeman who came from Amagi Pass. The truth then started to reveal itself.
An emotionally distraught young man goes on a violent killing spree after his tuberculosis keeps him from serving in World War II and is frowned upon by his fellow villagers.
Eiji, also known as Choji, quits the shipyard to start Izakaya [Snack Bar] Choji with his wife Shigeko on the outskirts of Hakodate. Eiji once had a girlfriend by the name of Sayo, but she is supposed to be happily married to a pasture owner in the countryside. Then, suddenly one day Sayo shows up at Choji before opening. Sayo is still in love with Eiji. The story expressively portrays the lives of random Choji customers and the daily interaction between Eiji and Shigeko, while also focusing on the feelings between Eiji and his past girlfriend Sayo.
Tora-san returns to his family home to learn that his brother-in-law cannot go to Mitsuo's (Tora-san's nephew) athletic event. Tora-san volunteers to take his place, but gets into an argument with his brother-in-law's boss and returns to the road. He meets a young woman in Niigata who, unbeknownst to him, is a popular enka singer.
After a passenger ship sinks in 1954, Go Akutsu devises a life-saving project in the form of a tunnel under the Tsugaru Strait. While working on this project Akutsu becomes involved with Tae Makimura leading to his estrangement from his wife.
An award-winning Japanese film about a child's experiences during the Second World War.
After 2 years of completely isolation in mountains, Musashi comes back in order to live a normal life. However, after his duel against Kojiro Sasaki he has many enemies who want to kill him...
A surreal period film following an university professor and his eerie nomad friend as they go through loose romantic triangles and face death in peculiar ways.
Outside of a small village in Japan, a mysterious pond is inhabited by mythic creatures. Their story is of revenge, tragedy, and the power of real love. A classical tale which translates wonderfully to film.
Head of Arms Department in the Ministry of Industry and Trade Yukichi Nagayama was caught up in corruption scandal. He puts secret documents onto microfilm and attaches it to the collar of hunting dog Goro.
Director Yanagimachi's second film The 19 Year Old's Map follows the story of a 19-year-old newspaper delivery boy who begins collecting information on the households in his neighborhood and keeping a journal of why he doesn't like them. Declaring himself a 'right-winger' and calling in bomb threats against the neighbors he doesn't like, the 19-year-old begins a war of psychological terror against the families in his neighborhood.
Mika Hino is a sharp-shooting investigator that belongs to the infamous "Gator Branch.” When an executive board member of a trading company is accused of being involved in a bribery, Mika is assigned to keep watch over him. A few nights later her target is found dead outside of his 30 floor office building. With an apparent suicide note as evidence, local police conclude the case as a suicide. Mika’s assignment may have ended in failure, but her mission has just begun...
Kozo and his colleague rape their boss's daughter and have sex with an unnamed woman.
A schoolteacher gets a phone call regarding one of her female students. It seems that the young girl has been accused of prostitution, and requests help from her teacher. The young girl's situation brings to mind some dark incidents from the teacher's past that she is still trying to deal with.
The heir to a family fortune discovers that a curse has been placed on it, put there centuries before by a band of samurai warriors. Adaptation of novel by Seishi Yokomizo
Two infantry regiments of the Imperial Japanese Army—210 men overall—tackled Mt. Hakkoda in the winter of 1902 to prepare for war with Russia.
A blind traveling musician is abused and oppressed wherever she goes, even as the modern world imposes change around her.
A somewhat liberal adaptation of the life of painter Shuu Ito, the film focuses on his sexual torture of two wives and a prostitute. Ito chronicles the sessions in journals, shares his pseudo-Sadean philosophy, and drives women mad with equal hell-bent intensity.
After his leading actress becomes pregnant and quits his sex film, Juzo becomes obsessed with finding a woman whose moaning he captured secretly at a dentist’s office to star in the film instead.
Story of the last three days in the life of Sakamoto Ryoma (1836-1867), imperial loyalist who tried to unite the Choshu and Satsuma clans and prepared the way for the Meiji Restoration (1868).
There is an ongoing war between two Girl Gangs, the Akabane 100 Club and the Ikebukuro Cavalry. Yukiko, the "Bankaku," or chief bodyguard of the Akabane, is released from reform school and sets about to finish an ongoing one-on-one grudge match with the Arab Falcon and the whole Cavalry gang. With a theme song by 1970s Japanese "Group Sounds" band Carol, and live performance. Rock and Sukeban unite for an extraordinary and cool piece of filmmaking.
The world is in turmoil with the October Revolution of 1917, riots over the inflationary price of rice, and the military expedition to Siberia in 1918. But Shinsuke spends his days in the arms of geishas, paying little heed to the events happening around him.
Sachiko has just committed a crime. She is helped by a couple to whom she grants her confidence. Quickly this couple blackmails her and threatens to deliver her to the police. Sachiko has no other choice but to obey them.
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.
In the third film of the Lone Wolf and Cub series, Ogami Itto volunteers to be tortured by Yakuza to save a prostitute and is hired by their leader to kill an evil chamberlain.
Gengobe Satsuma, an exiled samurai cast out as an Asano clan retainer is given a second chance to join his brothers in arms to become the 48th Ronin against the Shogunate. His faithful servant gathers the 100 ryo required for his acceptance. Gengobe is also in love with a greedy geisha named Koman. About to be sold to another man, Gengobe learns that for him to keep her, her debt is exactly 100 ryo.
Several high-school friends spend their final summer together indulging in sex and leisure; their halcyon days are soon coming to an end.
The story takes place in feudal Japan, when any commerce with the rest of the world was strictly prohibited. An idealist suddenly appears in an isolated inn (the one that the title refers to), the head-quarters of a group of smugglers, with stolen money intended to ransom his loved one who is forced to work in a brothel.
A masterpiece of militant cinema of 1968, filmed on the actual barricades of Adachi's very own Nihon University during the period of social struggles. The film begins in a lengthy free-love session taking the form of a 'play' rape being enacted by a group of aimless, listless and political apathetic students. The subtext intended by Adachi informs the rest of the film – that there is a world of difference between direct action politics, and merely talking the talk.
During clashes between demonstrators and police that rage on the streets of Tokyo, a young man hides in the house of his brother - a police officer. The latter is accidentally shot by his wife, which forces the young man to flee with her.
Shirō raids the office of the organization that attacked his lover, wreaking havoc and escaping with a stolen handgun. In retaliation, the organization hires two killers to get rid of Shirō. The duo begin to develop a strange kinship with their target...
Dark, cynical Japanese epic brought to U.S. in a dubbed version by shlockmeister Harry Novak. Still, this gory, sexy epic is made with style and interesting for to compare to "Yojimbo" and other masterworks of the form.
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.
The insane gynecologist, Dr. Marukido Sadao (Marquis de Sade), theorizes that a woman is unable to become pregnant if she is writhing in intense pain during intercourse. He sets about testing this new method of birth control by torturing women during sex.
A detective investigating a serial rapist discovers that he and the perpetrator come from the same lineage of depraved individuals, a genealogy of violent and sexually perverse deviants that stretches through the Meiji, Taisho and Showa eras and can even be traced back to the Edo era.
A wealthy real estate investor receives a film showing the rape and murder of his girlfriend. He hires a private detective, and shows him the film-- which he criticizes for its poor cinematography--- so that the detective can find the criminals and bring them to justice.
A man leaves his family in Tokyo to travel and engage in various sexual escapades. When he returns home he finds out that his wife is starring in Imamura’s documentary about her search for her missing husband.
A man keeps his girlfriend tied up in his small apartment and tortures her. She is undressed, subjected to various types of bondage, whipped, and tortured with a razor blade.
A press photographer returns to Japan from the war in Vietnam after losing his friend and fellow photographer on the battlefield.
