Masayuki Shionoya
SAKURA is a moody teenage girl who lives close to the US military base in the city of Yamato, Japan. She is struggling everyday to become a rapper like the American rappers she admires, but always gets stage fright when she sings in front of an audience. One day, her mother's American soldier boyfriend's daughter REI comes from California to visit her family.
The Eternal Founntain was broadcast as the Saturday Drama Special on NHK. Laywer Akio Yamauchi takes over the court-appointed attorney for Yoji Kuramoto who confesses to murdering his wife. While following Kuramoto's action in Yamanaka and being sure of his innocence, Yamauchi remembers his wife who passed away 12 years earlier.
Akira was raised in an assassin family. Everything seemed fine until he met a girl he once saw killed 10 years ago.
Based on a short story by Seichi Matsumoto from 1956 and remake from the 1957 movie of the same name, the story is about an actor who has the opportunity to become a success but 9 years earlier, he had killed a woman with whom he was involved and there was an eyewitness to the murder.
The piano tuner Ota is still in mourning for the loss of his beloved wife. He would like to go on, but he can’t find the beach where his wife wanted her ashes to be scattered. While helping his friend Kojima with his antique shop, Ota meets the old Kuzo, a ventriloquist with a mysterious and fascinating female puppet, Aria, and his disciple, Senju. But during a show, the old man collapses. At the hospital, he asks Ota to find a piano he sold a long time ago to a pawn shop, and dies. Ota and Senju decide to look for the piano, even if Kuzo will not be able to enjoy it anymore, as a way to carry on the master’s memory. Just before the departure, a mysterious and beautiful woman enters the antique shop, claiming to be Kuzo’s daughter. She wants to join them in the quest for the piano. The three leave in search of the long forgotten piano: they will meet a number of uncommon characters, who will guide them in a journey through the master’s past, and their memories, towards the future.
Yoshinaga, the president of a shipping company who borrowed money from Ginjiro Manda, was captured by Matsubara, the president of a construction company, and Kakizaki, an executive from Ninryukai, and encountered a rigging heron. At that time, Tokita, who was in debt to Ginjiro, escapes at night. Ginjiro sets a trap on Matsubara and Kakizaki to collect all of Yoshinaga and Tokita's debts.
A seasoned detective is called in to rescue a politician held hostage by a lunatic. In a brief moment of uncertainty, he misses the chance for action. Leaving his job and family without explanation, he makes his way to a mountain forest, encountering a peculiar tree called Charisma.
A duo get mixed up with a girl who finds a trunk load full of heroin.
Psychiatrist Setsuko Suma is called in to help the police solve an ongoing case of female-centric serial murder in the local subway system. Her investigation leads to her former mentor and lover, who becomes the prime suspect in the case.
... A quiet, contemplative piece with a sense of hope in its closing remarks, you seldom see the facial expressions of the characters up close, as the camera mimics the usual distance one would most times keep from the other patients (at least for me, for reasons unknown), in curious to know more, but yet want to maintain that emotional detachment. -- Stefan S. (A Nutshell Review)
All the protagonists move about in a Tokyo Bar that has an entire wall taken up with a black-and-white reproduction of a photo of Monument Valley. The action starts as Billy the Kid, in full living color, walks out of the photo and gets a job as a waiter. Along with him on the working staff are a samurai straight out of the history books, a G.I. from World War II, and several other anachronistic characters. The plot (as such) revolves around keeping away the brutal mobsters and thugs who dominate the city streets outside of the bar, making the tavern safe for its easily recognized facsimiles of well-known characters.
A fictional account of the life of Japanese author Yukio Mishima told in four parts. The first three parts relate events in three of his novels: The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Kyoko's House, and Runaway Horses. The last part depicts the events of 25th November 1970.
