Tomorowo Taguchi
Yoshio is a man who works for the city's water department and live with his mother. He regularly visits to the SM Queen Miho, but he still cannot forget the legendary SM Queen Yukiko.
Set in a spa town, Akira Takasu (Masatoshi Nagase) is a carver and a mailman. He keeps in touch with poet Penguin (Masataka Kubota). Penguin has a female fan with the name of Moonlit Night's Star (Sakurako Konishi). She sends letters to Penguin. One day, the female fan appears in front of Akira Takasu and Penguin. These three somehow get involved in a battle between the yakuza.
Nagisa is transgender. She grew up in Hiroshima as a man, but now lives in Shinjuku, Tokyo as a woman. Due to an incident, she begins to live with middle school student Ichika, who is a distant relative. Ichika has been neglected by her mother Saori. From living in solitude by herself, to now living with Ichika, Nagisa develops maternal instincts for the first time.
Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi facility in Japan risk their lives and stay at the nuclear power plant to prevent total destruction after the region is devastated by an earthquake an tsunami in 2011.
On the night of her police university graduation, Natsume Hamanaka’s (Riho Yoshioka) younger brother dies in accident caused by Natsume Hamanaka. In the accident, Natsume Hamanaka also loses her eyesight. She gives up on being a police officer. 3 years later, Natsume Hamanaka still has gotten over what happened that night. One day, she is involved in a minor car accident. She hear's a young girl's voice asking for help. Natsume Hamanaka senses that the girl might be a kidnap victim. She reports what happened to the police, but the police doesn't purse her report. Natsume Hamanaka does not give up and keeps looking for the girl. She finds a young boy who was skateboarding near the fender bender car accident. Natsume Hamanaka believes a serial kidnapper exists.
"A world" - After graduating from a university, close friends Takashi Tsurug and Tomohiko Miwa begin work at a company which does brain research. One day, Tomohiko introduces Mayuko Tsuno as his girlfriend. Takashi is stunned. When he was a university student, Takashi saw Mayuko Tsuno every day on the train opposite from the one he rode. He became attracted to her back then. "B world" - When Takashi Tsurug wakes up, his girlfriend Mayuko Tsuno makes breakfast as usual at his apartment. His friend Tomohiko Miwa introduced him to Mayuko and they have lived happily as a couple. Everything seems to be going smoothly, but Takashi begins to have doubts. Tomohiko, who worked with him at the same company, disappears and he can't discern if his memory is real or imaginary.
18-year-old Urano Suzu marries Hojo Shusaku and moves from Eba City to Kure City in Hiroshima Prefecture in the middle of the Pacific War. As Japan slides into a war it cannot get out of, the townspeople go on with their “ordinary” lives. Supplies are short, and family and friends get sent to the battlefield. Suzu and the Hojo family battle such anxieties as they try to live positively.
After decades of single-minded dedication to his work, a worker with an elite career course at a major bank is transferred or rather relegated to a subsidiary company, where he finds himself at a loos as he reaches retirement age.
Set in 1988 in Hiroshima, Japan, prior to the enactment of the anti-organized crime law. A rumor exists that Detective Shogo Ogami has ties with the yakuza. He is partnered with Detective Shuichi Hioka and they investigate a missing person case involving a financial company employee. Conflicts between opposing yakuza groups become more serious.
The story follows the extremely busy office worker Takuya and his childhood friend Manzu .One day, they meet a girl named Mae whose father owns an A.I. Development Company. They accidentally help her when she is chased down by some people. They escape together and a wild ride with a free girl, A.I. and some mysterious villians starts! The drama title "Hapygora!" Is an abbreviation for "Happy Go Lucky" and expresses the theme itself of this work "always positive and fun" even in the emergency of helping a lady who is chased by someone.
Following an end-of-term school ceremony, the American boy Bobby decides to go with his friend Akkun into the mountains outside their village, to a place perfect for a secret base. On the way they stop into a mysterious amusement park. They have fun there, but are attacked and cannot leave. Falling in with some other children who are also lost there, they fend off a number of attacks, and gradually learn the truth behind the facility.
Yakumo Miko's father died when she was 5 years old. The next year, Miko mother went missing. Miko then moved in with her grandmother, but, at the age of 18, Miko's grandmother passes away. She shuts herself away from others. One day, her uncle from her mother's side, Ikazuzi Goro appears. He sets up a place for Miko to live and also a place for her to do part-time work. Her part-time job is "room laundering." After starting her job, Miko sees ghosts. She struggles to solve the worries of the ghosts who are staying in rooms. Ikazuzi Goro tells Miko that her mother was able to see ghosts which affected her. Miko asks him to find her mother.
Kenichi Endo, Ren Osugi, Tomorowo Taguchi, Susumu Terajima, Yutaka Matsushige and Ken Mitsuishi all receive offers to take part in a big budget drama series with a famous lead actor and world famous director. To study their roles and relationships, the director asks the six supporting actors to live together for 3 months at a share house. The actors begin their temporary living arrangement. An incident from 10 years ago though causes the actors to hold resentment.
In Neko Atsume no Ie, Atsushi Ito stars as Masaru Sakamoto, a novelist who moves to the countryside to try to combat a bad case of writer's block. While struggling to begin his next novel, Masaru spots a stray cat, which he decides to befriend. Masaru leaves food out for the pretty kitty, and before long his new home is covered in cats.
Behind the glitzy entertainment industry lies a dark and sinister world: harsh working conditions of production sites, domineering hotshots, and the tragic fate of unpopular talents. This a suspenseful thriller about a man who works at a frontline of the entertainment industry who is entangled in a mysterious game of life and death.
Takada (Ryuhei Matsuda) receives a request to find a missing woman. The missing woman is university student Reiko (Atsuko Maeda). While tracking Reiko down, Private Detective (Yo Oizumi) and Takada (Ryuhei Matsuda) meet Mari (Keiko Kitagawa), the owner of a model agency. They get involved in a big incident.
Kako, a 16-year-old high school girl, goes to a mixer pretending to be 22. While there, she meets Kouta who at first has a very intimidating aura. But once he saves her from an awkward situation, she wants to know more about him as does he. That is until he finds out she isn't 22. The next day Kako runs into him again, but this time he's working as a police officer. Kako still wants to get closer to Kouta, but he isn't interested...or is he?
A wordless man stages an unexplained hunger strike and the people surrounding him exploit his silence to further their own cause...
Shino Umemiya readily dates guys interested in her, because she believes that's better than being alone. She breaks up with her violent boyfriend after he discovered that she cheated on him. She moves to a new area to get a fresh new start on her life. There, Shino Umemiya meets her neighbor Kyoshiro Sugahara. He is also her manager at her new job. Shino Umemiya becomes interested in him, but he lives with mysterious woman Akari.
In pre-WWII Vancouver, second-generation Japanese immigrants had it tough. Daily, they faced discrimination, hatred and injustice at the hands of their Caucasian counterparts. But one thing made their lives worth living: baseball. They may be the underdogs, but the Vancouver Asahi baseball team have a sense of fair play and smart tactics that set them apart from the brute force of their opponents. Under the guidance of new team captain Reggie Kasahara, can they be able to rise above all the negativity to win the tournament? This film is based on the true story of Vancouver Asahi, the Japanese-Canadian baseball team that was inducted into The Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2003.
After a symphonic music career in Europe cut short by hearing loss, Ao (Oizumi Yo) returns home to run his family's farm in Hokkaido alongside younger brother Roku (Sometani Shota). Roku carries on the family legacy of wheat farming, but Ao becomes obsessed with starting a winery specializing in Pinot Noir. The brothers' troubled relationship is upset further when one day mysterious yet charming Erika (Ando Yuko) pitches camp in a neighboring field. A Drop of the Grapevine is the second of director Mishima Yukiko's Hokkaido Trilogy, an intended triptych that features the natural bounty and scenic landscapes of Japan's northern island.
Sachiko (Rino Sashihara) is an university student. Her nickname is Buko, because she has been negative about everything since she was young. Sachiko believes someday she will meet a man like in a romance manga. Her university life is boring and she spends her time reading romance manga in her room. One day, on Twitter, she meets a man who uses the user ID of Sparrow. He likes reading manga and looks like Johnny Depp. Sachiko makes a date to meet the man. She tries to change herself, but it's not so easy due to various unexpected incidents.
This erotically charged drama from Japanese director Ryuichi Hiroki (Vibrator) traces the intersecting stories of a group of employees and visitors at a notorious "love hotel" in Tokyo's red-light district.
In this unauthorized adaptation of the novel "The Long Goodbye" by Raymond Chandler set in Tokyo during the 1950s, Tamotsu is suspected of murdering his actress wife Shizuka Harada. He flees to Taiwan and commits suicide. Tamotsu's friend Banji Masuzawa, a private detective, has doubts about Tamotsu's death, but the case is covered up by powerful media mogul Heizo Harada. Banji is then involved in another case involving the neighbors of the Harada family. He encounters drunk novelist Joji Kamiido, a publishing house editor and a beautiful woman Aiko who holds the key to case. As it looks like Banji has solved the case, something unexpected occurs...
A somber paranormal thriller that offers an original, exciting variation of the tale of two men with supernatural abilities, locked in a duel to the death. A battle between a man who can control people with a stare, and the only man he cannot control. When their fate cross, the survival battle begins. The two men with inevitable fate, who will survive?
Harumi Hagiwara lands in the hospital after being involved in an accident. She hits it off with her nurse, Reiko Nishimura, and the two decide to move in together after she's discharged. However, Harumi begins to witness a series of mysterious events soon after noticing Reiko's strange behavior. Additionally, she fears for her own safety when Reiko starts referring to herself as 'Mari' as if she's become an entirely different person. Before long, the situation develops into a case of murder.
Young man, Yusuke Mamiana, fed up with his life meats a unattractive ugly girl, Kyoko, at his hometown. Out of his impulsive desire, he had a relationship by nearly raping her. They started to live together and gradually feel 'Family' attachment in each other. As time passes, Yusuke starts to think more about 'Happiness' of his family and himself.
"Daijobu 3 Kumi" depicts the interactions between new teacher Shinnosuke Akao, who was born without arms and legs, and the 28 students in his 5th grade class, told from the vantage point of school board member Yusaku Shiraishi
Detective Kenichi Itami from the The National Police Agency and Akira Iwatsuki from the cyber investigation team investigate a complex murder case. The victim was under investigation by the cyber investigation team. As Detective Kenichi Itami and Akira Iwatsuki delve deeper into the case, pressure from around makes their investigation even more difficult. Secretly, a national financial doomsday scenario is carried out under the plan of "X Day".
Katsuya Maruyama (Hiraoka Takuma) is a middle school student boy full of obscene thoughts. He then meets Tatsuo Shimoi (Tsuyoshi Kusanagi), a single father who moves into the same apartment complex. Tatsuo Shimoi is a bit of an enigma, not getting along with the housewives in the apartment complex and doesn't appear to work.Through meeting the mysterious single father, Katsuya grows as a person.
A friend of the detective has been is murdered. During the investigation, he comes across a source which tells him that his friend was murdered for involvement with the dark side of the political world. On top of that, a woman approaches the detective with a request.
Five years after a hit-and-run accident kills his wife, a distraught metalworker comes face to face with the man behind the steering wheel.
Professional killer Ken (Hirofumi Arai) is trying to break away from the yakuza. Taking up work at a local motorcycle shop, he forges a new life under the motherly eye of Yoko (Jun Fubuki), an older woman who owns the shop. However, Ken's dark past isn't letting him go that easily. Akira (Jun Murakami), Ken's ruthless mentor and himself an assassin, has been coming around and pressuring Ken to return to the family. Together with orphaned teenager Tsuyoshi (Niinobu Ryomei), Ken decides to take to the road and settle matters in the only way he knows - by the trigger of his gun. Featuring music by Snake on the Beach, a solo project of legendary singer and guitarist Yusuke Chiba, A Road Stained Crimson takes viewers down the high-octane expressway of bikes, guns and rock 'n' roll.
An ensemble drama in which the lives of 25 people intersect, inspired by Yamanaka Sadao's classic film {Humanity and Paper Balloons}. Various men and women, living in Japan today. Presents slices of everyday life for people in various situations, where things that are always the undergo change.
In this offbeat coming-of-age tale, a charming, rebellious high school dropout named Kanta befriends the kind, provincial Shoji. The two bring out the best in each other, each gaining confidence from their friendship - especially regarding pursuit of the opposite sex. The working class Kanta becomes a sort of unruly anti-hero, maintaining his pride, defiance, and self-assurance even as his prospects seem increasingly grim. (Chicago International Film Festival)
Hikari's boyfriend is one of those killed in the Akihabara massacre incident. Suffering from the shock of her loss and unable to accept this reality, she cuts herself off from the outside world. She eventually manages to muster enough courage to visit Akihabara, the scene of the incident. There, she encounters many people who are still coming to terms with the aftermath of the incident and are still suffering from the aftereffects.
A Man With Style is a bittersweet family drama which has at its centre two fifty-something school friends – widower Junichi Miyata (Ken Mitsuishi), a blue-collar worker and Sanada (Tomorowo Taguchi). Both are rather ordinary middle-aged men, far removed from any association with ‘style.’ Junichi Miyata is the more cantankerous and frustrated of the two in Ishii’s oeuvre. His wife died of cancer ten years ago, leaving him with an overriding memory of a silly but hilariously acted children’s song of bunnies she used to sing and two children who now, aged 18 and 19, hardly engage with him and are keen to move to university in Tokyo. He is short-tempered with them and nags them endlessly to no avail.
Kazu (Kengo Kora) lives in the Kabukicho entertainment district in Shinjuku, Tokyo. After falling into debt from gambling, he gets an offer from yakuza Ito (Jun Murakami) to trash the night club "New World" and his debt would be paid off. At the nightclub "New World," gambling goes on without permission from the gang which Ito belongs to. When Kazu attacks the bar with yakuza members, dancer Machiko Yagi (Anne Suzuki), who Kazu likes, is at the bar. Under this chaotic situation, Kazu takes Machiko from the waiting room and asks her to run away with him.
Perfect Answer begins several months after the events of the first film. Kurono is still fighting aliens under the order of Gantz, a mysterious giant black orb, and he is close to reaching the score he needs to resurrect his friend Kato. Outside his night time missions, Kurono continues to live his normal life, spending time with his new girlfriend Tae. Meanwhile, young pop star Eriko is being secretly ordered by Gantz to carry out assassinations, and cop Shigeta inches closer towards finding out the truth about the Gantz missions. As the missions begin to get increasingly dangerous for both the alien fighters and the general public, Kurono discovers that the endgame for Gantz is quickly approaching.
Before finding out the Perfect Answer, discover Another Gantz. Aired on Nippon Television network before the theatrical release of Gantz: The Perfect Answer, this film is an alternate perspective version of the first Gantz film from the same writing-directing team of the two-part theatrical film. In addition to condensed scenes from the Gantz film, Another Gantz features a new subplot that follows an investigative journalist not included in the theatrical film. Delving deep into the mystery, Another Gantz offers another piece towards solving the complex puzzle that is the world of Gantz.
A young woman named Izumi (Keiko Kitagawa) suffers the loss of her boyfriend Junichi (Masaki Okada), who died from a fatal motorcycle accident. The shock from her boyfriend's sudden death causes Izumi to lose her memory from the time of the accident. A lawyer named Makiko (Nene Otsuka) then helps Izumi to remember the final moments of her boyfriend's life.
On April 5, 2007, a couple married in a church. At first glance, it was a typical wedding. The bride, however, was suffering from late-stage breast cancer and had been given only a month to live. A young woman is diagnosed with breast cancer but keeps the information from her boyfriend. When he finds out, he decides to plan a wedding even though she only has one month to live. Based on the true story of Chie Nagashima, a women afflicted with breast cancer and her husband Taro Akasu.
A fishing boat is attacked at sea by a gigantic, hairy monster. After examining the sole survivor (Kanji Tsuda), scientific adviser Dr Murakami (Shiro Sano) suspects the culprit is a “Keukegen spectre”, a shaggy supernatural beast from Japanese folklore. The announcement leads reporter Hideo Akihara (Ken Osawa) to a forest shrine dedicated to the Keukegen Geharha, where he finds several worshipers and learns that an ancient seal containing the monster has been broken.
Based on the semibiographical novel by Jun Miura, Oh My Buddha is the classic summer coming-of-age story that is burned to a crisp with teenage angst, youthful dreams and that warm sense of folk zeitgeist of the 70s. The narrator is a first-year student at an all-boys Buddhist school. Jaded by his dull, ordinary life, he longs for the type of creative, liberal and forward life his idol Bob Dylan leads, writing rock songs alone in his room, imitating his hero's signature croon, until one day he got invited on an island trip of sexual liberation with his fellow liberal friend.
Betrayed and disgraced, big-city reporter Kazuya Mizuno is banished to a desk at Kaname's boring little town newspaper. But Kaname isn't as boring as it seems on the surface. Not with characters around like Shimeko, a girl genius with a childlike lack of propriety, and her ace fisherman/folk-singer dad. Or the overbearing and unpleasant local Shinto priest, a former Christian cultist. Or Endo, Kazuya's new colleague, a bitter drunk after his son's suicide. Or Kin, a former terrorist, now a hermit on his boat engaging in secret "research." Or perhaps most importantly Teruko, the hypnotically beautiful bar owner, the focus of all manner of innuendo and intrigue. Something mysterious, even mystical, is going on Kaname, and hapless Kazuya is about to be thrown into the middle of it.
A record company office worker named Kanna discovers a punk rock band called Shonen Meriken Sakku (Brass Knuckle Boys) through the internet and subsequently decides to represent them on behalf of her company. What Kanna did not know was that the Brass Knuckle Boys consists of all middle aged men.
During a suicide attack on an airport, the hand grenade of 'M', one of three terrorists, malfunctions, leaving him captured. Exposed to maltreatment in prison, he slowly loses his grip on reality as he is forced to confront his ideological convictions.
Korean-Japanese director Gu Su Yeon makes his directorial debut with the mouthwateringly delicious The Yakiniku Movie: Bulgogi. As the title clearly states, pride of place goes to juicy, bite-sized meat, and viewers will get a delightful eyeful of food, food, and more food in this fabulously fulfilling gourmet comedy. Reveling in Japan's love for food-themed shows, the film revolves around a culinary battle of David and Goliath proportions, cheekily parodying Japanese cooking shows with Iron Chef-like editing, excited running commentary, and comedic how-to segments. The Yakiniku Movie also shines a light on the food culture of Japan's resident Korean population, proving that tasty food transcends all boundaries.
After his parent's divorce, Kazuo Saito moves with his mother from Onomichi and must leave his girlfriend behind. At his new school, Kazuo is surprised to reunite with his childhood friend Kazumi. "Remember I kissed you, saying I'll marry you when we're grown ups?" He feels embarrassed around Kazumi, who talks about their early childhood stories without any reserve. Kazuo is annoyed with Hiroshi's attitude, but with Kazumi, they naturally start to get comfortable with each other again just like old times. Kazumi's family runs a long-standing soba noodle restaurant. One day, Kazumi invites Kazuo to her house. After talking about old times, they walk to a place from their childhood called the "Lonely Watering Place". "Kazuo, the water here is very good. That's why our soba noodles also taste so good." Kazuni tries to scoop up some water with a dipper and the two accidentally fall into the water. They quickly crawl out, but suddenly realize that they have switched bodies!
Former Yakuza underling Kiryu Kazuma, who has recently been released from prison after a lengthy incarceration, and is trying to piece his life together and distance himself from his Yakuza past. Unfortunately Kiryu's problems slowly escalate as he is pursued by a former associate, the baseball bat-wielding psycho Majima Goro who has a grudge to settle with Kiryu.
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.
Oomae Haruko is an A+ Temp worker who never cracks a smile or minces words, and leaves work on the dot. But her cynical nature indicates she has something painful to hide. Satonaka Kensuke has just been promoted to head S&F's new Marketing Division. Saddled with a rag-tag group of subordinates, he is struggling to lift his division off the ground. When Oomae is placed in Kensuke's department, she finds herself doing more work than she's ever done before. This is a timely drama that examines the different attitudes toward temp workers and regular employees, and the ways to overcome frictions in interpersonal relationships. This follows an October report on labor conditions by the Labor Ministry, which showed that, after regulations were relaxed, the proportion of regular employees to Temps had doubled compared to that of eight years ago.
A horror film directed by Hiroshi Takahashi. After winning an overwhelming number of seats in the National Diet, the Prime Minister of Japan, Shintarō Makabe, is about to undertake a constitutional revision to remove Japan's Article 9 (forbidding the building of a military). However, this leads to conflict with his wife. Meanwhile, the President of the United States has been cursed. (Description translated from Amazon.co.jp)
Based on the short story from the best-selling collection "Poppoya" by Jiro Asada, "The Invitation from Cinema Orion" tells the story of a couple's undying love for the cinema and each other.
Munakata has an unrelenting guilt from killing his mother when he was 15 years old. After being imprisoned for 10 years, he is released and heads to Yako, a small industrial town, to work as a machinist. Living in a tiny apartment, he is tasked with secretly creating a gun out of an old TV remote control and unknowingly destroys the fragile balance of the town.
Toru Aizawa, a 11 year old boy suddenly finds a tiny egg on a red mysterious stone. the egg hatches and comes out an abnormal little turtle (Toto) which not only grows rapidly, but also flies in the air and even blows fireballs. At the meantime, a series of mysterious ship wrecks are reported. Later on, even more disasters happen when a huge evil ferocious monster Lizard (Zeus) suddenly comes out from the sea and attacks, wrecks and demolishes the world. the last hope of mankind relies on the friendly great monster, Gamera, which looks similar to Toto, but disappeared 33 years ago. Is Toto the descendant of Gamera? is Toto able to fight against the huge evil?
A murder investigation reveals a deep-rooted sibling rivalry in director Miwa Nishikawa's brooding family drama. On the one-year anniversary of his mother's death, Tokyo art and fashion photographer Takeru (Joe Odagiri) returns to his small hometown in order to pay his respects. But all is not well back home, and when Takeru's authoritative father questions his sincerity, the frustrated son strikes back with accusations of violent conduct. Though the situation is initially diffused by Takeru's older brother Moniru (Teruyuki Kagawa), who stayed behind to run the family business, tensions once again start to run high when Tekeru, Moniru, and pretty childhood friend Cheiko (Yoko Maki) decide to celebrate their reunion by taking a hike in the wilderness.
What's scary is being a human being, and what's scary is being myself. Truly horrifying things reside inside oneself. The work asks if you can stand the inescapable terror.
Hong Kong director Patrick Leung, Japanese director Takahiko Akiyama, and Thai director Thanit Jitnikul pool their resources to terrify audiences with a three-part horror omnibus that proves terror takes many unique forms.
The erotic novelist Taeko is writing a morbid story of a family destroyed by incest, murder and abuse. Her assistant, Yuji, sets on a mission to uncover the reality of this story, but the reality might be too much to bear.
Five people visit an abandoned building where five girls disappeared ten years ago when they tried to summon ghosts. These five people who visit the building has met on a website for people with supernatural powers. With their abilities realize these people that they should leave the building as quickly as possible, the problem is that all doors are suddenly gone.
A Christmas Eve power outage provides a collection of troubled Tokyo denizens the opportunity to come clean on the misdeeds of their past.
Based on an award winning novel, It's Only Talk is about the life of Yuko, a 35 year old woman. She is single and unemployed, and suffers from manic depression. The movie begins with Yuko moving to Kamata Town.
When a new, smart and sweet Tokyo girl, Rumiko, starts at a rural elementary school, Akira finds himself smitten, like every other male pupil. Newcomer's popularity is contrasted with the less-tolerant treatment of scruffy Hideko, who, thanks to the arrival of a carnival freak-show in town, is nicknamed the Wolf Girl. Teachers and parents snootily consider the carny off-limits, but Akira is determined to find out whether Hideko really is a wolf girl.
Based on the first novel, Spring Snow, of Mishima Yukio's Sea of Fertility tetralogy, it follows the troubled and illicit affair between two youngsters amongst the aristocracy and rich of early twentieth century Japan.
When three older men buy a 17-year-old schoolgirl named Chikako (Ando Nozomi) for a year's-worth of sexual services -- her motivation, aside from money, is never explained -- the relationships among the men (whom she calls A. B and C) keep shifting in ways that redefine power and sex. These are not easy to read, except as male fantasy. (Real nudity is avoided.) What is clear is that the men are increasingly infantalized as Chikako grows up. They call her Hanako, in tribute to one's absent daughter. The pic's visual effects are somewhat Godardian, with found music, disjointed cutting and a strange finish involving a stuffed teddy bear, along with some Bunuel-like sexual motifs that add to the confusion and also dilute the prurience. In the end, though, the characters don't move forward enough to be more than ciphers.
Despite the fact that Kyoko's a girl herself, approaching women on the streets and asking them to pose nude for her proves to be quite a chore. At first she accosts every pretty girl that walks by, until Miho (Kawai) catches her eye. Feeling that she has that certain something special, Kyoko insists that Miho pose for her. Her own life floating rudderless after the separation of her parents, Miho accepts, half entertaining the idea to get back at her father (Taguchi), who has gone on to form a new family and who hasn't been in touch with her in years. The two girls walk around town, Kyoko snapping pictures and listening to Miho's stories. Gradually the two young women begin to sense a mutual attraction. When the time comes to get down to the nitty gritty of the nude shots, the girls' defences come down along with their clothes.
Tadao Kuramochi, an ordinary salaryman, decides one day to reach for his dreams and start his own wrestling federation. Tadao must succeed to save his family on the verge of collapsing.
Aoi Kuruma (A Blue Automobile) focuses on such a character - a part-time DJ and record-store employee named Richio (Arata). With his spiky yellow hair, wrap-around shades and pale mask of a face, Richio would seem to be an icy moon circling the distant planet of his own regard. But as Okuhara shows us from the first scene, Richio has been traumatized by a boyhood horror - and still bears the physical scars on one eye, the emotional scars in dreams and visions he can neither escape nor explain away. The sunglasses and mask are there for a reason, the pain and rage are real. At the same time, he has a straightforwardness that verges on the cruel - but this is also one of his most appealing qualities.
Rei is a freelance writer embattled by personal demons. She hears voices in her head, and has sleeping problems, eating disorders and drinks excessively. On Valentine's Day, she meets truck driver Takatoshi. She joins him on a journey in his bumpy and shaky truck - which vibrates in tune with her uneasy soul.
Set in an anonymous Japanese metropolis, the film tells the tale of shy career woman, Rinko, and Shigehiko, her hygiene-obsessed, workaholic husband. The couple explore their sexuality in a number of ways, causing their lives to be disrupted.
Shindo has given us a strange meditation on male lusts and women's struggle for independence. It is like a play in that the action takes place almost exclusively in a small cabin in a deserted region of Western Japan. A mother and daughter are stranded in a ghost town and are starving to death. They hit on a plan to get them out of their plight which involves exploiting the few men who stray into their cabin. They offer sexual services and then bump off the happy customers. All goes well until a local cop shows up and, then, a relation of theirs from way back.
If you loved movies such as Shonen Merikensack and GS Wonderland, then this one, which predates the former, will impress you as well. The story is set in the 80s rock scene and revolves around Nakajima (Kazunobu Mineta), the lead singer of a band called 'Speed Way'. Because he refuses to write trite, pop-friendly songs he is constantly at odds with his own record company. However, he refuses to bend on his rock principles simply for better record sales. The most interesting parts of this movie is how they pay homage to music icon, Bob Dylan who gave the filmmaker his blessing, which is no small feat itself, especially for a Japanese indie debut.
11 directors show their view on the terrorist attacks on the world trade center in New York.
When he finds himself in an Hokkaido prison for a minor firearms possession offence, it doesn't take long for Hanawa (Tsutomu Yamazaki) to surrender utterly to the routine, arbitrary rules and grinding sameness of life in the prison system. Indeed, he comes to find his stint in solitary confinement, cut off from fellow-inmates and with a mechanical task of creating hundreds of folded paper bags each day, a curiously satisfying experience.
Kazuhiko Nakamura directs this sexually charged wacky comedy set in the world of the Japanese adult video industry. The story follows a young woman's (Amiko Kanetani) foolish attempts to win back a lost love (Shunsuke Matsuoka) by taking the one recourse she believes might actually do the trick: becoming a porn star.
When a promising young boxer is crippled in a car accident, he falls into a life of dissipation and depression. No boxing ring or martial arts club will take him on -- that is, until an aiki jujitsu master helps the young man develop techniques uniquely tailored to a wheelchair. What starts off as a sad film revs up into an exciting and fun series of epiphanies in which the young man realizes his situation isn't as hopeless as it seems.
Miyuki doesn't need to stalk the man she's crazy about, because he lives one floor down. He's Yoshinori, a not very successful long-haired musician. Miyuki, a coffee-shop waitress, nods when they pass on the stairs, but hasn't yet dared to strike up a conversation. Instead she slips out every night and helps herself to his trash.
Two contract killers cross paths in the middle of the same job and realize they are childhood friends. Together they take a break from killing and visit the small island they once called home. After reflecting on their past lives they decided to team up and use their talents in killing for good... much to the upset of the crime syndicates.
The head of a psychological research institute and a lieutenant in the Japanese Air Force are both investigating a mysterious cult known only as ‘Midori no Saru’ (The Green Monkey). Members of this group have committed a string of violent suicide-attacks on military bases and public areas. Part of the mystery seems to involve a young child and an enormous Buddha statue outside Tokyo, but how could all these pieces possibly fit together?
After his girlfriend commits suicide, a man (Shinya Tsukamoto) becomes embroiled in gang warfare attempting to obtain a gun in hopes to kill himself.
Following some trauma in her past that has since been repressed, a young woman is trying to recover her memories with the help of a psychiatrist. During her hypnosis sessions, she repeats the name "Tomie" but is unable to recall where she knows it from. Meanwhile, a police detective is investigating a string of brutal murders, where he also runs across the name "Tomie." How are the two connected?
Ryūichi and his small gang of Triad vie for control of the Japanese underworld in a crime-ridden Shinjuku quarter while Detective Jojima tries to bring it down.
Kintaro is a reformed delinquent, the former leader of a biker gang who has gone straight. Working at a construction company, his unorthodox tactics cause trouble with his colleagues. He is transferred to a tiny countryside branch, where he butts heads with his lazy superior until the two men discover a plot by the competition to put the construction company out of bussiness. With the help of his old biker friends, Kintaro prepares to confront the masterminds behind the scheme.
The story follows a trio of Japanese youths of Chinese descent who escape their semi-rural upbringing and relocate to Shinjuku, Tokyo, where they befriend a troubled Shanghai prostitute and fall foul of a local crime syndicate. Like many of Miike's works, the film examines the underbelly of respectable Japanese society and the problems of assimilation faced by non-ethnically Japanese people in Japan.
Set during Japan's Shogun era, this film looks at life in a samurai compound where young warriors are trained in swordfighting. A number of interpersonal conflicts are brewing in the training room, all centering around a handsome young samurai named Sozaburo Kano. The school's stern master can choose to intervene, or to let Kano decide his own path.
After his daughter Mai is killed in an auto accident, a genius programmer recreates her in the form of a computer program called AI. His jealous brother-in-law, wanting to get his hands on the technology for profit, sends his client to steal it and Mai’s father is killed in the process. Learning of her capture, Mai’s old friends race to free AI from her captors so that she won’t fall into the corporate clutches that threaten to erase her “soul.”
An American art dealer (Miguel Sandoval), who specializes in southwestern topaz, arrives by train in Liverpool. Similarly, a very proper British art dealer (Alex Cox), who specializes in African art, arrives in the same hotel. The two meet in the hotel's abandoned restaurant and decide to set off in finding an evening meal, which becomes problematic immediately when the Brit reveals he is vegetarian. While following their pursuit of a mutually acceptable meal, the main point of the film is their discourse en route to their various attempts at an eatery.
A film based on two short stories by Shiina Makoto. Tadon is the story of a cab-driver who spends his days listening to his passengers' conversations. Chikuwa is about a writer who faces a creativity bottleneck.
A dark and strange comedy about a bank robber with bad luck. Bungling a bank robbery turns out to be a profitable mistake for Yamazaki (Shin'ichi Tsutsumi), an amateur crook who ends up with 80 million yen after a string of improbable accidents. But having so much cash doesn't make his life is any easier. In fact, it gets much more complicated when Yamazaki stabs a hairdresser by mistake and instantly becomes a hunted fugitive. He's just one unlucky monkey -- but can he turn his luck around?
Kenichi is a half-Japanese, half-Chinese man of the underworld. You can sell him anything except children's organs. His domain is in Kabukicho, a gangland controlled by various Shanghai gangs intent on taking control. His former partner-in-crime, Fu-Chun, is rumored to have returned to Kabukicho, having fled years earlier after killing the number two of gangland boss, Yuan. Yuan wants to get even and attempts to do so by using Kenichi.
Part 2 of the alternative story for Kunoichi: Lady Ninja
A large, dinosaur-like monster has risen from Tokyo Bay and attacked the city. As the government collapses into chaos, the people of a rural town in Fukui Prefecture, from whose perspective we see the entire movie, watch as the events unfold on TV. Some decide to run for their lives, some take it as a sign of the apocalypse, some go completely crazy, but most of the townspeople wait and watch, and wonder where the monster will head next.
This is a biographical film about the late Yoko Araki, who was the wife of Japan's leading photographer, Nobuyoshi Araki.
White-collar worker Yamashita finds out that his wife has a lover visiting her when he's away, suddenly returns home and kills her. After eight years in prison, he returns to live in a small village, opens a barber shop (he was trained as a barber in prison) and talks almost to no-one except for the eel he "befriended" in prison. One day he finds the unconscious body of Keiko, who attempted suicide and reminds him of his wife. She starts to work at his shop, but he doesn't let her become close to him.
Miharu Tamaki is about to move to Nagasaki due to his parents' divorce. As his final summer vacation in Tokyo draws to a close, he is drawn to an inscription on a high voltage tower reading "Musashino Line Tower 75". With his friend, he resolves to find Tower 1.
Sawaki is a postman who's not quite thrilled about his boring way of life. But his life is about to change when he delivers mail to his old schoolmate Noguchi, who's now a member of the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia, and just finished cutting his little finger off...
After being brutally murdered in a gangster-style execution, Kensuke Hagane (Tsuyoshi Ujiki) finds himself brought back to life by a mad scientist and rebuilt as a robot-human hybrid with a serious thirst for vengeance and the tools to carry it out. Takashi Miike directs this action-packed sci-fi thriller that takes its cues from the more mainstream Robocop but amps up the violence for maximum effect.
A bellboy stalks a woman who frequents the hotel where he works.
Legendary samurai Jubei Yagyu must face off against a necromancer and his army of the undead in order to rescue Ohiro the young ninja girl from the clutches of Inshun Hozoin, the evil man slated to become lord of darkness on the eve of Armageddon. No living man is a match for Jubei's sword, but what skill can this mythic swordsman employ to defeat an army of the undead?
An evil sorcerer summons seven legendary Samurai warriors to aid him in his conquest of the world. One valiant warrior stands against them.
Midori is a coming-of-age drama set amongst the heady high school world of peer rivalry and sexual awakening, featuring an emotionally-detached high-school girl who, her parents dead, lives with her brother and his overprotective wife. After being sent out of class due to a dizzy spell, she becomes acquainted with Shun, a boy in the class below, in the school sanatorium. As the two begin feigning illness together on a regular basis, their uncomfortable flirtations soon blossom into a full sexual relationship.
Popular pop group MAX (Mina, Lina, Nana, Reina) star in a wild teen drama based on the manga "Ladies" written by Masahide Motohashi.
A strange meteor lands in Japan unleashing hundreds of insect-like "legion" creatures which find their way into Tokyo. When the military fails to control the situation, Gamera shows up to deal with the ever-evolving space adversary.
Swallowtail Butterfly takes place in an alternate Japan, in a ghetto where immigrants from all over the world have come to live and make their fortune. The city is called Yentown, and it is much like Tokyo. Sixteen-year-old Ageha (Ito), a young girl whose mother has just died, is passed on from person to person until a prostitute named Glico (Chara) finally takes pity on her. Under Glico's care, Ageha has many experiences with the other poverty-stricken immigrants in Yentown. Eventually, due to a sudden twist in fate, the immigrants are given a chance to realize their dreams. But in doing so, they destroy their solidarity, and have to face their problems separately.
An unemployed man trying to steal from a convenience store, and the store clerk catches him in the act... the thief runs away with the store-clerk right after him. All the while, the store clerk is in trouble with a low-rank yakuza. Along the chase for the thief, they catch the eye of the Yakuza who's been looking for the convenience store clerk
One summer day a group of sixth-grade boys have an argument about whether fireworks are round or flat when viewed from different angles and embark on a journey for the answer during the annual firework festival. Meanwhile, one of their classmates, Nazuna, is troubled by her parents' separation and decides to choose one of the boys to run away with.
In different parts of Tokyo, four young and seemingly healthy people suddenly die of heart failure at exactly the same moment. Reporter Kazuyuki Asakawa decides to investigate the deaths, and discovers that the four had stayed at a rural inn together just a week earlier. At the inn, he comes across a strange video that ends with a message saying that anyone who watches it will die exactly seven days later. Now the clock is ticking for Asakawa. Can he break the curse in time? Written by Jean-Marc Rocher
When exchanging letters two women discover new things about a deceased man they used to know.
A businessman, Tsuda, runs into a childhood friend, Tajuki, on the subway. Tajuki is working as a semiprofessional boxer. Tsuda soon begins to suspect that Tajuki might be having an affair with his fiancée Hizuru. After an altercation, Tsuda begins training rigorously himself, leading to an extremely bloody, violent confrontation.
A young foot soldier in the yakuza seeks revenge when his prostitute girlfriend dies after a session with a high-ranking Japanese politician with a taste for torture. He sets out on a 'kamikaze' mission to kill his bosses and the politician; along the way, he acquires the aid of a taxi driver who has recently returned to Japan after living in South America for several decades and is struggling to cope with poverty and the prejudices of native-born Japanese.
Tatsuhito, a cop, pursues Chinese warlord Wang through the underworld of Shinjuku and over to Taiwan.
On the way home from a small assault incident at a love hotel in Tokyo, Shuntaro Katagiri playfully entered the love hotel with his friend Iwanaka. When I fell asleep, I screamed and screamed from the room. Katagiri, who was full of blood, jumped out of the room after hearing the noise. A running girl, a bloody man, and a muscle man, a yakuza, a mysterious woman. The corridor of the hotel turned into a shambles for a moment, but Katagiri, a karate master, he slammed the place and he broke it. A strange space-This was his first encounter with the girl
Moemi is not overly pleased when Yukio brings home a couple of turtles to keep her company. Their lives seem reasonably happy until she has her braces removed, and Yukio finds kissing her less satisfying. She soon starts tying up everything in her sight with knotted twine, starting with the turtles. A psychiatrist diagnoses "Obsessive Knot-Binding Syndrome" due to deficiencies in her relationship with Yukio. Moemi continues to expand her activities, tying herself in knots with cords stretching across the apartment. The doctor tells Yukio that her illness has reached a critical point, and that he should tie her up that evening. This he proceeds to do, with her encouraging him to bind her more and more. Where will this end?
A look a the lives of two sex workers in Tokyo: Rei, who works as an S&M dominatrix, and Ayumi, in the more straightforward profession of call girl. In addition to their working life, the film also looks at their private lives. Rei is acting in an amateur theatre company (along with the receptionist from Ayumi's escort service), while Ayumi is living with her student-boyfriend as he struggles to finally get accepted to college.
A collection of works written and directed by Shungicu Uchida that deal with a wide range of horror.
A female photographer seduces men to kill them for her pleasure.
The bus driver Nakatsuka Yukihiko saw in his dream the sexual fantasies involving one of his regular female passengers - Noriko Otomo. On the other hand, she sees the same dreams.
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 salesman from Delta Works, a London-based computerized database, offers a one month free trial that seems uninteresting until he mentions that an operator, always selected from a group of young women in their 20's nick-named "Delta Ladies", will also be supplied in the trial period. Poo arrives at the one-man Aida Detective Agency with the Delta Mazelan 'F' Series hardware. A dragon fish has been stolen by Tetsu Tobiyama and biologist Thomas Earwing seeks its return (the Super-Red variety is worth 10 million yen). The system fails to provide info about Tetsu, but Poo worms her way into a top secret file at Delta headquarters, finding that he supplies trained assassins for use worldwide. Searching tropical fish outlets where Tobiyama shops for supplies, Poo is led to Natsuro, living alone with fish tanks, one of which contains a dragon fish. This enigmatic young man is not only mysteriously attractive to Poo, he also seems to attract the attention of hit men aimed at him.
Yoshinori sells plots of land in a cemetery, and is involved in a stale ten-year-old marriage with bored housewife Atsuko. When Atsuko makes a male friend at her leather-working class, Yoshinori has a fit. This is on top of the myriad of odd clients that he must appease.
A drama depicting the heroine who loved another yakuza man while being the wife of the group leader, in the battle of the internal conflict of the yakuza organization.
Tokyo Blood is an omnibus film of 4 short stories featuring various characters entrapped in Tokyo landscapes.
Jiro is a Tokyo man who offers a stand-in service where he'll do "anything". A woman claiming to be from Fukuoka wants to be shown around Tokyo and see the sights. What Jiro doesn't know is that this woman isn't who she says she is. She's on the run from her Yakuza boyfriend, and Jiro is going to be unwittingly entwined in the situation.
Three high-school outcasts pursue a savage gang of thugs after one of their girlfriends is raped and murdered.
A Japanese salaryman, finds his body transforming into a weapon through sheer rage after his son is kidnapped by a gang of violent thugs.
Anthology film featuring three stories, each written and directed by a different actress and based on a comic by Hitomi Saki.
This is a modern love story that depicts love between men and women in a slightly risqué, frightening, and funny way. The story is told in an omnibus format in three episodes, with the cooperation of leading women's comic artist Miruku Morizono, and is full of sexy shots of Kaori Oguri and other beautiful women from the past. Don't miss this masterpiece of V-cinema, featuring a dazzling performance by Tomorowo Taguchi!
Sawako, working in a bank, tired of the usual everyday life, once she met the chef of French cuisine Yukio Goto and spent the night with him. Sawako pretends to be the daughter of an upscale hotel owner and has an affair with Yukio.
Based on the Manga by Masahiko Kikuni. This movie is a comedy based on romance consisting of a compilation of 13 live-action segments along with 18 animated. Love and courage give rise to guess, fear and impatience laugh at dwellings, and the anger of poverty invites melancholy and laughter. Heartbreak Angels is a video that contains all of human emotions.
A "metal fetishist", driven mad by the maggots wriggling in the wound he's made to embed metal into his flesh, runs out into the night and is accidentally run down by a Japanese businessman and his girlfriend. The pair dispose of the corpse in hopes of quietly moving on with their lives. However, the businessman soon finds that he is now plagued by a vicious curse that transforms his flesh into iron.
A young widow becomes an SM call girl to pay off the debts accumulated by her yakuza husband. She's a depressed woman, merely going through the motions of existence, subjected to every cruel whim concocted by her clients. She's dedicated to the misery - even finding comfort in it - stumbling through life like a zombie.
Izumi has moved to an apartment near the shore. Dr. Takasaki's and his assistant Kyouko also lives near by. They became friends to each others. One day, Izumi enters Takasaki's laboratory during his absence, and she meets a monster, then, falls in love with him. (jhmd.jp)
A dwarf scientist has his dreams frustrated when his sister becomes seriously ill. Determined to find a way to preserve the essence of his sister after the death, the scientist begins to use humans as guinea pigs in a bizarre experiment.
Hikari is a boy who is bullied and teased by the other boys at school because he has the odd distinction of having an electricity pole growing out of his back. However, one of his classmates, a girl named Momo, comes to his rescue. Hikari thanks her by sharing his secret possession with her: a time machine. He then activates the time machine which transports him 25 years into a dark, dystopian, world of the future. There he encounters members of the Shinsengumi Vampire Gang in the process of hunting a woman named Dr. Sariba who is revealed to be Momo's future self. She explains to Hikari that she had been long expecting his arrival from the past and that he has a crucial role to play here -- he and he alone must save the world.
A short film where Shinya Tsukamoto experimenting with effects and ideas, which then resulted in the feature film Tetsuo.
