Kei Suma
"A School Behind Bars" centers around Asahi Junior High School, which is located within Nagano Matsumoto Boy's prison in Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture - the only public school in Japan that is located inside a prison. The school's students are all prisoners ranging in age from 20-70. The students are carefully selected after taking an entrance exam and being selected by the school's admission board.
In the near future of a Japan, the ancient 'Act of Vengeance' is revived and professional executioners are permitted to kill criminals by the requests from their victims. People who are to be executed are notified of the execution time and date in advance and they are allowed to have their own guard.
Kyogokudo is a used book seller who doubles as an onmyouji, or Heian style occultist. His friend Sekiguchi brings him the story of a woman who has been pregnant for twenty months. Sekiguchi investigates further with the help of his friend Enokizu, a detective with the unusual ability to see people's memories. They are hired by the impossibly pregnant woman's sister to find the woman's missing husband and lay this whole matter to rest. In the end, they need the help of Kyogokudo to exorcise the family curse.
Kaido is a professional pickpocket who works the Tokyo subway with his young foster-daughter, Rei: She lets herself be groped while Kaido relieves the groper of his wallet. More often than not they're observed by a middle-aged cop, who generally lets Kaido go free. Rei is unsettled when Kaido takes on a young street punk, Kazuki, as an apprentice -- with instructions to make Kaido stop drinking. Kazuki, however, would like to go into business with Rei.
A young man fails his company entrance exams and leaves home to work at a run-down cinema in Tokushima, whose owner lives to bring entertaining films to the residents of his small town.
A cantankerous but loveable high school teacher teaches a night school in a poor neighborhood for adult students on the fringes of Japanese society.
The final feature by Hiroshi Teshigahara. A direct sequel to his preceding film, Rikyu (1989).
Karin has lived alone in a secluded mountain village with her consumptive mother since her father died. Her worried grandfather advises her to send her mother to a sanatorium and be adopted by him, although she refuses to accept. On the Buddhist All Soul’s Day Festival in August, a messenger from her grandfather pays a sudden visit to her house.
In his travels through Japan, Tora-san meets and falls in love with a female doctor, however he is afraid of committing to a relationship.
A hard-working section chief, fast approaching retirement and beset by stress from all directions, joins a jazz band and reignites his youthful passion for the music, giving him a chance to set things right in his life.
Mugiko, an 18-year-old attempts to escape her unhappiness with village life by going to Tokyo to live and work in the geisha house run by her aunt. The daughter of a once great geisha, Mugiko is entitled by blood to train in the geishas ancient art of classical Japanese song and dance.
When his travels take him to rural Hokkaido, Tora-san helps a cantankerous old veterinarian (Mifune) in his relationships with his estranged daughter, and a woman in whom he is secretly interested.
A playboy-gambler friend of Tora-san’s dies and, abandoned by his mother, his little boy suddenly turns up in Shibamata. Searching for the boy’s mother, Tora-san meets a cosmetics saleslady and the three become a surrogate family, with Tora-san as “daddy”.
A hulking man from the country pursues his beloved to the underworld of Tokyo nightclubs, where he finds work as a sideshow wrestler and becomes involved with a faded opera singer.
During his travels, Tora-san comes across a traditional theater he used to visit, and discovers that one of his old friends has died. Tora-san and his family help the friend's daughter, who becomes romantically involved with an aspiring artist.
The environment and the movie stars at a Japanese film studio in the early '30s are recreated in this drama that looks back on a distinctive period in cinematic history. Using celebrated director Yasujiro Ozu as a model, fictional director Ogata discovers a new female star quite by accident. Koharu Tanaka works selling candy at a studio theater when she is given a part as a bit player. After the studio's top leading lady is embroiled in a scandal, Koharu is suddenly thrust into the limelight when she replaces her in a film and gains instant fame and fortune. But the going is not always easy, and she soon seeks help from unexpected quarters.
