Junya Kato
Nikkatsu has rebooted the Roman Porno label and recommenced production of new works, reviving its function as a sandbox for playful experimentation with the aim of attaining new forms of cinematic expression. Hideo Nakata entered Nikkatsu as an assistant director and experienced several on-location shoots for Roman Porno soft-core series, but this film is the first Roman Porno title directed by Nakata himself. He challenges a lesbian world taking over from the old title spirits, with his respect for his master, director Masaru Konuma. Two women, Tokiko, a ceramic artist, and her apprentice, Haruka, are in a relationship. The couple is not an intrinsic lesbian, but they fell for each other by chance.
Sara, a young actress, is able to land the leading role in big theater play, but soon learns that somebody or something is trying to end the production at all cost, which puts Sara in deadly danger.
Rena Misaki works at a bank. She lacks self-confidence. Because of a reason, she begins working for a PR company and her boss is Kusakabe. As she struggles to work under her new boss, Rena Misaki grows as a person.
Nursing student Asuka (Atsuko Maeda) has just moved into an apartment complex with her parents and younger brother. On the first night in her new room, she is awoken by a strange scratching sound coming from the apartment of her neighbor, a reclusive old man who has refused all attempts at communication. Concerned over his well being, Asuka enters his home only to find him dead from malnutrition. Worse, it looks as if he had been trying to claw his way into her room. ¶ Asuka learns that there have been a number of strange deaths in the complex over the years from Shinobu (Hiroki Narimiya), the handyman cleaning up the old man’s apartment. Even the girls at school whisper rumors of it being haunted.
It is 1853. Atsuko, adopted daughter of Shimazu Nariakira of the Satsuma clan and known to history as “Atsu-hime”, is en route by palanquin from her home to the castle of the Shogun in distant Edo. She is not happy with this, however, and resolves to struggle against her fate. In the mountains of Hakone she runs from her procession. Her governess Tae and the woman ninja Mitsu give chace. Continuing on in spite of their entreaties to come back, she looks up as the weird light of a meteor envelops them. The next thing she knows, she has gone 160 years into the future…
Nobuhiro is convinced that, in order to honor his mother's death by suicide, he needs to find the reincarnation of his mother and die with her, together, under the spell of love. A young model tries to discover the truth behind one of his paintings which depicts the horrific death of a woman and her lover.
