Shinji Aoyama
One day, Ezawa Jun, who has trouble with work and in love, gets a ryukin from a goldfish scooping game at a festival. However, she is actually a beautiful girl and she suddenly turns into a human form and appears in front of Jun. Called Ryu, she is looking for the legendary black ranchu and asks Jun for his help. The two strangers begin living together and growing closer. Their fate goes in an unexpected direction.
Ezawa Jun , a salaryman who works for a shop selling Buddhist religious articles, has been dumped by his girlfriend and is having problems in his job. Nothing is going well for him. Seized by despair, Jun is about to lean out over the railings of a bridge one night when he hears the mysterious sounds of Japanese festival music. He is seemingly drawn to a stall at the festival where participants try to catch goldfishes with a paper ladle. He gets a beautiful ryukin goldfish and rears it at home. In fact, a beautiful young lady has taken the guise of a goldfish. She suddenly transforms into a human being and appears in front of Jun.
Naomi (Mikako Tabe) works for a small publishing company, located outside of a city. One day, her parents suddenly die. Due to her uncle's arrangement, she lives in a high-rise apartment building in the city. She is surrounded by people who are close to her, but she suffers from loneliness due to her parents' deaths. Naomi happens to meet popular actor Morinori (Takanori Iwata), who lives in the same apartment building. They develop a romantic relationship.--asianwiki
An omnibus recorded in a short film by five film directors with the motif of the song "Kai Band".
Set towards the end of World War II, Nomura (Masatoshi Nagase) is a writer who is in despair. A woman works in bar and is a former prostitute. Many years ago, her father sold her to a brothel due to the family's severe financial hardships. The writer and the woman then agree to live as husband and wife until the war ends. The woman doesn't feel sexual pleasures due to her past, while the man lusts for the woman's body. Meanwhile, Ohira (Jun Murakami) fought for Japan in China. He participated in unconscionable acts against civilians in the name of war. He returns to Japan with only one arm. Ohira then begins to prey on innocent women.
Shuji is an uncompromising young filmmaker at odds with Japanese society. One day he learns that his loan shark brother, who had helped to finance his films, has been executed by his own yakuza gang for failing to repay his debts. Described as a love poem to Japanese films of the past, as well as a protest at the present, CUT is an exploration of one man’s obsessive relationship with cinema.
Miura Haruma takes on the role of Koji, a college student aiming to become a professional photographer. One day, he receives an unusual request to shadow the client's girlfriend and take pictures of her; this assignment leads to subtle changes in his relationships with the women around him. Nana Eikura plays the ex-girlfriend of Koji's childhood friend, while Manami Konishi plays Koji's sister after one of his parents remarries, and Haruka Igawa plays the woman that Koji is photographing.
The film is a collection of one-minute short films created by 60 filmmakers from around the world on the theme of the death of cinema.
The anthology film R246 Story centers around the major Japanese highway Route 246. Originating in Chiyoda Ward's Miyakezaka district, the 122.7 kilometers long Route 246 passes through Japanese trendsetting areas such as Aoyama, Omotesando, Harajuku, and Shibuya, on its way to Numazu City in Shizuoka Prefecture.
Delphine is twenty years old. She is too young to have experienced the activism of the seventies, but for her it is not something that belongs to the past. She decides to find something that will allow her to act and which, she claims, is owed to her.
An overview of the life and work of legendary Japanese filmmaker Kijû Yoshida, a notable figure of the Japanese New Wave.
Kenji, abandoned by his mother, scrapes out a meager existence doing odd jobs including driving bar hostesses and their customers home. Besides this he takes care of the sister of an old friend in jail and a young illegal immigrant. But his life reaches a turning point when he happens to meet Chiyoko, his long lost mother. She is now married to Mamiya, the owner of an express package delivery service. They also have a teenage son, Yusuke. Subdued feelings of alarm, discomfort and resentment between Chiyoko, Kenji, and his half brother Yusuke hide underneath and are seemingly caused by the inseparable blood ties that seem to wield control over everyone's destiny. Is blood that powerful? What exactly defines a mother or a father? While Kenji struggles with these questions and attempts to escape his fate, Chiyoko seems content to let these issues unfold and find a solution. Where will it ultimately lead them?
Kaoru, a wealthy woman whose youth is fading, abandons the hustle and bustle of the city to live a peaceful life in a house on the coast. There she takes care of an old deaf, dumb and blind man as if he were an insect, a child or a pet. He can’t do anything for himself, so she feeds him and accompanies him on his walks. This strong mutual dependency offers Kaoru an escape from society and allows her to free herself from restrictions imposed by common sense.
A.D. 2015: A virus has been spreading in many cities worldwide. It is a suicidal disease and the virus is infected by pictures. People, once infected, come down with the disease, which leads to death. They have no way of fighting against this infection filled with fear and despair. The media calls the disease "the Lemming Syndrome".
Three couples are staying at a lakeside cottage with their children. They want them to prepare intensely for a prestigious high school's entrance exam with the help of a private tutor. One night, one of the wives confesses to her husband that she has killed his mistress...
The main character Akihiko lives in an old apartment. He plays the guitar and sings his own pieces on the street, but this cannot be called his dream. He has a girlfriend. The owner of the apartment next-door constantly repeats Buddhist prayers night and day. On the floor above, there lives a strange middle-aged man who wants to be kicked out of the apartment. Such an ordinary day exists. Akihiko is standing still on the street at dawn.
Mike Yokohama is a private investigator who comes across a job where he must retrieve a girl from a get away.
The film's main theme is the conflict between work and family commitments in modern Japan. It focuses on a successful internet entrepreneur Nagai, whose wife Akira and young daughter Kaai left him because he neglected them for his business. A young hustler Keechie, who has emotion problems concerning his own father, becomes involved in the family's drama.
Kenji Nakagami, one of the most notable Japanese writers of the post-war, died in 1992. His work reveals a strong connection to his homeland, Kishu: a mountainous region that connects to the Pacific Ocean through a river. "To The Alley" (alternative title) is a documentary about Kenji's life. Incorporating 16 mm images from the writer's personal archive and adding new footage, director Shinji Aoyama travels through the paths of the life and art of the Japanese writer.
Rika, a bright, attractive, and driven young woman, is intent on marrying her dreamy boyfriend Seiichi Ono who is not only tall and handsome but also an up-and-coming executive. One day, Ono abruptly dumps her.
In Japanese theater women's roles are traditionally played by men. The man playing the woman's role, the Onnagata, does not imitate the woman, as in the West, but tries to capture her significance. He need not stick close to his model, but draws far more from his own identity - a shift of value takes place, which is nonetheless not a step beyond. THE WRITTEN FACE is an attempt to offer an insight into the Japanese Kabuki star Tamasaburo Bando, one of the last defenders of this ancient and disappearing performing tradition.
Young female embalmer Miyako is called in to restore the body of a young man who has committed suicide, before the funeral. While performing the embalming process she finds herself pricks by a needle buried deep in the boy’s flesh where it should not be. During the night the head is removed from the body and stolen, Miyako begins a desperate search for it so she can finish her work. Miyako search finds her encountering organ harvesting, religious cults, incest, psychopathic schizophrenics as well as some very dark secrets from here own past.
In a near future where allergies have become an epidemic, music producer Haru half-heartedly dates post office clerk and mail thief Michi. He searches for violent ways to reactivate his life, she dreams of escaping abroad; both volunteer to test a new drug which may provide a cure.
An Obsession is Aoyama's remake for the 1990s of Akira Kurosawa's Stray Dog ("Nora inu," 1949). The basic plot situation is the same: a cop, after losing his gun to a killer, sets out on a search for the criminal who in the end is all too disturbingly similar to the hero. Under Kurosawa's humanistic world view, Stray Dog presented the fundamentally shared nature of Japanese suffering amidst the Occupation and postwar poverty. An Obsession, however, is different.The film begins with a fin-de-siecle, apocalyptic sense of insanity which Kurosawa's humanism could never tolerate.
A detective and his partner track down a call girl with information about a drug cartel. After taking her into custody, they are attacked by cartel members. The detective and the woman manage to escape, but they are soon hounded by a professional hitman hired to eliminate them and recover the heroin stolen by the woman.
An ex-boxer working for a game parlor owner gets caught up in a complex blackmail operation he doesn't understand. Before long he's caught between two yakuza bosses and a mysterious thief who motivation is unknown. Add in the boss' daughter who has a crush on him and watch him struggle to make sense of it all and come out alive.
This film project was made in 1996 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the cinema.
A convicted rapist, Ikuo is released from prison and goes in pursuit of the woman he raped, Mieko. So obsessed is he with revenge he sees her in every woman he meets. After carrying out vicious attacks on a prostitute and a young girl he finally comes face to face with her.
