After the 1995 Kobe earthquake, a writer remembers travelling with his family to bury his brother after World War II.
Santo Kyoden
A crippled kabuki player is taken into a strolling company of itinerant actors. An influential publisher notices his honest, bold drawings, and nurtures him despite persecution and betrayal. The film explores the eternal relationship between artist and producer, and describes the emanicipation of a man who refuses to let himself become the plaything of power and money.
The story of a bus conductor who dedicates his life to the cherished Japanese symbol.
Chamberlain giving shelter to Ogami Itto
A noble samurai serving the Shogun as 'Kogi Kaishaku-nin' (Official Executioner) is the target of a plot by the evil Yagyu Clan to take away his position and replace him with a member of their own family. When his wife is murdered and evidence is produced that he was plotting against the Shogun the Code of Bushido calls for him and his son to commit sepuku. Instead he defies the Shogun's orders and takes up arms against his enemies, becoming an assassin for hire.
Faraway Sunset tells the story of the famed bacteriologist who is known to have discovered the agent that cause syphilis, and for his relentless search for a cure to yellow fever. As a toddler, his mother's neglect had caused an accident to his left hand, fusing together all the fingers in a bizarre twist of fate. Naturally extremely remorseful for being the cause of her son's handicap, she does everything she could to ensure that he gets to lead a normal life, despite having to fend off bullies and unfair prejudices.
Take-san
A story of Japanese writer Kafu Nagai (1879-1959), a man about sixty with a huge reputation of seducer who falls madly in love for a young geisha named Oyuki. Meticulous and smartly dressed, Nagai patiently wrote in his diary his thoughts during many years. A melancholy reflection on the passage of time and a brilliant interpretive exercise.
Noboru
The story centers on an elderly hibakusha, whose husband was one of 80,000 human beings killed in the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki, caring for her four grandchildren over the summer. She learns of a long-lost brother, Suzujiro, living in Hawaii who wants her to visit him before he dies.
Kappei Hayase
An auto repairman's daughter questions him about what happened to her aunt during the war, but the father remains reticent. Finally the man opens up, and the girl is able to piece together her aunt's tragic story.
Tatsuo Kazama (Uncle of Shinji)
A story of childhood life during wartime Japan. Takeshi, the intelligent son of a fisherman, is the schoolyard bully. When his cousin comes to stay with his family to avoid bombing raids, Takeshi at first treats him well, then begins bullying him too. Takeshi eventually loses his position of leadership.
Kisaku Anayama
Romance story about the first female manager of the Nihon University Phoenix
After the death of her mother a young woman wants to meet her real father
Gentaro Tamashiro
Based on a true story. Shiro, a dog who lives in an inn on Akajima in Okinawa, swims to the opposite shore on Zamami to see his love, a dog named Marilyn. Shiro is portrayed by the real-life Shiro.
Benio, a peppy tomboy, is surprised to learn that she has been secretly betrothed by her grandfather to a young officer named Shinobu Ijuin. Because of his family’s noble status, Benio must first undergo rigorous training to learn how to be a proper bride and wife before she can marry. However, because of her vivacious personality, this proves to me more challenging than anyone imagined.
Zennosuke Echigoya
A ruined businessman was forced to sell his daughter, Hisano, to a brothel in Yoshiwara, the largest red-light district in Tokyo. The owner of the brothel has hopes to make her a great new addition which will attract the richest of customers. But after several months of training, she tries to flee Yoshiwara when the time has come for her to take her first customer...
During the winter in Toyama in 1962, Tatsuo Mizushima is fretting about his feelings for his classmate Eiko Tsujisawa while agonizing about his upcoming high school examinations. When he was little, he and Eiko had heard that in April of a year when the winter has been very harsh, any couple finding fireflies together needs to get married. However, his family's situation does not allow Tatsuo to continue his worrying about such things for very much longer.
Yoshio, Ryôsaku's son
An old woman has died and her widower with dementia confesses to killing her. After this, the story goes back in time to show the events leading up to her death.
Hideo Hayakawa
In the winter of 1945, Sakura the elephant gave birth to a baby elephant at Tokyo Fujimi Zoo under the watchful eye of the zookeeper Shota Tanabe. Around the same time, Shota's wife, Setsuko, also gave birth to a son. Hanako, the baby elephant, grows up while deepening her bonds with elementary school students who love zoos. However, as Japan enters the Pacific War, the military orders the animals in the zoos of five major cities to be killed.
Jinbei
The tragic story of Gonza, a handsome ladies man, set in the Tokagawa Period, a time in which appearences are very important. Gonza competes with Bannojo for the honor to perform the tea ceremony to celebrate the birth of an heir to the lord of their clan. To see the sacred tea scrolls Gonza promises to marry the daughter of the family which possesses them, even though he is unofficially engaged to another. When studying the scrolls with Osai, the mother of the house, Bannajo sneaks into the house and steals their obis and runs through the town proclaiming the two as adulterers.
Yumechiyo, a geisha house madam recently diagnosed with a terminal illness, yearns to do something constructive with the little time she has left. Through her responsibility lies in taking care of her girls, she finds purpose in providing a man innocent of a false murder charge and in the process discovers love for the first time in his arms.
Katsutoshi Watanabe
Momoko Watanabe—a student who, upon visiting a shrine in order to wish good luck on a friend of hers, witnesses a murder in the forest...and she knows the culprit! Unfortunately, she doesn't have it in her to tell anybody about it, and to make matters worse, said aforementioned friend gets accused of the murder.
While trying to search for her missing father, Atsuko Moriya (Noriko Watanabe) meets a group of outcasts that help her. Having only an encrypted disk in her possession and while being chased by unknown people, Atsuko tries to solve the mystery of her family origins...
Based on the life of Japanese serial killer and thief Kiyotaka Katsuta.
Man (Interview with Nakata)
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.
Kuwashiro
A story about a woman who is a research student of a theater company and the three men who are at the mercy of her.
Fictionalized account of 20-year-old Noriko Tsuji, a real-life victim of a severe birth defect which afflicted 8,000 Japanese, children whose mothers took the sedative thalidomide during pregnancy. Tsuji has stunted flipper-like arms amputated at the behest of a father who deserted her soon after her birth. Nonetheless, the resourceful Noriko uses her feet to accomplish most of the tasks others would do with their hands.
Nakazawa
The film depicts carnivalesque atmosphere summed up by the cry "Ei ja nai ka" ("Why not?") in Japan in 1867 and 1868 in the days leading to the Meiji Restoration. It examines the effects of the political and social upheaval of the time, and culminates in a revelrous march on the Tokyo Imperial Palace, which turns into a massacre. Characteristically, Imamura focuses not on the leaders of the country, but on characters in the lower classes and on the fringes of society.
A couple originally from Okinawa run an inexpensive restaurant in Kobe, with their grade-school daughter, Fuuchan. The movie depicts the warm interaction between her and adults that grew up with the rough history of Okinawa and discrimination from the mainland. Shots partly on location at beach of Itoman, Yogi Park and Hateruma Island. This is the movie version of the well-known novel by Kenjiro Haitani.
Sayoko is desperate to bear a child of her own, but her live-in boyfriend Shinsaku strenuously objects to the idea. One day, someone leaves behind a six-year-old child at their door, claiming that Shinsaku—or four other men—is the child's father! Sayoko and Shinsaku set out on a journey to find the real father.
Karasu
Akira leaves for the Mt. Gassan foothills before winter's onset, visiting the local temple and interacting with the residents all while falling for fair Fumiko.
Yuichi prides himself on the fact that he is a family man but contrary to his conception of an ideal family life, at age 24, his wife has already run out on him. In utter confusion, he tries to reason out where he had gone amiss that such a thing should happen out of the clear blue sky. About this time, Yuichi helps Ayako, a young girl, embroiled in trouble. She returns Yuichi's kindness by making off with his precious camera. Then she returns and since his wife has washed her hands of him, he forces himself on Ayako who acts as if she had been waiting for him to enter her. Suddenly, Yuichi's wife returns...
A thief, a murderer, and a charming lady-killer, Iwao Enokizu is on the run from the police.
Ogata
A parable about the inefficiency and anachronism of the Japanese educational system, which places an unusually large amount of importance on cramming for university entrance examinations, Panic High School is about the suicide of a high school student and its ensuing fallout at his school. When one of his classmates becomes frustrated with the math teacher's lack of sensitivity to the suicide, the student steals a rifle, returns to school, aerates the teacher's chest and then holds members of his class captive. This leads to an aggressive standoff with the police and lots of shots of his parents crying and bowing in shame, totally mortified.
Saeki
A film that portrays the youth and fragile love of a transportation worker in Tokyo.
Chief of police
Two semi-slackers with an ultra-intimate friendship work, slack and drink in a freezing Hokkaido town.
Hirobe is a lonely man. After witnessing her girlfriend die with a terminal illness, he wanders through the city like a shadow. One day, he meets Masako and they begin an affair. Masako is in an unhappy marriage with Yazawa, who is also cheating on her with a younger lover. The tension builds up to an unforgiving, yet quiet climax...
Mainly the story of Shinsuke and his stepmother, ranging from Shinsuke's infanthood to his mid-teens. Coal workers and the mines dominate nearly every aspect of the life of the characters. Shinsuke's father dies while bravely using dynamite to rescue a group of trapped Korean miners. Several older men attempt to help he and his mother cope, including a kind Korean and a Harley-riding yakuza.
Kobayakawa's father
Based on a true story, an elderly woman resiliently spends nine months attempting to retrieve her husband's dead body, fighting government bureaucracy and indifference all along the way.
A young and newly-married couple in Tokyo lives a hard life moving repeatedly because of their unfamiliar relationships with their surroundings.
Mimaki
A freestyle, imagined telling of the life of shaman queen Himiko, who falls in love with her half-brother, making her powers weaken thus putting her position to risk.
A beautifully told story of a woman hardened by marriage to a man she doesn't love, after giving herself to another. She dedicates herself to her work, designing and creating plaited cords for kimono.
Set at the end of the feudal period. A woman spends most of her early life in prison, incarcerated by political opponents of her father. When she is released at the age of 44, the power struggles of her clan continue to disturb her life and the man whom she loves.
Teruo
Comedy of an entertainment agent and strip-teasers.
Shaka
A survivor of the tragic mass suicides on Tokashiki Island in 1945 falls in love with a near-mute motorcycle engineer.
Michio Yamada, a recent school graduate, is sent to Tokyo to work as a fruit-packer in a department store as part of a government programme. He takes a gun from a house on an American base and uses it to kill several people. The scene changes to Yamada's childhood. Yamada is born the child of a reprobate and a weak-willed woman. As a boy Yamada, experiences poverty and the rape of his sister at first hand.
If You Were Young: Rage highlights the other side of post-war Japanese prosperity, focusing on the throngs of young people who missed out on the boom. We follow a group of young men that can't seem to get ahead, despite their willingness to try. Then one hits upon a plane - to work together to save for a dump truck and thus become independent contractors and be their own bosses at last. Ultimately life presents obstacles: jail for one, violence at the hands of the police for another and a girlfriend and subsequent children for the third. An early Kinji Fukasaku gem that imports the freewheeling style of the French New Wave and the hip detachment of American noir.
Tsutomu Yoshioka, a Tokyo office worker, is enaged to Mariko, the niece of his company's president. But Yoshioka has a crisis of consence when he remembers his former love Mitsu, a rural girl whom he met and later left while in college. Shimako, a former friend, persuades Yoshioka to meet with Mitsu while she plots to blackmail Yoshioka by photographing the meeting to break up Mariko and Yoshioka.
Kametaro Futori
Tokyo engineer Kariya arrives on a primitive tropical island, where he interacts with the Futori clan, to drill a well to power a sugar mill.
A Japanese soldier deserts his position and travels to a small town on the Sea of Japan to start over. When a young maid falls for him, he talks her into sleeping with an older man for money.
Kichijiro Hayashi
The fifth and final installment with the build up of the epic battle between Sasaki Kojiro and Miyamoto Musashi. With all the familiar characters making appearances: Otsu (Musashi's great love), Akemi, Matahachi (his former fellow soldier), old lady Osugi (still doggedly trying to defeat Musashi), and even the return of Priest Takuan (the man responsible for his journey towards enlightenment). But most of all, the boastful, long-haired and long-sworded Sasaki Kojiro.
Three stories revolve around independence, a man searching for his wife, and a poor craftsman trying to make money.
Yoyoshi
A headstrong young man seeks to join the Shinsengumi, but while his determination impresses his superiors, questions begin to arise as to his true identity and intentions.
The Yagyu Family have been teaching the Shinkage style of fencing for generations. Now a new fencing school has opened in Edo, claiming to be the true Shinkage style. Yagyu Jubei faces his biggest challenge yet when the master of the new school claims he is the legitimate successor of Shinkage and tries to take the Yagyu's political power.
In this gritty tale of gamblers battling in the samurai era, Okawa Hashizo gives perhaps his greatest performance as a gambler returning to his home town. Swearing allegiance to his fiancée’s father, a decent boss, he had taken to the road after a gang fight until things cooled down. While honing his sword skills in his travels, everything in the town had changed and he descended into a virtual hell of violence. Opponents were being slaughtered by a former samurai ‘Bodyguard’ played by Tanba Tetsuro at the height of his amazing career. While these two master swordsmen are fated to meet, before that can even happen they must survive one of the longest, bloodiest swordfights in movie history!
Yajirô Amano
Four ninja are hired to fight against the Shogunate’s plot to abolish the Gamo Clan, the regional barons struggling to reinstate their young heir Tanemaru as their Lord.
A cynical samurai is left as the sole survivor to fulfil a plot to assassinate the puppet of a villain intent on usurping the shogunate in the 17th century.
A Shogunate Elder connives to rule Japan by making his puppet, the Shogun's brother Tsunashige, the next Shogun. The best strategist in Japan, Yamaga, leads a plot to stop the Elder, but his cabal is betrayed and most of the conspirators are captured and tortured.
Richshaw man Tatsu has wandered to Osaka from Tokyo. He has quarrels with Kimiyakko, a geisha, and throws her into the river. But later, he falls in love with her. Yasaburo, the oyabun of the Nishikawa Gang, loves her very much too. However, as he likes Tatsu's dynamic personality, he volunteers to become a go-between for their marriage. Yasaburo gets tipped off by Yajima who wants to take over the territory of the Nishikawa Gang, and is arrested and imprisoned. After his release, Yajima tries to kill him. Ginjiro, a lover of Tamaryu respects Kimiyakko as an older sister and a follower of Tatsu, is murdered. After the third marriage ceremony just between Tatsu and Kimiyakko, Tatsu goes off to the place of fighting.
Kichijiro Hayashi
In the fourth installment, Musashi's potentially greatest opponent Kojiro jumps in and out of the story at the oddest and most coincidental moments. As his great love Otsu has succumbed to madness. Musashi then sets off to beat the functionaries of a treacherous clan in an arranged duel. 73 against one. Boastful Kojiro watches, secure in the knowledge that only he is a worthy opponent.
Osaka in the early 1600s, aftermath of the historical Battle of Sekigahara; a group of orphan children are wandering through the battlefield scavenging for armour when they encounter a young boy named Sasuke with magical powers he says came from a meteor that crashed onto the Earth…
Makino Yoshio
A sadistic Daimyo (feudal lord) rapes a woman and murders both her and her husband, but even when one of his own vassals commits suicide to bring attention to the crime, the matter is quickly hushed up. Not only will there be no punishment, but because the Daimyo is the Shogun's younger brother, he will soon be appointed to a high political position from which he could wreak even more havoc. Convinced that the fate of the Shogunate hangs in the balance, a plot is hatched to assassinate the Daimyo. The two most brilliant strategic minds of their generation find themselves pitted against each other; one is tasked to defend a man he despises, and has a small army at his disposal. The other is given a suicide mission, and has 12 brave men. They are the 13 Assassins.
Seijun Kunugida
With her family suffering from extreme poverty, Yuko, as the eldest daughter, is sold to a successful brothel in Kyoto. There she is assigned to serve Takamatsu, one of the brothel’s top customers. But while Takamatsu falls madly in love with Yuko, she finds herself attracted to a young priest named Kunugida. Torn by jealousy, Takamatsu hatches an evil plan to tear them apart.
Hayashi Kichijiro
In the third installment of Yoshikawa's novel Musashi, things continue from the 2nd film at the end of battle, where Miyamoto continues on a mission of learning; with the introduction of his arch-rival Sasaki Kojiro; and lastly the large cast of characters rendezvouses for a fateful finale.
After a salary-man's fiancée attempts suicide, he recounts his gruesome family history which saw generations of his ancestors suffer and sacrifice themselves for the sake of their cruel lords.
Kumotaro
Movie adaptation of the 1959 ninja novel. With war against Korea looming on the horizon, Hideyoshi Toyotomi, the 'Taiko' becomes the target of an assassination attempt to be carried out by the Iga Clan of ninja spies. Master spy Juzo Tsuzura (Ryutaro Otomo) is assigned the task, but first he must defeat a former Iga spy who has become a traitor, and outwit the treacherous woman that is trying to seduce him.
The great Okawa Hashizo, in one of his most powerful roles risks his life and limb to help save the lovely Onaka from a terrible lifestyle. Starting out as a down on his luck gambler, Hantaro refuses to accept punishment for running up a 10 ryo debt in a crooked dice game. Forced from his village he must go on the run and learn how to fend for himself. After 3 years on the road, his past finally catches up to him, when he gets spotted by a pair of gang members. The action heats up after he saves Onaka from committing suicide and the two find themselves battling all odds for survival. This is a serious film with a strong story and exciting sword action!
When Kanbe Nagakichi has his turf taken over by Ano-Toku, the father-in-law of his sworn brother Kira Nikichi sets in motion one of the most violent gang battles in Japanese history. Forced by the situation to choose between family and yakuza honor, Nikichi faces off against the vile combination of Ano-Toku and Kurokoma Katsuzo, villains so low as to ambush their foes using snipers. Nikichi, who owes allegiance to Boss Jirocho of Shimizu asks Jirocho to spare Ano-Toku’s life until events force a showdown between the 30 member Shimizu gang and a force of over 200 men fighting on Ano-Toku’s behalf. Meanwhile, a mysterious samurai may hold the key to deciding the outcome of this battle!
The remake of Yoshikawa's novel continues with the second installment in which Takezo, soon to be Miyamoto Musashi, emerges from the Himeji Castle after three years of intense contemplation and philosophical study and starting on his epic quest to complete his skill in the Way.
In this tale of bravery and honor among the roving gamblers of old Japan, the heroic Jirocho, Boss of the Tokaido is called upon to help a young yakuza named Eijiro after he runs afoul of the new samurai officials who have taken over his hometown. Expertly portrayed by Kitaoji Kinya (son of the all-time great star Ichikawa Utaemon), this young man stands up for the townspeople and puts his life on the line. Jirocho, played by superstar Nakamura Kinnosuke, a boss known for his honor and valor soon finds himself involved in the feud which will only end in a brutal showdown.
Hatsuse Toma
This is a story of a young heir to a powerful house, sent away to be raised by his nanny, so the young lord Genrokuro grew up bitter about his parents, hating his legacy and embracing everyone else from simple background. Only love can help him mature, hopefully in time to be a great lord for the people. A story of young Yoshimune, the future Shogun.
An injured Edo official is rescued by a vassal whose appearance is exactly like himself, and swears to sweep out the criminals from the town on his behalf.
A carpenter, Shigetsugu, learns a lesson of love and humanity from five orphaned children and an affectionate woman named Oritsu. It's a winning combination of drama and humor. The warm friendship that grows between the carpenter, the woman and the children making this into a true masterpiece.
A court fortune-teller loses his mind after a conspiracy leads to the death of his lover. Hope appears to be on the horizon after he becomes romantically involved with his dead lover’s twin sister, but more complications arise thanks to a chance encounter with a clan of shape-shifters.
In the year 1637 in Shimabara of Tokugawa-era Japan, oppressed peasant Christians revolt against the shogunate with the aid of a charismatic Christian rebel leader Shiro Amakusa.
Iseya
Period piece about a young man who, because of his hard life alone in the world, has become a yakuza. When he hears that his mother may be living in Edo (Tokyo), he travels there, intent on finding her and leaving the swordsman's life behind. But a team of rival gangsters is hot on his heels.
Adventures of famous yakuza boss Jirocho and his disciples who settle in Kofu.
Young lord Saburo Nobuyasu struggles to find comfort in life. His arranged marriage to Tokuhime, daughter of one-time family enemy Oda Nobunaga, provides little happiness. His manipulative mother adds further complications through her constant interference and attempts at defeating the Nobunaga family.
Gyutaku
A story of an orphan boy who wanted the love of parents so badly, another orphan sincerely pitied him to the point he gives his secret birthright as an illegitimate son to a Shogun as a "gift of hope" to the sad boy. As the orphan boy grew up, his loving heart became bitter and he saw the opportunity to take advantage of this birthright with the help of a man who wanted to use this orphan's desire to be loved, for seizing power in the shogunate by using the imposter. Many obstacles to hurdle along the way of deception, however, will they succeed or will he be exposed?
A young son of a master of the Kuwana clan gets disowned for his rebellious behavior. After he goes from the mountains to the ocean defeating the evil, he becomes a fine man.
A group of pirates led by the evil Gondaiyu and his wizard, Genkuro, capture the Golden Peacock Castle and massacre the peaceful clan that lives there. The few survivors that manage to escape plot their revenge and wait for the timing to be right for an attack. The struggles of the Golden Peacock Clan continue as they seek to reclaim their home and prevent the evil Gondaiyu from taking their most prized treasures.
Kojiro
A Tokugawa Daimyo rebels against an his lord after the battle of Sekigahara. Samurai Matabei, a famous spear fighter and warrior, is a vassal of lord Honjo. One of Honjo's most trusted under-lords is Sanzaemon. He has designs on Matabei's fief, and he plots to kill Matabei. He finally convinces Lord Honjo of Matabei's guilt. Now Matabei must fight to survive.
