Moeko Ezawa
45-year-old nurse and mother Yoko lives with her only daughter Tsukiko. The duo has a tight relationship that resembles more best friends rather than mother & daughter. Tsukiko's father passed away before she was born & since that time Yoko has always stated Tsukiko's father would be the first and last man she will marry. One evening, Yoko brings home 30 year old Kenji Hattori and they both sleep outside on the porch. The next morning, Tsukiko becomes confused by the situation and becomes even confused when her mother announces that she will marry the much younger Kenji. Kenji, who has dyed blond hair, used to be a chef, but doesn't currently hold a job. Tsukiko is shocked by the situation and runs over to her neighbor/landlord Saku's Tsukiko then shuts herself off from her mother and her new boyfriend. Meanwhile, people around them try to repair Yoko and Tsukiko's relationship, but there's also a secret between Yoko & Tsukiko ...
Chizuru, a typical Japanese young female office worker, is socially clumsy, poor at romance and unhappy with her job. Being weary from a busy and stressful city life, she seriously desires to end her life somewhere faraway from the city and leaves for deep in the mountains, where she finds one lonely house. Then she attempts to commit suicide by taking sleeping pills in the guest house but she fails.... This is the beginning of her new life.
When a gal named Kasumi decides to become a traditional Japanese 'Rakugo' storyteller due to her uncle's invalidity, she is soon on her way to a career with college-level and amateur success. She becomes a student to one of the master's of the genre and is even asked to perform by a TV producer. The only snag is, the particular story has a curse dripping from its words.
A young reporter is covering the mysterious case of a child found dead with missing internal organs.
Master swordsman Akiyama Kohei’s simple life in retirement is jarred into violent sword action when he meets an elderly fencing instructor who may be the target of a group of thieves planning a major armed robbery. At the same time dojo master Daijiro saves the life of man who, although skilled in archery has an aversion to killing and a woman artist comes into town where she is in danger of being raped by one of the thieves. From the pen of noted author Ikenami Shotaro, creator of such classics as Bandit Ve. Samurai, Hunter In The Dark, The Last Samurai, and Hissatsu-The Professional Killers! Brilliant storytelling that leads to superb swordsmanship!
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.
Elderly ladies rise to the challenge of staging a play and struggle to launch a theater company. Based on the actual amateur theater company "Theatrical Company Hono" in Fujieda City, Shizuoka Prefecture, where the presiding officers and performers are composed of elderly women. They have been performing stage plays about issues related to the elderly for a long time.
A portrait of an ordinary family that turns unstable when their frivolous son Shuji returns home after a long absence.
The eruption of Mt. Fuji in 1707 released hordes of demons from deep inside the earth. Sakuya, the young daughter of a samurai killed fighting these demons, accepts a mission to travel to Mt. Fuji and defeat the evil spirits. Accompanying her on her journey are two veteran warriors who served her father, and Taro, a young kappa, or river spirit, whom she has adopted as her little brother. Along the way, the two warriors have doubts about Taro's loyalties, and the young kappa himself must decide if he will stand with his own species or with the humans who have cared for him.
Minako, a Tokyo housewife, is depressed that everyone has an active life outside the home except her. Taking her inspiration from TV reports of a hitch-hiking chainsaw murderer, Minako decides to spice up her life by finding a young lover and running off with him by faking her kidnapping. While her family frets and worries, Minako has a wonderful time. Eventually, though, she decides it's time to go back to her family. Her lover, however, isn't ready for the fun to end, and Minako's fake kidnapping soon becomes all too real.
Sho Aikawa stars as a normal banker who decides to take on the loan sharks and yakuza.
Mitsu works in a factory and has a crush on Tsutomu, a young man she met on the Tokyo streets. One day the two go out, and after some deception, Tsutomu manages to have his way with her. Coming from a broken home, he is frightened by love, so he cruelly allows her to wake up alone. A month passes and a more grown-up Tsutomu returns. The lovers joyously reunite and move in together. All is blissful until both notice a strange sore on Mitsu's arm. The doctors diagnose it as leprosy. Without telling Tsutomu, Mitsu checks into a leper sanitarium. Hanging out with society's pariahs gives her much insight. She discovers the old lepers to be wonderful people. In turn, Mitsu becomes their source of joy and renewed hope. Still, she misses her Tsutomu. One day, the doctors inform her that they erred and that the sore is not leprosy. Happily she heads back to her true love until she realizes with a guilty pang that to return to him would mean unhappiness for her newfound friends
A Takashi Miike film that is, to a degree, autobiographical-- Young Thugs: Innocent Blood follows three friends through their first year after leaving high school. Having robbed their teacher on their last day, Ryoko gets a job in a hair salon, while the two boys settle down into a career of enforcement and protection.
The story of Shien brought up as a killing machine in a nunnery. Can she flee from the clutches of the underground organization?
Goro's supermarket is not doing well; the rival "Bargains Galore" threatens his business. A chance encounter with Hanako, an energetic woman he knew in grade school, results in big retail and life changes.
A slapstick comedy, about a goofy middle-aged man who is obsessed with the idea of having car sex. While pursuing his 'dream', he makes all the wrong moves possible, and ends up enrolling in a number of crazy escapades.
A Korean taxi-driver interacts both humorously and tragically with his customers and employers in '90s Tokyo.
A story of childhood life during wartime Japan. Takeshi, the intelligent son of a fisherman, is the schoolyard bully. When his cousin comes to stay with his family to avoid bombing raids, Takeshi at first treats him well, then begins bullying him too. Takeshi eventually loses his position of leadership.
On August 9, 1945, the Americans dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. This film, based on a story by Mitsukaru Inoue, describes the daily life of people in Nagasaki the day before that fateful event. It presents the human drama of people's lives, and their feelings of joy and sadness. These include a newlywed couple, an expectant mother, and lovers who must say farewell because the boy is called to serve in the army. Each of these people, like others in the city, hoped to live with their dreams for ‘tomorrow’. But tomorrow never comes for them, as their lives are brought to an abrupt and unexpected end. Knowing how the story ends, in this case, doesn't detract from it at all; rather, it enhances the emotional impact, which is further heightened by the poignant musical score from Teizo Matsumura. 'Ashita' is the first film in Kazuo Kuroki's 'War Requiem Trilogy,' which also includes 'Utsukushii Natsu Kirishima' (2002) and 'Chichi to Kuraseba' (2004).
Ryoko Itakura is a government tax agent who has just landed a big promotion. Her first assignment is to catch wheeler-dealer Hideki Gondo. She has a tough job, since in Japan tax evasion is an art and Gondo is, in effect, Rembrandt.
A new shogun is appointed to the throne when his brother dies. He find out that the former Shogun one of the women from his brothers harem became pregnant, but she escaped. The new Shogun would loose the throne if the child is a boy. Genshiro is doctor who, among other things, performs abortions, and is sheltering his love, another women who escaped from the harem. The new Shogun threatens to arrest the girl unless Genshiro hunts down the woman and aborts her child. Genshiro learns that the woman releases a "musky scent from her special area" when in ecstasy. Both Genshiro and his friend set out to find all the women of the former harem and have sex with them, by force if necessary.
While her husband is in prison doing time, Tamaki, the wife of a yakuza capo, runs her spouse’s gang with an iron hand. Meanwhile, Makoto, her younger sister, marries a member of a rival band after being raped by him. The two sisters, united by blood ties but married to enemy yakuzas, will ultimately have to decide whose side they’re on.
A woman's life is irrevocably altered when a young murderer stumbles into her home.
A young girl is striving for stardom. In order to get a lead role in a new production, she agrees to stand-in for a famous star whose rich patron died in her arms one night. The real-life drama gradually comes to mirror the story of the play being performed by her.
From director Masaru Konuma comes this tale of sorrow and nostalgia mixed with pop songs and feminine strength.
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.
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.
Detective Seiji Otaki (Ken Ogata) is determined to find the psychopathic killer of a young woman who was ostensibly a student but in reality a high-priced prostitute. Even though he has been taken off the case for beating up a suspect, he refuses to let it go and recruits his mistress to act as a decoy for the killer. Her involvement turns out to be a fatal mistake, and when her husband gets out of prison, Detective Otaki is in worse trouble than ever.
The story of Shinsuke, a young man who lives through a stormy life as a poverty-stricken coal miner. Ranging from Shinsuke's infanthood to his mid-teens. Coal workers and the mines dominate nearly every aspect of his life. Shinsuke's father a group leader at the mine, dies while bravely using dynamite to rescue a group of trapped Korean miners. Several older men attempt to help he and his mother cope, including a friendly Harley-riding yakuza boss. This movie has it all, drama, romance, sex, yakuza and violence! It is based on a story by Hiroyuki Itsuki that was originally serialized in the magazine Shukan Gendai in 1969-70.
George is a washed-up middle-aged rocker, who divorces his wife and lives with his girlfriend, a soap massage parlor worker.
The story revolves around Ogino, who is in the last year of his medical studies. Between lectures, exams, on field training, his commitment as a pro-reformist militant and his girlfriend, Ogino is starting to wonder if he's really cut out to be a doctor.
A thief, a murderer, and a charming lady-killer, Iwao Enokizu is on the run from the police.
High school student Keiko struggles with the pressures of college entrance examinations and a chaotic home life, ultimately succumbing to alcohol, marijuana, gang members and rape.
Yuichi prides himself on the fact that he is a family man but contrary to his conception of an ideal family life, at age 24, his wife has already run out on him. In utter confusion, he tries to reason out where he had gone amiss that such a thing should happen out of the clear blue sky. About this time, Yuichi helps Ayako, a young girl, embroiled in trouble. She returns Yuichi's kindness by making off with his precious camera. Then she returns and since his wife has washed her hands of him, he forces himself on Ayako who acts as if she had been waiting for him to enter her. Suddenly, Yuichi's wife returns...
A squadron of Japanese Self-Defense Force soldiers find themselves transported through time to their country's warring states era, when rival samurai clans were battling to become the supreme Shogun.
Kozo and his colleague rape their boss's daughter and have sex with an unnamed woman.
Two Kyushu based yakuza groups are desperate for domaination of the area. When more powerful yakuza groups get involved in their power struggle, a group of childhood friends, belonging to different yakuza families, are caught in the middle. Lies, deceit, and backstabbing are in play resulting in a bloodbath and a quest for revenge...
Kenzo, Azusa's husband, has a heart condition but his passion for sex has not diminished one iota from the time he was still a virile, young man. Azusa does not refuse her husband for he is a money bag and if he should die of excess sex, she will come into a vast fortune. If only Azusa could kill him without staining her own hands... Unable to do it alone, she asks the aid of Naoya who is only too glad to help.
A young Japanese man finds himself in the company of a strange, effeminate gay man and a girl with a seedy sexual history and who even now is pregnant again. They share a predisposition for drug use and spend time together in an old house. He refuses the advances of the gay man, who then commits suicide. When a gang administers a beating to him, his father re-enters the scene and takes him home, along with the girl. However, the girl has decided to have her baby, and she goes to live with its father.
Film distributed by ATG.
Three young boys drunkenly rape a woman named Emiko, the wife of a man they've developed a friendship with. She dies of heart failure during the attack. Her chicken farmer husband, incapable of dealing with her death tends to her corpse as though it were still alive completely unable to accept her demise.
Special forces officer Ajisawa leaves his paramilitary group to take care of his newly-adopted daughter, Yoriko: the sole survival of a bloodbath for which he is responsible. Years later, Ajisawa is forced to return to the scene of the tragedy for his new job as a claims adjuster where he is subsequently arrested for his suspected involvement. But the threat of jail time is the least of his worries as his former organization comes gunning for him.
The second movie of Tôru Murakawa's "Game" trilogy. After making a sensational hit, a hitman has gone into hiding for five years. When he comes back he bumps into two women that he has spared five years ago. Two rival yakuza bosses hire Narumi to kill the other. Will Narumi's sense of chivalry entrap him again?
Tadao decides to comes back from Tokyo to live in his home town, in the countryside. He stays at his parents place and finds a job, repairing transistor and television. He catches up with his friend Tetsuji, the only that haven’t left yet. But one night, Tetsuji decides to leave for Tokyo with a bar hostess.
Sometimes… Like a Prostitute is a 1978 Roman Porno film directed by Masaru Konuma and starring singer Rei Nakanishi, whose hit song inspired the story.
Utae and Aiko attend an all-girl private school where the devoutly religious principal seems to be raping some of the students, including Utae.
A young teacher (Eiko Nagashima) is raped by students. She tries to resign but then decides to return and face the class.
Two female friends and their very different lives… One witnesses the brutal rape of her sister while the other has to deal with a troubled relationship with an African-American soldier. Together, the girls will be drawn into a spiral of revenge and violence.
The story of a group of artistic people centred around a bar in Shinjuku.
In the summer of 1947, various men and women gather at a mansion in the countryside at the invitation of Kazuma Utagawa. They are artists, novelists, poets, painters, playwrights, actresses, etc. Then the murders begin, one after another. The incident seemed to have no continuity...
Cherry blossoms are in full bloom. It is time for college students to go on a drinking spree under the cherry tree - It's "Hanami" time! Two freshmen and a sophomore are ordered to stake out a spot for the entire pep squad. Plans are initiated from the night before; three of them have to pull an all-nighter. Once the night falls, the sky turns pitch black. Rival pep squad of the Roka College emerge from the darkness and an all-out turf war begins.
Ando on the run, stopping in to service all the women in his life, with a bit of the old ultra-violence.
A bad cop is engaged in a violent chase to catch a yakuza boss. In his absence his wife runs away with another man, who turns out to be the very same man that her husband is hunting. Once he discovers this, he loses his nerve and turns in his badge. But the chase turns into a personal vendetta where the ex-cop plans to wipe out the entire gang.
Nikkatsu Roman Porno. A sailor has an affair with a teenager mistakenly thinking she’s a prostitute.
Okoto is blind since childhood. Her young servant Sasuke is in love of her. One day Koto is badly scarred on her face. In order to preserve the memory of her once beautiful face, Sasuke takes away his own sight.
There is a girl who is a student at a tailoring school. She has a friend who has a boyfriend and is always having sex. She herself, however, remains a virgin. She sees her brother masturbating one day. She asks her friend to have sex with her brother. Her friend asks her to spread it for her older brother in exchange. It is a deal and the four go on a hike.
Tateo, young and neurotic, wishes to leave the village his mother has raised him in.
Hiroshi, a small-time racketeer, makes a name for himself extorting vulnerable companies and their directors for financial gain.
In 1947, in Kobe, Japan, a local street gang fights for their survival when its turf is overrun by United States occupation forces and international gangs.
Two semi-slackers with an ultra-intimate friendship work, slack and drink in a freezing Hokkaido town.
In this retelling of an infamous unsolved heist, a couple tries to outlast the statute of limitations after successfully stealing 300 million yen.
Shotaro, the son of a geisha house, is still merely a kid and is often told to spend the night in a room with geisha when the patron of a certain geisha takes over his own room. A precocious lad in the first places, he knows more about sex than many adults. He discovers he is old enough to make women pregnant and so his adventures begin, here, there and everywhere.
It's the evening before the day all brothels must be shut-down, according to the new law, in 1958. At the Kofukuya's (literally, the house that sells happiness), five prostitutes decide to celebrate the day. Erotism, drama, and comedy mix as each hour, and a different event passes, in which all the women's stories come to the surface.
Roman Porno from 1974, focusing on the daily life of lower-class individuals in the slums of Osaka.
The story of a bank clerk that embezzles money for her lover, which he loses gambling on boat races. This is a fictional drama, based on various social incidents that occurred one after another amid mixed social unrest.
It's the evening before the day all brothels must be shut-down, according to the new law, in 1958. At the Kofukuya's (literally, the house that sells happiness), five prostitutes decide to celebrate the day. Erotism, drama, and comedy mix as each hour, and a different event passes, in which all the women's stories come to the surface.
A gang of no-good youths calling themselves "Piranha" terrorize a seaside community by breaking into rich folks' mansions, stealing and raping everything in sight.
A young man named Katsu comes to a rural town by the sea, and begins to work as a movie reel carrier in a movie theater. Apparently this town is the hometown of Katsu, but no matter how many residents of the town ask, "Is it Katsu?" he just laughs. The wife of the cinema owner that has become involved with Katsu is interested in his past ...
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.
Monk Seigen saves Misako the daughter of an area Yakuza boss from some tough guys. The two become a couple and find themselves being pursued by some criminals. Seigen plunges deeper into a life of crime and sin.
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.
Ichijo Sayuri, once the legendary queen of Osaka strippers, has retired to run a sushi shop. She is awaiting her day in court after having been arrested for indecency at her farewell performance. While she was active, she was both the rival and the model for many young strippers. Harumi was one of them. Ichijo Sayuri was the real-life queen of Osaka strippers who was arrested on her final performance.
Tormented by his first sexual stirrings, the teenager Isao dreams every night of his gym teacher Ikuko. He finally opens her heart but she rejects his advances. Frustrated, Isao invents all sorts of stratagies to disgust Ikuko´s fiance, a professor of chemistry in the same school. As his plan fails, he plans a radical solution...and the results turns out to be...
The movie was inspired by real life test driver Yukio Fukuzawa, who on 12 February 1969 lost control of his Toyota 7 at Fuji Speedway near Nakahinata, Japan and fatally smashed into a signpost. In the movie Kei Kiyama’s pop singer character meets Tôru Minegishi’s doomed racer when he happens along as she’s throwing her own records into the sea. From there things get even cheerier.
