Naoki Kaneko

Looks back 20 years into the past of an elderly woman who died of heatstroke and paints a picture of a solitary woman's genuine despair.

Kuwahata Chokichi used to be a famous actor, but now he's suspected to be suffering from dementia. He is betrayed by his older daughter, Yukiko, her husband-cum-his-former-disciple, Ikuo, and Yukiko's lover, a mysterious driver, and gets sent to a high-class old folks' home. One day, Choukichi runs away from the home and wanders to the beach where he meets his younger daughter, Nobuko, who he had with his lover. Although he had thrown Nobuko out in the past, he begins to imagine seeing her as the image of Cordelia, who is the beloved daughter of King Lear, after talking to her. Gradually, his past memories start to come back to him, and Choukichi heads towards the world of insanity.

Based on a popular manga series of the same name, this Japanese romantic comedy follows the lives of two high school students, Kotoko, a bubbly girl who’s hopeless in school, and Naoki, her smart and handsome senior. Although Kotoko gathers up the courage to confess her love to him, he bluntly rejects her in public. But fate works in mysterious ways - when her house collapses, a childhood friend of her father’s, Mr. Irie, invites them to live with his family, and she learns that the son of Mr. Irie is none other than Naoki himself…

One morning, a man named Hiromi wakes up and finds himself transformed into a woman―the movie has a setting similar to Franz Kafka’s ʺThe Metamorphosis.ʺ However, its theme is gender gap. When the man who has lived a depressing life happens to live as a woman, the world looks totally different from the one he has lived in. Being torn between gender and sex, he gropes for a way he should live.

Former delinquent Hiroe leads a dreary existence. She meets a boy named Tatsutoshi whose younger sister was killed in a road accident and tries to cheer him up by creating a fake ritual to bring the dead back to life. To turn her deception into reality, she takes Tatsutoshi on a journey to the seaside.

Dan Mitsu stars as Kana, a female employee at a publishing company who strikes up a sexual relationship with a younger co-worker. He soon discovers that Kana's fetishes extend to sadomasochistic tendencies, involving a mysterious man only known as "Sensei". This discovery will push his relationship with Kana to a new, dangerous level that he may not be ready for.

In 2010, 31,560 people ended their own lives and about 20,000 people died or went missing with the earthquake. Unemployed widower Fujio Murai’s family tragedy contains instances of both; diagnosed with lung cancer, Fujio refuses surgery and returns home with his son Yoshio.

Following the 2011 tsunami, three women reunite in the family home only to rekindle tense, ruinous relationships.

In Edo-era Japan, a ukiyo-e artist languishes in his master’s shadow. Creatively stifled, he finds consolation in the company of a prostitute, and becomes entangled in a love triangle. A mystery emerges involving two portraits and the sudden disappearance of the artist Sharaku. Helmed by Cannes-selected director Tatsuji Yamazaki, the film employs kabuki-inspired sequences and stylised sets.

Stuck in a fishing village in Hokkaido, Tadao's grand-daughter Haru is desperate to visit Tokyo, a trip Tadao is reluctant to make.

The prison guards working in penitentiaries where death row inmates are locked up are forced to spend their daily lives constantly facing death.

Coincidence and the aftermath of violence. A man's middle-school daughter has been murdered. His wife is already deceased. He tells a counselor he wants to live in anonymity, working with his hands. He moves away and gets a job in a factory. The woman who is the mother of the killer wants to apologize to the father, although she knows it would change nothing. He refuses to meet. She moves back to her hometown. She works in the kitchen at an inn where the man now lives. No one speaks. He eats alone. He reads in his apartment. She walks to her home and has a sandwich. She keeps her eyes lowered. He drives to work. Does either want to connect? What bond can they establish?

Oda is a cowardly and boring man, his only redeeming feature being his diligence. He continues to live with his wife, Ayane, but they can't seem to produce children and are troubled as to whether their relationship will survive. One evening Oda returns home to find a pair of blue toy handcuffs hanging on the doorknocker. Using them, Oda humiliates Ayane. Although bewildered at first, Ayane begins to respond, and Oda becomes increasing excited as he sexually assaults her. In truth, the blue handcuffs were Ayane's contrivance. There was a time in the past when she used to reach climax...

Middle-aged farmer Noda Masao (Daichi Yasuo) is a good, honest man, but his attempts for marriage have all met with failure. Through a friend, Masao meets Liberty (Ruby Moreno), a Filipino woman working in Japan. When they decide to get married, Masao borrows money from his Agricultural Association and travels to the Philippines for the wedding - only to discover that it was all a scam. Stranded in Manila with no money, Masao ends up staying to work. One day he meets a beautiful farmer's daughter, Christina (Alice Dixson), reawakening not only his chances for love, but also his love for farming.

A non-prolific writer, Takayama Osamu and his wife, Yoshiko, though not blessed with children, live happily together. They should have had peaceful twilight years, but instead, Yoshiko suffers from Alzheimer's Disease, and Osamu also falls ill. Yoshiko, who cannot cope with daily life any longer, goes into a care home, and Osamu is admitted to a hospital, resulting in them living their remaining lives separately. One day, after some time, the couple who have kept battling their illnesses, manage to meet each other. Osamu breathes his last breath on the following day. People around Yoshiko find it difficult to inform her, but she seems to sense Osamu's death.

Yuko is a Japanese girl who was taken hostage in Iraq while volunteering there as an aid worker. Finally released and back in her hometown, Yuko finds herself ostracized as a national disgrace by society that sees her helping a country other than Japan, and the embarrassment of getting captured but not killed, as things of which to be brutally ashamed.

Kazuo Murata is a detective who has lost his wife and eventually the meaning of his existence.

In the near future, crime runs rampant in the streets and two major mafia groups are battling for power. In order to eliminate the two mafia groups, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department orders an undercover investigation of their headquarters. However, the ones chosen for the mission are four people known as "losers". Will they be able to successfully solve the case?

Asaka Ai is a budding starlet waiting for her big break to make it into the limelight. Under the dedicated tutelage of her manager Bando she shuffles from one photo shoot to the next, most often resulting in her image being used on various advertising posters. With the help of a catchy tune, Ai and Bando anticipate she will finally break out of merely poster appearances and into television commercials and from there, real stardom. The song is entitled "If this is a Dream Wake Me" (Yume Nara Samete) and was written by Ai's friend Hiromi just prior to Hiromi jumping headlong off a tall building. But as things started to go well, a stalker shows up knowing anything and everything about Ai...

A girl called Zero stands in a crowded street, her occupation an assassin. As she completes her tasks one after another, Zero has been feeling uneasy lately. As her code name suggests, she has nothing to prove her existence. She overlaps herself with the vanishing landscape and begins to wander in search of the meaning of her own existence. At the same time, a young man named One is also wandering the streets, and like Zero, he is an assassin. Surrounded by a sense of emptiness, he is unable to find the value of his own existence. One day, the two of them meet as if they were led together. They sense each other, and by touching each other, they regain their existence and humanity. However, the organization feels that contact between assassins is dangerous, and decides to dispose of them. They call in a highly skilled assassin. Their battle for their own existence begins now!

Sachi Hamano's Yurisai (Lily Festival) is about a man (Mickey Curtis) in his seventies who comes to live in an apartment building that also houses seven elderly women. The film examines the ladies' sexual desires as the man proceeds to woo each of them. Kazuko Yoshiyuki portrays one of the female residents. The film was adapted from a novel by Houko Momotani and was screened at the Montreal World Film Festival.

Sachiko, a young woman frustrated with her life of dull routine, and seeking stimulation outside the deadening monotony of housework and catering to her needy husband, befriends Kobayashi, a neighbor whose wife has been carrying on an affair right under his very nose.

Two wives who leave their husbands behind and go on a hot spring trip, and two husbands who play homosexual games because it's not fair for them to be the only ones enjoying it. In contrast to the wives, who warm each other's bodies with hot water and lesbian play, the husbands cool each other's bodies by facing each other naked on a dark table with a bottle of sugar. There is another couple in danger of getting married because their parents disapprove of their relationship, but these two also change their mind, saying that marriage is between them. The story focuses on the liberation and change of consciousness of these three couples, who audaciously kiss on the street to get warm, and rethink their love and freedom.

Kiriko is a beautiful woman working in a quiet hot spring town. The owner of the inn, Goro, is attracted to her beauty and asks her out, but she refuses. Meanwhile, Imai, a detective staying at the inn, recognizes Kiriko's face and investigates her past on his own.

Kenji breaks up with his girlfriend and goes to stay with his brother, Ryosuke, who is married but is having an affair with a local waitress. It becomes clear quickly that Ryosuke is unhappy with his marriage to Haruyo, who desperately tries to get them to reconnect. One night Kenji goes out alone, to see the mistress of his brother...and they fool around.

Asako and Yamada, after getting drunk for the first time and going straight to the hotel, spend a hot night, but they are separated by a fire that has started. The fireman Sudo saved Asako and fell in love with her at first sight. A sensual drama depicting a strange love triangle between a female beautician and two men, which began with a fire in the hotel of love.

Ayaka Miyazono and Aizawa Echika both live in Roppongi, Tokyo.They investigate a woman's death.

A man named Shiki has been sent to a company in Matsuyama. Since Shiki was famous as a baseball club member at a previous company, there is a story about baseball clubs in the company. Ken, who was a player in high school, participated without being reluctant, supported by his lover Michiko.

Keiko, a young, newly hired weather woman, is eager to give her channel's flagging ratings a boost. She decides a panty shot might do the trick, so during her forecast she lifts her skirt, thereby capturing the attention and the hearts of viewers. Keiko's stunt creates such a stir of excitement over the weather report that viewers begin religiously turning in to see what she'll do next. However, this showboating routine earns the ire of Kaori, the beautiful and ambitious daughter of JTV's chairman. Jealous of her success and aching to take over the weather report, Kaori is willing to do just about anything to get what she wants.

The sensual images depict the love and hatred between four men and women living together, creating a new kind of love story. One night, alcoholic writer Akimoto and live-in former actress Yumiko meet Koichi, a gay drug dealer pursued by the yakuza, and his younger brother Yuji, a castrated man. The four of them flee Tokyo and start living together in Koichi and Yuji's childhood hideout. In the midst of their peaceful life, Yumiko falls in love with Yuji, but he is unable to give her any physical satisfaction. In the meantime, Yuji asks Koichi to hold Yumiko instead of him, which leads to jealousy among the men.

A down-and-out scriptwriter spends his days and nights in the bars of Tokyo. When he is thrown out of a joint because it is closing time, there is always a willing lady to spend the rest of the night with. In the street he has countless semi-philosophical discussions with fellow drinkers, male and female, (shot in black-and-white, as prologue to the different chapters) but in the end it often comes down to one thing: the bottle of whisky that has to be finished. An encounter with a homeless young man with AIDS marks a turning point in the life of the writer.

There was a man, a novelist, who had unavoidably turned his hand to sensual novels for a living, but now made a living out of it. One morning while jogging, he picks up a lighter and cigarettes dropped by a bookstore owner, and decides to deliver them to the store. When there is no answer to the doorbell, he goes to the back of the store and looks in the slightly open window to find the owner tying up a female clerk and engaging in SM play.

Mayumi Hirose lived with her husband Yasuhiro and younger sister Miki. Her girlfriend Yasuhiro, who was in the prime of his career, was busy every day, had many business trips overseas, and often returned home late at night. One day, my cousin Tadao came to Tokyo from his hometown. Tadao, who lost his family, ends up staying at Mayumi's house.

The story of two men, one middle aged one mid twenties, who make friends and exchange cigarettes and stories of their sex lives, unaware they have unwittingly exchanged partners. The story, told in flashbacks, as the two men travel through the night on a motorcycle, is loaded with highly charged eroticism. Sex and violence are juxtaposed against the drabness of the men's everyday lives, effectively blurring the line between what is real and what is fantasy. Founded on the well-known myth of furtive sexual gropers on the rush-hour Tokyo commuter trains, Tandem is a low-key masterpiece of Japanese Pink Cinema.

A man with a troubled past including incest with a younger sister and the murder of a woman travels to an isolated countryside town in Nagano. There a local who mistakes him for a famous television actor shows him the town's sites, including a strip bar in which the performers remove Heian era costumes. The film's narrative is in an allegorical and disjointed manner with references to Buddhist concepts.

A Japanese middle class family is about to make a journey on a hot summer’s afternoon. But their annual holiday is haunted by mishaps.

Tomoko and Naomi have had a lesbian relationship since their high school days. They meet again a few years later, and this film depicts the course of their love. Tomoko's strong obsession with Naomi and her intense sexual desire excite the audience. The beauty of the last scene is a must-see!

The first film about Kiriko - a blind woman with a sword.

Fumio, who works at an ironworks, has an affair with Yoko, the wife of the president of the ironworks. The wife of Shimizu, a detective who investigates Yoko's background at the request of Nobuo, the president of the company, is also having an affair with his mistress, Kenichi. Nobuo becomes angry and impulsive. Upon receiving the report, a jealous Nobuo impulsively kills Shimizu and appears with an iron pipe in front of Fumio and Yoko, who are entangled in an ironworks. The story accelerates toward the end as the impulsive murderer brings together a man and a woman in a love-hate relationship at a villa in Izu....

Three sketches each from a different director: (1) a dancer who is attracted to lesbians; (2) a call girl who is accosted by a cruel man; (3) a male transvestite - the hentai of the title - exposed at a sunny place.

Yoichi, who works for an advertising agency becomes heavily obsessed with a strange woman, things go unexpected, leading to a divorce and other disasters...

A unique pink film that vividly depicts the reality of prostitution in a secret club and, as an addition, strange sexual games between women and men.