Toshiyuki Kitami

Kisaragi Toko is a detective in the Investigation 1 Section 11 of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. Her senior, Detective Hideaki Takano, has decided to move to the Public Security Bureau. Hideaki Takano’s transfer will be carried out in 1 week. During this time, a murder takes place. A wealthy man is found dead in his home. His throat has been cut and a blue flower placed within the wound. Also, the victim's wife Mayumi is missing. A newspaper then receives an email from Kurasuta 16, professing themselves as the murderer. The email also implies the location of Mayumi. Since Detective Hideaki Takano is soon to transfer to the Public Security Bureau, Toko Kisaragi feels more pressure and responsibility to solve the crime.

Three childhood friends reunite over a murder case.

5.5/10

From a gruesome murder to a series of bomb blasts, it's explosive storytelling from beginning to end! This “Crystal's Beating” (Suishō no Kodō) is the sequel to the immensely popular crime suspense drama series “Cocoon of Stone” (Ishi no Mayu), and the long-awaited second instalment in the “Murder Analysis Team” (Satsujin Bunseki-han) series.

7.2/10

A young man, involved with a gang of hoodlum exploiting vulnerable elderly men to steal their retirement money, experiences social disenchantment, alienation and confusion mostly due to a lack of dreams and fulfillment of ambition.

2.7/10

Satoshi Murayama, the shogi (Japanese chess) master known as the arch-rival of Yoshiharu Habu, the shogi genius of the century, died of an intractable disease at age 29. Satoshi devoted his life to fighting not only the disease but also his rivals, feverishly pursuing the highest title, at risk to his life. Director Yoshitaka Mori (Hyakuhachi (2008), Space Brothers (2012)) depicts Murayama's true struggling life, full of love from his parents and teacher, based on the non-fiction novel written by Yoshio Osaki. Kenichi Matsuyama intensely portrays Satoshi and physically embodies the character.

6.3/10

The body of a person who died an unnatural death is discovered encased in mortar like concrete in the basement of an abandoned building. Why was the person murdered this way? The next day, the investigation task force receives a phone call from the criminal who calls himself Tremi during a meeting to discuss the investigation of the case. Then, in a short time after her transfer to the First Investigative Division, Kisaragi Toko becomes the negotiator. Tremi mocks and provokes the police while offering hints regarding the murder. A second murder soon occurs just as Tremi had warned. The victim's head has been covered with concrete as they had expected. What is the criminal's motive and why is the criminal fixated with concrete? The criminal's surprising actual target soon emerges...

7.3/10

A 27-year-old woman, named Eri, drops into a café in Nagoya for the first time in 20 years. There, she talks about the past with a maternal half-uncle, who she sees for the first time, and ends up confirming family secrets.

Yasutake Shingo works as a newspaper reporter but his life is stiffled and lifeless. That changes one day when he meets the irrepressible Matsunaga Chie by accident. Just as their relationship is blossoming however, Chie tells Shingo that she has breast cancer. Shingo determines to marry Chie right away, but she'll have to go through surgery and cancer treatments firs...

Kotoji Akame (Naoto Takenaka) is a shabby, middle aged low-ranking samurai of small stature. One day, in a drinking contest, he misses sending his lord off as he leaves Edo for Kuju. Released from service for this blunder, Akame becomes a wandering samurai. He goes on to steal lances from many feudal lords' processions. For Furuta, suffering defeat is out of question. To protect his domain and family, he takes it on himself to meet Murase and proposes an alliance between the Wako, Fuki and Ushizu domains. With the fate of the feudal families in their hands, Furuta and Murase pursue Akame. Each with something to protect, the men fight desperately over the lances.

11 mysteries, 11 actors. Japan's favorite mystery author, the world of Higashino Keigo comes to life on screen through an assortment of short stories.

6.3/10

In 2011, top-secret data on nuclear power is stolen from a university facility. At the same time, leaked information comes in about enriched uranium from the Korean peninsula. Sumimoto of the external affairs fourth division suspects that a conspiracy has been hatched to rock Japan-Korean relations.

5.9/10

War photjournalist Yasuyuki Tsukahara married popular manga artist Yuki Sonoda and had children. Because of Yasayuki's drinking problems the couple divorced. Yasuyuki is now coughing up blood, hospitalized, and violent. Even with all of these problems Yasuyuki can't give up drinking alcohol. His family gets tired. Yasuyuki is then hospitalized in an alcoholic ward. There he finds comfort living with other patients and having conversations with doctors. With the help of his family, Yasuyuki recovers mentally and physically, but his body has already paid a heavy toll.

6.4/10

A hit man looks to protect the daughter of one of his victims against CIA assassins.

4.7/10

Gaiji Keisatsu is a Japanese television drama mini-series that aired on NHK from 14 November 2009 to 19 December 2009. It is based on the novel of the same name written and released in Japan by Aso Iku. The TV show follow a female police officer who was recruited into the Tokyo Metropolitan Police's anti-terrorist black ops unit known "publicly" as the Fourth Foreign Affairs Section, created after the 9/11 events in the United States. Its purpose is to tackle espionage and terrorism cases happening in Japan. The franchise consists of the novel, the TV series and an upcoming 2012 movie.

7.4/10

Smile is a Japanese television drama series, shown on TBS started last April 17, 2009. Jun Matsumoto plays the lead role of Vito, a half-Filipino, half-Japanese man who always smiles despite all of the problems and difficulties he faces. the series focus on foreigners and mixed race children who suffered from racism

7.4/10

After the death of this mother, Masao Oneta (Teppei Koike) decides to leave the comfort of his room after years of self isolation and get a job. He lands a position at a small IT firm but doesn't yet realise this company is one of many 'black companies', known for overworking their employees.

5.7/10

Set in Nasu, Tochigi Prefecture in 1954, movie tells the tale of 14 year old boys: their friendships, fights among friends, and rebellions against the school. It also tells the story of the adults who live around the boys. This is a nostalgic, bitter, and sentimental journey into lives in the post-war environment.

Merde (French for "shit") is the name given to an unkempt, gibberish-spewing subterranean creature of the Tokyo sewers, played by Denis Lavant, who rises from the underground lair where he dwells to attack unsuspecting locals in increasingly brazen and terrifying ways

7.1/10

Tokyo! is an anthology of three short films by Gondry (France), Carax (France) and Bong (Korea), each of whom offers an imaginative and trans-/super- natural glimpse into the Tokyo Megapolis.

7.1/10
7.6%

A story of the unexplainable things that inflict sheer terror on human beings and how they leave victims psychologically devastated. It is as much a true horror film as it is a psychological drama.

6.1/10

In a small town of Hokkaido, Yunni, Fusako Kurokawa (Saki Takaoka), lives a quiet life with her father. Life here is very simple, but it is good enough and she is happy enough. Days go on as usual. with some coincidence, she meets this man one day, Wataru Kadokura (Atsuro Watabe) a man who cannot speak. A very peaceful "time" now becomes part of her daily life as this strong emotion suddenly takes place in her simple quiet life.

6.8/10

The series follow the life of Michiru Aida, a beauty parlor assistant who returns to Tokyo after 4 years. Bullied by her seniors at work and abused by her boyfriend, she is reunited with her best friend during high school, Ruka Kishimoto, a skilled motocross racer. Takeru, a make-up artist, is introduced to Ruka by her housemate, Eri and thus begin a journey of friendship.

7.6/10

"Tokyo Rhapsody" consists of 11 short films all centered around the music genre known as "Kayokyoku". Kayokyoku is a catch-all term to describe the music that defined two generations of post-war Japan. Although the term survives, it has a strong connotation with a simpler, pre-"Economic Bubble" era when Japanese people shared a common identity in the reconstruction of their nation.

5.5/10

A young man fights for his freedom after he is accused of groping a girl on train.

7.6/10

A blind woman acquires a guide dog, and faces prejudice in 1980s Japan.

A man and a woman are together on the 'Chrysalis Day', the fatal day everything in your life will be decided depends on how you spend the day. A violent man holding pure love, Sai and a stunningly beautiful playgirl, Sheila. While Sheila flees with a large sum of money, she is chased by a cool but violent gang, crazy killers and an out of control cop. No one can stop Sai and Sheila's love runaway.

6.3/10

Shin is a professional voyeur who provides live camera feeds of everything from the street corner to the public toilet. He is also afflicted freakish phenomenon known as synesthesia - a glitch in his wiring puts his five senses in a blender and spits out something close to insanity. A high-profile murder propels him into a psychological odyssey in pursuit of Picasso - a serial killer, snuff peddler and fellow synesthete - who leaves deadly hidden messages in his victims' blood that only Shin can decipher. Lulling his victims into a trance with a spellbinding video game, Picasso leads Shin down a mysterious, hypnotic trail of death.

5.7/10

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.

7/10

A war rages on, its end unknown, covering the world in despair. At a military field hospital, a group of soldiers bring in one of their own, wounded by a large, vicious, bite-like wound, along with a large box. The soldiers are visibly shaken. Suddenly, an enigmatic man appears. As he starts to tell them the legend of the Lance of Longinus, their night of unimaginable terror begins.

5.6/10

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.

5/10

Emotionally withdrawn strip club dancer Ayako has never recovered from her mother's suicide when she was young. She begins a relationship with patient potter Daiji, but leaves him behind when she quits her job and returns to her home town after a 10 year absence.

7/10

Set in the Phillipines, Takashi Miike’s “The Guys from Paradise” weaves together the stories of several real-life criminal cases. Young up-and-coming salaryman Kohei Hayakawa is sent to Paradise prison on false drug charges, and assumes his lawyers will clear up this misunderstanding fairly quickly. However, he soon comes to the realization that his innocence means less than how much bribe money he’s able to come up with for his release. It becomes apparent that Kohei is going to have to get to know his fellow inmates a little better, as he’s obviously in this situation for the long haul; but meeting a female inmate from a nearby jail certainly makes his transition to the criminal life a little easier to take.

6.6/10

Reunited by the death of a friend, a group of former schoolmates reassess themselves and their earlier times together.

5.7/10

A genius doctor named Yuichiro Nozaki comes to a hospital to know the reason of his sister's death. The doctor is wondering if someone of the hospital killed her. Finally, Yuichiro finds doctor Katsuhiko Sonobe is a suspect of the murder, but notices Katsuhiko's wife loves Yuichiro.

A couple years have passed, Matsuzaki is divorced and has a daughter and is still up to his old compulsive gambling, boozing and womanizing even as he stares middle age in the face. At his daughter's school he meets a teacher who's similarily obsessed with horserace betting and who's also frigid - something he does his best to therapize. He also reconnects with his ex-wife, who just so happens to be the literary agent and love interest of another writer of the gambling genre. An epic gambling battle between the two ensues.

6/10

Heat After Dark is director Ryuhei Kitamura's first theatrical release. This 50 minute film is predominantly a character study within an intense action drama. Those familiar with Kitamura's later works, perhaps especially Versus will realize this is the beginning of his characetristic modus operandi. Here, the well defined characters consist of the innocent (the cop), the relatively good (Atsuro Watabe), the relatively bad (Shinichi Suzuki), and the absolutely bad (Shigeru Izumiya ), and a few other Yakuza hoodlums thrown in for entertainment.

5.8/10

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.

7.6/10

After serving 10 years in prison due to a drug-induced assassination of a rival gang boss Tachibana (Ryo Ishibashi) enters a world that's nothing like it was when he went in. Once a respected and feared Yakuza mastermind, he now must try and adapt within the confines of the new generations vision of honor. As he still garners a somewhat decent amount of respect he just tries to get by. Hooking up with a prostitute he's been in passing by with he begins to feel some sense of comfort. Upon stumbling across her being beaten down by her pimp, Tachibana can't just sit by and do nothing. So he commences in putting down an old school Yakuza ass whipping, thus beginning a showdown with the "now" boss, Sato.

6.7/10

A Japanese comedy film directed by Yôichi Sai.

5.5/10

More than his indie debut Skinless Night, this was the film that launched Mochizuki on his distinctive trajectory through the crime and yakuza genres. Matsuzaki (Eiji Okuda) is a racing tipster for a sports paper, a lowlife who spends half his time drunk, hangs out with yakuza and other riff-raff and complicates his sex life by succumbing to advances from his girlfriend's sister. As played by Okuda, he's also a figure of considerable hangdog charm. Less a plot-based movie than a guide to the several forms of high stakes gambling in Japan, this centres on his attempt to help a friend swindled in a bent mahjong game. Hakuryu appears (memorably) as an inscrutable yakuza in a black leather jacket. The film's success led to two sequels.

6.8/10

Yuichi Koga is an upper-class business executive, running his own adult video company, and living a successful life with his wife and daughter. Outwardly, his family seems really happy, but in reality Yuichi enjoys sex with everyone but his wife Chikako. One day, he gets a phone call from a woman named Sanae, an old elementary school classmate of his.

6/10

A female highschool teacher (Rei Akasaka) must deal with sexual harrassment from her students and being trapped in a love triangle with two men, neither of whom has any interest in marrying her.

6.2/10

Muraki is a failure in his job as a salesman and has to deal with his wife's disappointment and criticism at home. One day, after sleeping in a park, he happens upon two women who look like they've been victims of a sexual assault. He helps them but as night comes an increasingly twisted mindgame unfolds between the involved parties and it is no longer certain who's the victim and who's the perpetrator.

6.6/10

Nikkatsu Roman Porno

Real-Life stripper Madoka Mika plays the fictional ROSE RED, a former striptease queen who is now doing roadshow engagements while trying to raise her kid and balance her love affairs.

6/10

Nakata, an author, resides utilizing the painful memory regarding the death of his partner, whoever life had been cut short a few many years earlier. Ended up being it a crash or ended up being it suicide? Doubt persists. In order to escape his guilty Nakata, conscience gives up on marriage and fatherhood. Hence freed, he embarks on an obsessive intimate records and jeorney his activities in a book, "The Dark Room". A philisophical essay on sexuality, reproduction and the fate of mankind.

5.4/10

A man she was once in a relationship with has been killed. A wife keeping a secret from her husband gets involved in a strange case.

Sequel to Anne's Lullaby (1982)

A high school science teacher is popular among male students, and this worked out badly for her...

5.8/10

Nikkatsu Roman Porno

The story of lovers in "Miss Nippon" cabaret in Kabukicho, Shinjuku, where a strict, almost martial, code is followed among employees to bring the business to the top. Workers must follow the rules and a "no relations between workers" policy that's tightly enforced.

6.1/10

The lovely Reiko has taken a new teaching job at a creepy old high school. She is an extremely attractive woman and the young students in her class have fallen for her. One night, after tennis practice, she is brutally assaulted in the locker room shower by a man with a stocking over his face. Left on the floor naked and in shock, she discovers a single puzzle piece left behind by the crazed man. A few days later, a pair of students enact a perverted sexual revenge on Reiko for kicking someone off the tennis team. Could one of these students be the man who brutalized her in the locker room? Who owns the strange puzzle piece? As the mystery unfolds, Reiko must come to terms with her own sexual urges and fate.

6.2/10

Mieko and Ayako work for the same company and share the same apartment. They have been close friends since childhood. Mieko has no lover, but Ayako has an affair with Honma, a man with a wife and child...

The film takes place in the popular tourist spot of Karuizawa. A working class student named Junichi becomes a waiter there in order to mix in with the upper classes. A stylish Roman Porno directed by Konuma, commemorating Nikkatsu's 70th anniversary.

5.1/10

Chizuko's cab driver husband becomes impotent after an accident, leading to infidelity spiced up with various kinky deviations.

A sexually perverse mystery set within the adult magazine industry. A woman is brutally assaulted in an abandoned factory, and her assailant escapes into the darkness after dropping a wad of money. A few years later, a photographer specializing in schoolgirl panty shots meets his match when a mysterious femme fatale volunteers to be his new model. This woman used to be the “queen” of the skin magazines, but she is also hiding a terrible secret and may be a wanted fugitive. Will the photographer escape her sexual grasp?

6.1/10

A teacher, Sakiko Kurata, receives a phone call regarding one of her former students. Young Sueko is accused of being a prostitute and has requested Sakiko’s help. This minx seduces random strangers for sex, but does not ask for payment. Sakiko has moved to another town and barely remembers Sueko, but there’s something about her that awakens painful memories of her own secretive past. What is that strange paint thinner smell on Sueko? Who is the man in the nylon ski mask that violently assaulted Sakiko many years ago? In her search for answers, Sakiko discovers that her past may have inadvertently destroyed another family’s future.

6.1/10

Nami is a department store worker who agrees to stand in for a friend in a magazine photo-shoot, which turns out to be for an S&M magazine. When the photos are published, she is sacked and her lover abandons her.

5.7/10

Yuko is in love with an old poet who happens to be also a married man. She waits patiently for him and only him, yet she is constantly being lust by others.

5.8/10

A working class young man, Tetsuo, who distrusts all rich people, falls in love with a girl, Chika, from an affluent family. He has a difficult time, but love survives despite the problems.

6.9/10

This is a combination of stories dealing with the ecstatic adventures of high school student Sachiko.

6.2/10

The story follows Marao, a sex consultant assistant, as he spends his days having sex. A Nikkatsu Roman Porno film adaptation of Nakano Yu's play "Sexual Beauty Techniques," serialized as a manga.

Iwata, cheerleader of a university, Odagiri, a free lance cameraman, and Sekiguchi, a day laborer working on a subway project. As they pass an area dotted with the villas of affluent people, they decide to stop at one to ask the owner to let them put through a phone call. What they seen when they enter the gate makes them draw in their breaths quickly and causes their pulses to begin to race madly – Miki, a lass whose only claim to fortune are marvelous breasts, cute nipples and a figure even every top model dreams of having...

A man and a woman who met in a park in the city draw a figure that desperately loves each other while being chased by the hardship.

6/10