Yoshitaka Sakamoto
In May 2003, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (or JAXA) launched an unmanned spacecraft of their own development to retrieve samples from an asteroid. Seven long years later, Hayabusa achieved its goal and was the first of any kind of craft launched from Earth to safely return samples of this kind to home base. The story was one of such great national pride for Japan, and in the wake of the tsunami and resulting tragedies in Japan it’s strong nationalistic message became the subject of no less than three rival films. Yukihiko Tsutsumi’s high-profile effort, simply titled Hayabusa (2011) starred the incomparable Toshiyuki Nishida. Most recently, Welcome Home, Hayabusa (2012) was released to Japanese audiences. Slipping in between those two was Hayabusa: The Long Voyage Home, concentrating on the people on the ground who helped return the probe safely.
Kinjiro, an official with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, is a good-natured fellow who goes around the country helping farm families. At his new appointment in Usuki City, Oita Prefecture, he visits a tea-growing family he has known for a long time. There, he finds the family head's granddaughter Minori, who lost her job in Tokyo and has just returned home.
1943, two baseball teams play a last match before fighting in WW2.
An American woman is stranded in Tokyo after breaking up with her boyfriend. Searching for direction in life, she trains to be a râmen chef under a tyrannical Japanese master.
In 370 B.C, China was separated as seven nations and several other small tribes, one of these being the city state of Liang. The nation of Zhao is led by the terrifying Xiang Yangzhong who orders his troops to conquer the small city. Leaping to the defense of the people of Liang is 'Ge Li' from the Mo-Tsu tribe, their last hope from the terrors of Yangzhong's troops.
Directed by Junya Sato and based on a book by Jun Henmi, "Yamato" has a framing story set in the present day and uses flashbacks to tell the story of the crew of the World War II Japanese battleship Yamato. The film was never released in the United States, where reviewers who have seen it have compared the military epic to "Titanic" and "Saving Private Ryan."
Young assassins Azumi and Nagara continue their mission to prevent a civil war. In their hunt for Masayuki Sanada, who is protected by both an army and a dangerous clan, they meet Ginkaku, a person who shows a remarking resemblance with former friend Nachi.
Life Is Journey" is a compilation of four short stories. The characters all yearn to connect with others, while dwelling in their solitude. Accidental encounters and reluctant partings overlap joy and pain on a daily basis – yet no two days are alike. "Life" portrays half of a woman's life in one-scene, one-cut, nine-minute sequence. "N" is a comical take on a man abandoned by his lover. "Ya" explores the bond of female friendship as one woman consoles a brokenhearted girlfriend. "Nowhere", a man and a woman roam the streets of a foreign land in search of lost time.
When radicals from Japan's Red Army took a woman hostage in the resort town of Karuizawa, Nagano in 1972, Officer Atsuyuki Sassa was put in charge of diffusing the situation. But the task had its challenges. Upon arriving in mountainous Nagano, Sassa had to compete with freezing winter temperatures, conflicting opinions between the Tokyo Metropolitan Police and the Nagano Prefectural Police, as well as public opinion to gain entrance to the lodge that held the single woman captive.
When a major bank is caught paying off a corporate extortionist, the media and prosecutors begin to dig, breaking open a money-and-favours scandal that threatens to rock the entire structure of business and government to its core. While the bank's top executives continue to vacillate, a quartet of middle-management reformers, led by straight-arrow Kitano (Koji Yakusho), decide to stage a boardroom coup and install a new, clean management team. With the aid of a hotshot news anchor (Miho Wada) and a hard-nosed prosecutor (Kenichi Endo), heads begin to roll.
Filmed somewhat in documentary style, it follows three girls over the span of one day and night in the Shibuya district of Tokyo. Jonko runs a group of high school girls involved in paid dating, Raku is a street dancer, and Togo was brought up in the US and back in Japan for one year wants to escape to New York. Their contact with the world of talent scouts and yakusa places them in danger.
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.
Harada is a successful scenario writer, and his best buddy has just announced an intention to propose to Harada's ex-wife. Recovering from the shock, Harada indulges in melancholy, mainly on his failure as a husband and father, and goes to a 'Rakugo' (sit-down comedy) show, where a friendly man in the audience invites him home. Harada is puzzled at the strong resemblance of this man and his wife to his own parents, who were killed nearly 30 years ago when he was twelve.
After a series of chance meetings, a shiftless motorbike enthusiast, Ko, begins a romance with a carefree girl, Miyo, after teaching her to ride. When Miyo proves herself a biker prodigy, Ko begins to fear that she is destined to crash.
A romantic comedy involving shooting commercials, French food, and island visitors.
A lonely high schooler suddenly meets the love of his life out of thin air. Is she a real person or a figment of his imagination?
A high school girl travels to the island of New Caledonia and has magical adventures.
After noticing in the news there was a fire in an old canal town, Eguchi recalls visiting there a decade ago as a university student.
Yoshiyama Kazuko is in the 3rd grade of junior high. One day, she's cleaning in the laboratory, she notices of the smell of lavender, and fainted. Since then, she acquires a mysterious power to travel time.
9th-graders Kazuo (boy) and Kazumi (girl) take a tumble at a temple in a small seacoast town in Japan. Through supernatural intervention, their minds and bodies are switched, and the result is a touching and hilarious coming-of-age comedy as they attempt to survive the pressures of junior high school life.
Mitamura Yuka is a normal, shy high school student… Except for the fact that she has psychic powers. When a new student with similar powers begins to show her skills, creating a force of psychic Nazi student enforcers, Yuka and her friends vow to stop her. But behind it all is a mysterious force that will put Yuka's powers to the ultimate test!
A travelling group of young people running a pirate radio station from a small truck encounter an eccentric elderly couple who are on the run from the law.
Hoping to find a sense of connection to her late mother, Gorgeous takes a trip to the country to visit her aunt at their ancestral house. She invites her six friends, Prof, Melody, Mac, Fantasy, Kung Fu, and Sweet, to join her. The girls soon discover that there is more to the old house than meets the eye.
Komori Tiaki is a budding tennis student, however one day in training her coach hits the ball into her eye accidentally. She is taken to hospital but it advised that she will never regain the sight in her eye. Her coach knows of a mysterious doctor 'Blackjack' who lives in a secluded house, who might be able to help. 'Blackjack' agrees to do the operation, but for a 'substantial reward'! Her sight is regained, but now she starts to see a mysterious man that is invisible to those around her....
