Kirin Kiki
Satoko Watabe, who calls herself Erica was organizing business support meetings, and collecting a fortune with a fictional investment story, under the order of her lover Ikuo Hirasawa. But she finds out that Hirasawa was actually dating multiple women and was betraying her. Once she cuts contact with Hirasawa, she seduces a rich old man, and obtains a luxurious house. She invites her mother who is in a care home to come live with her, and starts her own fictional “business support” sessions to defraud people. During her visit to Thailand, she meets a young man Porche. Erica falls in love, and enjoys her honeymoon. But the police were looming right around the corner...
This documentary follows the last days of actress KIKI Kirin, who passed away on September 15, 2018. The documentary is the first long-term, in-depth coverage of Ki-kin, and is a re-edited version of the NHK documentary of the same title that was broadcast on September 26, 2006, adding previously unseen footage. She was loved all over Japan for her blunt remarks, her attentive concern for those around her, and her overflowing sense of humor. Despite her busy schedule, she valued her daily life and had her own unique style, even though she talked about life as it came. This film captures the last days of her life and gives us hints for living from her "life as it comes" and her many inspiring words.
After one of their shoplifting sessions, Osamu and his son come across a little girl in the freezing cold. At first reluctant to shelter the girl, Osamu’s wife agrees to take care of her after learning of the hardships she faces. Although the family is poor, barely making enough money to survive through petty crime, they seem to live happily together until an unforeseen incident reveals hidden secrets, testing the bonds that unite them.
In 1974, Morikazu is 94-years-old and his wife Hideko is 76-years-old. They live at a house in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. The garden at their home is full of trees, plants and insects. Morikazu paints pictures of the creatures in his garden and also observes them. This has been his daily routine for more than 30 years. Morikazu and Hideko entertain visitors every day including a photographer and the couple living next door.
A university student attends a Japanese tea ceremony near her house with her cousin. There she has the Japanese tea ceremony in her life and it's there for her during moments when she is sad or happy.
90-year-old architect Shuichi Tsubata and his 87-year-old wife Hideko live in Aichi Prefecture. Their garden is bursting with 70 types of vegetables and 50 types of fruits, and they live in harmony with nature.
Ryota is an unpopular writer although he won a literary award 15 years ago. Now, Ryota works as a private detective. He is divorced from his ex-wife Kyoko and he has an 11-year-old son Shingo. His mother Yoshiko lives alone at her apartment. One day, Ryota, his ex-wife Kyoko, and son Shingo gather at Yoshiko's apartment. A typhoon passes and the family must stay there all night long.
This mystery special consists of three thrilling stories by three notable writers.
A story that revolves around three sisters who live in their grandmother's home and the arrival of their 13-year-old half sister.
Sentaro runs a small bakery that serves dorayaki pastries filled with sweet red bean paste (“an”). When an old lady, Tokue, offers to help in the kitchen he reluctantly accepts. She will soon prove to have magic in her hands…
Ryota Nonomiya is a successful businessman driven by money. He learns that his biological son was switched with another child after birth. He must make a life-changing decision and choose his true son or the boy he raised as his own.
High school student Ayumi is trained by his grandmother to act as a "tsunagu," an intermediary for people who want to reach the dead.
Part documentary, part fiction this film revolves around the life of the haiku poet Seigetsu Inoue who wandered Ina Valley for about 30 years from the end of the Edo period to the Meiji era.
Although Nobuyoshi and Saki just got married and moved into a new apartment, their relationship still lacks spark. Things start to change as they meet a weird fortune-teller who also happens to operate tours to hell. Without further ado the young couple books a honeymoon trip which takes them to the most bizarre, colorful and fun vision of hell you could ever dream of.
Best-selling novelist Kosaku Igami has made a career out of using his family as fodder for his novels, much to their dismay. When his mother, the spirited family matriarch, is diagnosed with dementia, Igami must come to terms with the toll his own behavior has taken on his increasingly distant family and resolve his own long-simmering resentments. Evocative of classic Ozu, this gorgeously wrought epic family portrait explores the tenderness and trappings of familial bonds. (Chicago International Film Festival)
Nanami Hoshino, a wealthy entrepreneur, marries Korean potter Kim Jun-ho, and they both live a seemingly happy life. Then, one year after their marriage, Nanami is killed by a biker on her way home. This tragedy leaves Jun-ho completely devastated. At the hospital, Nanami's ghost arises from her body, and upon meeting a ghost child, she realizes that she is a ghost whose presence cannot be seen. She then realizes that her death was no coincidence and Jun-ho is in imminent danger. Unable to communicate with normal humans, Nanami seeks help from the elderly psychic Unten in hopes of saving Jun-ho's life.
In Edo-era Japan, a ukiyo-e artist languishes in his master’s shadow. Creatively stifled, he finds consolation in the company of a prostitute, and becomes entangled in a love triangle. A mystery emerges involving two portraits and the sudden disappearance of the artist Sharaku. Helmed by Cannes-selected director Tatsuji Yamazaki, the film employs kabuki-inspired sequences and stylised sets.
14-year-old Arrietty and the rest of the Clock family live in peaceful anonymity as they make their own home from items "borrowed" from the house's human inhabitants. However, life changes for the Clocks when a human boy discovers Arrietty.
A documentary filmed behind the scenes during the making of Hirokasu Kore-eda's 2008 film "Still Walking."
Shimizu Yuichi (Tsumabuki Satoshi) is a shy and lonely day laborer looking for love. He aimlessly spends time corresponding with girls via telephone dating services and going on random encounters with girls looking for spending cash. His world is shattered one day when he is involved in the murder of one of his former encounters, the sweet-faced Ishibashi Yoshino (Mitsushima Hikari) who, after being jilted by playboy Masuo Keijo (Okada Masaki), berates and mocks the troubled loner.
Twelve years after their beloved eldest son, Junpei, drowned while saving a stranger's life, Kyohei and Toshiko welcome their surviving children home for a family reunion. Younger son Ryota still feels that his parents resent that he isn't the one who died; his new wife, Yukari, is awkwardly meeting the rest of the family for the first time. Daughter Chinami strains to fill the uncomfortable pauses with forced cheer.
Adapted from the bestselling Japanese autobiography of the same title, this gentle coming-of-age drama concerns an adolescent boy, Boku - Masaya, torn between the inherited recklessness of his father Oton and the inherited responsibility, wisdom and emotional strength of his mother Okan. Following a period of intensely rebellious behavior, Boku learns that his mom has contracted cancer; suddenly, his mother comes to live with him in Tokyo the entire emotional landscape of his life is altered.
The film begins in the present, with its heroine, Kaoru (Mimura), a grown-up woman working as a real-estate agent, while helping out the folksy proprietor (Minori Terada) of a neighborhood fishing pond. There she meets a shy girl who needs her help baiting a hook and reminds her of herself in the fourth grade.
"Our War" is a special drama produced by Japanese TBS TV. This is the third bomb of the war-themed TV series after the "Song of Sugarcane Field" and "Guangzhou·Showa August 6th, 20th." It is said that in 2005, young people from the end of the island, Kenji and Showa’s 19-year-old pilot, Shi Tingwu, changed their identity because of time and space, and then used their respective perspectives to look at the Pacific War and the youthful story of peaceful modern life.
Toru Kojima and his friend Koji are young student boys with one thing in common - they both love to date older women. Koji is a playboy with several women, young and older, whereas Toru is a romantic with his heart set on on certain lady.
After finally passing his teacher's exam, Miwa (Yukiyoshi Ozawa) devoted himself to teaching in a rustic primary school. He struggles to get through to his students, until he creates a class project to raise fireflies to fly over it once again. All students, even the reserved girl Hikari (Risako Sugaya), become passionately involved in the project. However, it brings them into conflict with parents and the school, one problem after another stands in his way.
Half a Confession introduces itself as a thriller and abruptly changes gears, transforming into a tale of morality with deeper insights into its characters than we had anticipated. It begins when Soichiro Kaji (Terao), a retired detective, walks into police headquarters and confesses to the murder of his wife. We learn that the victim had prematurely developed Alzheimer's after the tragic death of their son, and in her suffering, had asked to die. The police chiefs would be far more content to take him at his word if it were not for a conspicuous hole in his story: 48-hour gap between the alleged murder and his confession. Fearing a public relations nightmare, they are eager to bury the incident and keep the press in the dark.
Momoko is an ordinary girl, living an ordinary life. Ordinary, that is, if you define ordinary as wearing elaborate lolita dresses from the Rococo period in 18th Century France. However, when punk girl and self-styled 'Yanki' Ichiko comes calling, her days as 'ordinary' are most certainly numbered...
A spell of time in the life of a family living in rural Tochigi prefecture, north of Tokyo. Though her husband is busy working at an office, Yoshiko is not an ordinary housewife, instead working on an animated film project at home. Uncle Ayano has recently arrived, looking to get his head together after living in Tokyo for several years. Meanwhile, Yoshiko's daughter Sachiko is mainly concerned with why she seems to be followed around everywhere by a giant version of herself.
Izo is an assassin in the service of a Tosa lord and Imperial supporter. After killing dozens of the Shogun's men, Izo is captured and crucified. Instead of being extinguished, his rage propels him through the space-time continuum to present-day Tokyo. Here Izo transforms himself into a new, improved killing machine.
Tsukiko is in her late 30s and living alone when one night she happens to meet one of her former high school teachers, 'Sensei', in a bar. He is at least thirty years her senior, retired and, she presumes, a widower. After this initial encounter, the pair continue to meet occasionally to share food and drink sake, and as the seasons pass - from spring cherry blossom to autumnal mushrooms - Tsukiko and Sensei come to develop a hesitant intimacy which tilts awkwardly and poignantly into love.
When poverty-stricken Korean-Japanese (Zainichi) discover there is valuable iron ore in the rubble of a destroyed shantytown they plan to haul it out for profit. Amidst this plan there is discrimination, war and an infatuation between a man and a woman, but like everything around them there and owing to the forces around them, there is as much chance that these may burn to ashes and be destroyed or be the beginning of something new.
After an alien invasion threatens to annihilate the human race, a young Japanese girl, named Milly (Anne Suzuki), travels back in time from 2084 to October 2002, and enlists the reluctant aid of skilled Tokyo gunman, named Miyamoto (Takeshi Kaneshiro), to discover and prevent the start of the war. However, trouble ensues when the two protagonists are forced to deal with a Japanese mafia boss, named Mizoguchi (Goro Kishitani), who is somehow involved in the start of the war by keeping the first alien spaceship and its alien pilot captive, while our two heroes race against the clock to find a way to stop the oncoming destruction from the vengeance-seeking alien invasion fleet on its way to Earth.
As one of Suzuki's last fims, it is related to his 1967 Branded to Kill, either as a remake or sequel. The plots of both films involve a third-ranked hit man deposing the top-ranked hit man to claim the top rank.
Eriko – lonely, aimless and self-absorbed – falls for Tamura. Despite knowing that he is waiting for his girlfriend to return from overseas, she requests to enter into a relationship with him for just one year.
Director Jun Ichikawa spins this affectionate portrait of the people who populate Shimokitazawa, a bohemian corner of Tokyo filled with small theater companies and smoky coffeehouses.
The psychiatric evaluation of a young actor arrested for a brutal double murder concludes he may be unfit for trial. Further investigation, however, reveals the crime was a well-planned statement against the section of Japan's criminal code granting diminished responsibility to the mentally impaired.
After her husband's death, Mrs. Hata desperately needs help on her cucumber farm. Rinko' mother wants her to spend the summer helping Mrs. Hata, her life-long friend. But 12-year-old Rinko sees Mrs. Hata's traditional Japanese ways as being backward and "crazy." When she gives in to her mother's request, she discovers Mrs. Hata is kind and courageous, fighting to save her farm. Before summer ends, RInko comes to appreciate and defend "crazy" Mrs. Hata.
Morihara was left a widower 8 years ago when his wife passed away. He attends his first mixer party under the guidance of his daughter. There he meets Fumika and starts conversation. Morihara is too shy to show his love since he is much older than Fumika. On learning that Fumika goes to England to study about English Tea, Morihara rushes to the airport but his effort is in vain. He takes out his dead wife's photo and consults her: "I love Fumika, what should I do?"
A former assassin is drawn into a conspiracy which leads him to return to his old ways, endangering his brother who suspects that something is afoot...
Edogawa Rampo is a writer whose latest work is censored by the government, deemed too disturbing and injurious to the public to be allowed to be published. However, after burning his drafts, his publisher shows him a newspaper with an account of events just like his forbidden story. As the film progresses, fantasy and reality intermingle in a tale that draws heavily on influences from Poe and Stoker's Dracula. The film's strongly Expressionistic direction skillfully combines a variety of media (animation, computer-generated imagery, grainy black-and-white fast film stock, color negatives) for artistic effect.
Yuka came to work as an intern nurse at a hospital and she met Shunichi again. They were school friends, and she liked him. But, she found out that Shunichi had an osteosarcoma.
Famed onnagata (a man who plays women's parts in Kabuki) Tamasaburo Bando follows up on the success of his directorial debut, Gekashitsu, with this soft-focused romance about love and obligation, based on a novel by Kafu Nagai. Set during the Meiji period (1868-1912), Kaede (Sayuri Yoshinaga) is the former mistress of a wealthy merchant. When he dies, she is forced out on the street and forced to give up her young daughter to the merchant's family. The film opens with her working in a high-class brothel abutting Tokyo Bay. Though she has passionate affection for a drug wholesaler, whom she loves as well, Kaede is swamped with not only debts to the bordello and family obligations -- she is expected to support her parents and her sister -- but also guilt over losing her child. This pain is only increased when Kaede learns that her daughter is being abused. She does the only thing she can: She buys back her child by signing on at the brothel for a longer stint.
The story of an unconventional teacher facing up to his unruly and apathetic class.
Following the bloody aftermath of a heist, three robbers are double-crossed by a new accomplice, who is then tracked down amid escalating carnage and spectacular car chases.
Kitano plays Kim Hui Ro, a real life Korean imigrant, who after shooting a gangster who threathend his life, took refuge at a hotel and took the guest hostages. Realising his position, he invited the press inside and explained why he was driven to his crime, before letting himself being arrested.
Story about the adventures and the friendship of two Japanese-Malaysian boys.
A story of a man and a woman who meet amid the Great Tokyo Air Raid in 1945.
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.
The Yamaoki family moved from Kyoto to Tosa around the turn of the '50s; local school teacher Hirao becomes involved with Yasuko, sister to Sumio.
The 36th NHK Asadora is Hanekonma. Rin Tachibana, nicknamed Hanekonma (= tomboy in Fukushima dialect), grew up in Soma, Fukushima. Rin and her mother Yae worked hard to earn money in order for Rin to enter a prestigious all-women's school in Sendai, Miyagi, where she goes to study the English language and learn about the wide world. After marriage, Rin moves to Tokyo with her husband and family where she eventually joins a newspaper company, and becomes one of Japan's first female newspaper reporters.
A young woman's life is turned upside down when her husband suddenly disappears, leaving behind numerous debts and his illegitimate child. Desperate to track down her missing husband, she travels to Kyushu in hopes of finding clues to his whereabouts and in the process discovers disturbing secrets about the man she loves.
Umiemon is a naniwa-bushi singer who travels with his wife to the United States in hopes of achieving fame and fortune.
Yumechiyo, a geisha house madam recently diagnosed with a terminal illness, yearns to do something constructive with the little time she has left. Through her responsibility lies in taking care of her girls, she finds purpose in providing a man innocent of a false murder charge and in the process discovers love for the first time in his arms.
A lonely high schooler suddenly meets the love of his life out of thin air. Is she a real person or a figment of his imagination?
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.
9th-graders Kazuo (boy) and Kazumi (girl) take a tumble at a temple in a small seacoast town in Japan. Through supernatural intervention, their minds and bodies are switched, and the result is a touching and hilarious coming-of-age comedy as they attempt to survive the pressures of junior high school life.
A martial arts master/detective investigates a series of murders and helps a deaf bathhouse attendant, Hisako.
Saito Masao reminisces on the days of his youth more than 50 years ago and his forbidden love of his older cousin Tamiko. When he was 15, Tamiko moved in to take care of his sickly mother. The two quickly fell in love with each other but were inevitably forced by their family to live separate lives.
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.
“Quit working as a nurse!” “All right, I will!” thus began the married life of Yasuo and Keiko. But the reality is harsh. Keiko even had to work on the first night after her marriage. Ten years later, the married couple is still at it. Yauso tends to the house and their children, while Keiko sacrifices family life for life as an overworked nurse. One day, after Keiko comes home utterly exhausted and dejected from her work, Yasuo makes up his mind and writes a letter of resignation in her place. Upon learning of this, Keiko angrily declares that nursing is what she lives for and she will keep on working. Realising that that is one battle he will never win, Yasuo sends a letter to a newspaper -- “Nurses’ husbands, aren’t you having a hard time? Get together nurses’ husbands. Contact me.” There is a tremendous response. This leads to the formation of many unions of nurses’ husbands throughout the country.
Patterned after Japanese art and silk screens, Taro, The Dragon Boy is an animated feature about Japanese mythology and cultures, focusing on Taro, a young boy who has to make a voyage to a distant lake to save his mother, who has been turned into a dragon.
Obayashi’s take on the famous Kosuke Kindaichi series, made popular partly thanks to the numerous movie-adaptions by Kon Ichikawa, the most known being The Inugami Family. Kosuke Kindaichi is the most famous detective in Japan. Kindaichi gets a new case to figure out who has beheaded a valuable statue and made off with its head.
In pre-war Japan, two members of a large yakuza syndicate instigate a turf war that embroils the highest echelons of Tokyo's underworld.
Sayoko is desperate to bear a child of her own, but her live-in boyfriend Shinsaku strenuously objects to the idea. One day, someone leaves behind a six-year-old child at their door, claiming that Shinsaku—or four other men—is the child's father! Sayoko and Shinsaku set out on a journey to find the real father.
A blind traveling musician is abused and oppressed wherever she goes, even as the modern world imposes change around her.
A young teacher (Eiko Nagashima) is raped by students. She tries to resign but then decides to return and face the class.
Nanjo, a new teacher at a girls' high school, unwittingly becomes the object of gossip when he buys underwear for Shimizu and spends his vacation with a female teacher. It turns out that Nanjo and Shimizu have fallen in love.
Drama about young people in the Japanese rock scene starring the lead singer of Japanese rock band The Tigers (1966-1971, 1981-1983).
About small time gangster Asakichis chaotic life in the 1930s. His gambling addiction means that he must not continue working in the family business. Instead He supports himself on arranging cockfights. He becomes ex-geisha Okinus patron and lover, and goes directly into disfavor with the Yakuza.
A man who survived the war carries the will of his comrades in arms, walking across the country visiting the bereaved families.
Comedy about a young man who causes pandemonium by raiding a bar patronized by his father, winning the favors of a hostess and ends up feeling the breasts and hips of all the girls in his father's office.
At school, Fumio is good in everything. His cheerful, out-going personality makes him a great favorite with teachers and classmates alike. He is in perfect health and there does not seem to be a single shadow to cloud his life. Then, one day, he feels a sudden pain in his shoulder. His parents take him to a doctor who tells them that their son has bone cancer and must be hospitalized. The parents cannot believe their ears, for Fumio had always been the picture of abounding health. The whole family with the exception of Fumio is cast into the depths of despair. They wonder why it had to happen to their Fumio and their happy family. The father who recovers first and decides to fight cancer to save his son's life.
Traveling salesman Kuruma Torajirō falls in love with an inn manager as New Year's approaches.
A touching story following young shamisen string maker, Saku. Beautiful Saku moves to Lake Yogo, known for its production of quality shamisen strings, only to find her peaceful life turned upside down when a master musician takes personal interest in her.
