Kankuro Kudo
Birth : 1970-07-19, Miyagi, Japan
History
Kankurō Kudō (宮藤 官九郎 Kudō Kankurō, born 19 July 1970) is a Japanese screenwriter, dramatist, director, actor and member of the theater company Otona Keikaku. He won the 'Best Screenplay' award at the 2002 Japanese Academy Awards for Go, which explores problems faced by people of Korean-heritage living in Japan. He acted in the hugely popular tear-jerker, Crying Out Love, In the Center of the World, and is also guitarist in the Japanese Comedy Rock Band Group Tamashii. Description above from the Wikipedia article Kankurō Kudō, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Akio Kanzaki’s job as head of human resources is wearing his nerves thinner and thinner. To make matters worse, he’s on the brink of divorce with his wife, and his relationship with his college-student daughter isn’t exactly smooth sailing. One day, he decides to drop in to Tokyo’s old-timey district to visit his mother Fukue. However, things seem a little off. His mother used to be always working with an apron on, but now she’s covered in stylish clothes, looking livelier than ever, and even in love! Akio becomes perplexed, feeling out of place in his own mother’s home, but after encountering kind, warm—and almost nosey—neighbors and a side of his mother he’d never seen before, Akio gradually starts to discover something he had lost sight of.
Fushimi
The story takes place during a summer of continuous sunshine when water supply restrictions are issued in the city. Shunsaku Iwakiri works for the city's water department and his job is to visit homes and stores that are behind on their bills and either collect the money or shut off the water supply (water suspension enforcement). Shunsaku is separated from his wife and children, and his heart grows thirsty as he spends his days visiting poor households and being abhorred. One day, during a water shutoff, Shunsaku meets two young sisters who have been neglected. He sees them as his own children and offers them a helping hand.
Screenplay
The drama depicts the exploits of the “Ichigeki Hishikkitai”, a special combat unit formed by farmers to deal with the "Imperial Robbers" and the "Imperial Thieves" of the Satsuma Clan who were causing a stir in Edo at the end of the Edo period.
Writer
Reiji's final mission is to prevent the smuggling of 600 billion yen of drugs. For his mission, he gets on luxury passenger ship and he faces his strongest enemy to date.
Loneliness 3
In 1964, Momoko came by herself to Tokyo from her hometown. She met Shūzō and married him. They raised two children together, but Shūzō suddenly passes away. Momoko is dumbfounded by being alone again. She begins to go to the library and borrows books. This changes her life.
Writer
Director
Writer
Junoshin Kake is a ronin. To get hired by the Kurokaze Han, he lies and tells them that a religious group is trying to destroy them. He gets hired by the Kurokaze Han, but they learn that Junoshin Kake lied. Junoshin Kake is given the death sentence and he must think of an escape plan.
Sawada
Makoto Tanaka is 40-years-old and has remarried. His wife is Nanae and they care for 2 daughters from Nanae's prior marriage. Makoto tries to have an ordinary family. Nanae then becomes pregnant. Afterwards, things begin to change among the family members.
Writer
As undercover cop Reiji takes on a new mission to takedown the Chinese mafia, elite police officer Shinya moves to arrest Reiji.
Sadao Haruyama
Yukio Haruyama (Riku Ohnishi) is an elementary school student. He has an uncle (Ryuhei Matsuda) that teaches philosophy part-time at an university. His uncle leeches off his family. The uncle then goes on a blind date and falls in love with beautiful Eri Inaba. She is a fourth generation Japanese living in Hawaii. Sometime later, Eri goes back to Hawaii to take over a coffee farm left behind by her recently deceased grandmother. Yukio and his uncle travel to Hawaii to see Eri.
Screenplay
After dying in a bus crash and falling to hell, high schooler Daisuke joins a demonic rock band so he can be reincarnated back into the mortal world.
Director
After dying in a bus crash and falling to hell, high schooler Daisuke joins a demonic rock band so he can be reincarnated back into the mortal world.
Manafu's father
GAMERA is a kaiju short film first released as a celebration of the 50th anniversary of Gamera's debut film.
Taro Kawaguchi
Moritaka Mashiro doesn't want to follow in the path of his uncle who worked as a manga artist, but ultimately died because of exhaustion. Moritaka Mashiro figures he will graduate from school and work at an office. Things change though when falls in love with a girl at school. The girl, who hopes to become a voice actress, tells Moritaka they can marry, but only after they both achieve their dreams. Moritaka then teams up with fellow classmate Akito Takagi to publish their first manga.
Manager of Asagaya Loft (cameo)
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.
Screenplay
Reiji Kikukawa, who has a strong sense of justice, graduated from the police academy with the lowest score ever. He becomes a police constable, but is suddenly fired by the Police Chief due to "disciplinary" issues. In actuality, the firing is part of a carefully orchestrated plan. Reiji is ordered to become a "mole," an undercover cop. His target is Shuho Todoroki, the boss of the Sukiyakai gang. The group is the largest crime group in the Kanto area. Masaya Hiura, who works as a young boss of a Sukiyakai affiliated gang likes Reiji. While going through various hardships, Reiji works his way towards Shuho Todoroki.
Screenplay
Ryoro Kurojima (Sadao Abe) is the director of a Tokyo apology center. His job is to teach others how to apologize. Ryoro Kurojima solves problems by using his apology techniques on anything from simple arbitration to a national crisis.
Screenplay
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: he doesn't get along with the housewives in the apartment complex and doesn't appear to work. Through his encounter with the mysterious single father, Katsuya grows as a person.
Director
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: he doesn't get along with the housewives in the apartment complex and doesn't appear to work. Through his encounter with the mysterious single father, Katsuya grows as a person.
Shigeru Mura
A woman from rural Japan marries a struggling cartoonist in Tokyo. Their life is difficult before he finds success, but at least they're together.
Director
Kabuki play
Writer
Kabuki play
Writer
Zebra City 2025 – music echoing across what used to be Tokyo from Zebra Queen marks the start of Zebra Time, a 5 minute window twice a day when the city population is free to commit any crime and the Vengeful Zebra Mini-Skirt Police and masked Zebra Police can shoot civilians at will. Zebraman wakes in the street, unable to remember the last 15 years, or his superhero past. He must rely on a band Zebra Time survivors, a man who played him in a TV show version of Zebraman and a mysterious silent girl to battle this Zebra obsession that is splitting the city in to absolutes of black and white.
The lakeside at Lake Yamanaka is covered with snow. In the vacation house in such a quiet area owned by the chairman of Watsuji Seiyaku, one of the leading pharmaceutical companies in Japan, the tragedy suddenly breaks out. ”I have killed my granduncle!!” says Mako, who is loved by everybody in the Watsuji family. She has stabbed her granduncle, Yohei, to death. Soon after the domestic homicide, the entire family joining together in an attempt to make it look like a crime committed by somebody outside the family, begins to engage in imitative deception...
Writer
Abandoned by his father as a boy, Yuta grows up as the foster son of a restaurant owner and takes over the restaurant at the owner's death. Cheery, always smiling, always helpful, Yuta is known as Yama-chan, the friend everyone turns to. When Yuta discovers he had a hitherto unknown baby brother, he sets out to track him down. But the baby brother, Yusuke, has grown up to be half of a successful comedy team, the Kinjo Brothers, and Yusuke's professional "brother" has just written a best-selling book about their adventures growing up together. Yuta's appearance on the scene threatens to reveal that the book is a complete fiction and to set all three "brothers" into conflict with each other.
Screenplay
A rebellious ninja in 17th century Japan takes refuge with a fisherman and his family.
Detective Sawaragi
A woman finds out her father is not her real one after her mother falls into a coma while searching for a mythical creature. She decides to meet her real father who happens to be an off-beat antique shopkeeper.
Screenplay
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.
Director
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.
Tetsuo Yakihata
28 year old freelance writer Sakura Asuka wakes up tied in a white room. The white room is a protected room located in an isolated ward of a psychiatric hospital. Sakura first became unconscious because of heavy alcohol use and a druge overdose. She’s confined in the single room because of her high risk of committing suicide. Sakura tried to talk to the nurses and doctors but they didn’t listen to her. Under the circumstances another patient Miki, who suffers from an eating disorder, leads her to understand the unknown world. But, Sakura is looking for the way to get back to the real world as soon as possible.
Writer
Kimihiko Onizuka is a salaryman infatuated with maiko (apprentice geisha) and whose greatest goal in life is to play a party game called "yakyuken" with one.
Sasuke
Orichalcum is a mystical metal material that gives great powers to the life form that possesses it. Many Eons ago, the Orichalcum was split into three and landed on Earth. The metal then took the form of three relics: Skanda’s Vajra, Jew’s Cross, and the Sword of Alexander. Anyone able to re-unite these three Orichalcum relics would then obtain the powers of a God. Now two rival aliens are in a heated race to reunite the Orichalcum. They land in Edo era Tokyo where the relics are thought to exist.
Screenplay
After terminally ill Bussan finally passes away he misses hanging out with his still living friends and decides to return to Kisarazu. In his ghost form however only his most trusted friends can see him, and his meddling in the lives of the living results in the return of Ozzy and a long dead team of American baseball players who drowned off the shores of Kisarazu. It's down to Bussan and the Cats to save the day and restore the town to order, but can Bussan bring himself to say bye-bye once and for all?
Sawada (voice)
Two penniless orphans, Black and White, struggle to survive on the mean streets of Treasure Town. When a megacorporation threatens to tear down the town to build an amusement park, Black and White engage in the fight of their life.
Tetsuya Yamekawa
While combing through the belongings of his recently deceased aunt, Matsuko, nephew Sho pieces together the crucial events that sank Matsuko's life into a despairing tragedy.
Mitsuo Usui
Hiroshi, a 30 year-old businessman, has traveled back in time 20 years. He encounters Kazumi, a young woman who was gravely ill. Hiroshi regarded this as an opportunity to help the young woman from his past, the memory of whom he had always cherished.
Screenplay
Yaji and Kita are two men who live in Edo. They are deeply in love. Yaji is married to a woman, while Kita is an actor addicted to various drugs.
Director
Yaji and Kita are two men who live in Edo. They are deeply in love. Yaji is married to a woman, while Kita is an actor addicted to various drugs.
Screenplay
Hoping to catch a girl's attention, high school students Ken and Adama cook up an ambitious plan. They plan a festival that combines film, theater, and rock music, and develop their project into a school road block. This plan however catches the attention of television stations and newspapers, and soon even the cops became involved in this teenage adventure.
Ryunosuke Oki
While searching for his fiancee Ritsuko, Sakutarou rediscovers through flashbacks the void deep within him caused by the events from his high school days.
Writer
Pharmaceutical student, Keiko witnesses her boyfriend having an affair. Shocked and disappointed, she jumps on a train ("destination anywhere, east or west, she don't care") and ends up in a town named Masao in Tokyo's remote suburbs. There, she gets a part-time job at a newly opened drugstore. What do ya know.. The local shopping district's middle-aged men all fall for the young girl's charms, and they start practicing lacrosse once they have found out that that's her favourite sport.
Writer
Being a failure as a teacher and a familyman, Shinichi tries to escape everyday live by dressing up as "Zebraman", the superhero. Although the TV series whas canceled after only 6 episodes, this cannot stop him from acting out his escape fantasy in a self made zebra-suit. He get's more then he could ever wish for, when his black-and-white dressed alter-ego seems to be the only thing to stand between absolute (green) evil and a happy ending.
Screenplay
When Bussan learns he has less than a year to live, he decides to continue his life as usual. He spends his time with his friends, a band called Kisarazu Cat's Eye. Their funny adventures range from playing gigs to solving a mystery surrounding counterfeit money, but Bussan's impending death is never far away.
Toru Kihara
A released inmate is hired to solve a murder case.
Kenji has a dull life. He is unmotivated at the office, and unable to break off a lukewarm relationship with his girlfriend. Then, he meets an old classmate from high school, Ryoichi. Ryoichi says he's starting up a clothing brand with a group of friends. One day, Kenji visits their atelier, or workplace, and is fascinated by the sense of freedom that they share. As his relationship with them deepens, Kenji finds it harder and harder to accept the old world he comes from. One day, he punches his boss and quits his job. Now a proper member of Ryoichi's team, it's the start of a new and carefree life for him. However, it is short-lived. The clothes they make do not sell as well as they hoped for. Short on cash, energy, and ideas, the negative feedback loop forces each of them to start struggling in a search for alternative paths.
Screenplay
As children, the introverted Smile was being bullied by a gang of kids until the brash Peco comes by and chases all of them them away. Peco then takes Smile under his wings and teaches him how to play the game of ping pong. From there a life long best friend relationship comes into existence between these two polar opposite kids.
Due to the effect of the prolonged great depression, finally even the police have to introduce a part-time job system for its employees. Although his main job is a steeplejack, one man is also employed as a day-laborer detective. He spends his days waiting for an incident to occur so he will be called in to investigate. On the other hand, Yasu is not only a graduate of The University of Tokyo with a successful IT business, he is also member of the Nagasaka yakuza clan. Moreover, he is a favorite of the clan leader.
Screenplay
Sugihara, a Japanese-born, third-generation Korean teenager struggles to find a place in a society that will not accept him.
Screenplay
Saeko Machida is a high school girl with a crush on a boy in her class named Yuichi Kimijima. Becoming obsessed with him, she tries to gain his attention and win his affections, but there's no such luck. One day, she meets a strange man at a flea-market who gives her a red liquid, telling her that if she splashes it on Yuichi, her wish will become true. She acquiring the liquid, certain that the liquid will cause Yuuichi to love her. Saeko finally gets the courage to confess her love to Yuichi, but he rejects her. Disappointed, she splashes the liquid on Yuichi, but that liquid actually causes him to shrink about three inches in height.
Ikuo Kashiwada
High School Student
Shinji and Masaru spend most of their school days harassing fellow classmates and playing pranks. They drop out and Shinji becomes a small-time boxer, while Masaru joins up with a local yakuza gang. However, the world is a tough place.
Writer
Set in Kyoto, Japan, a love story takes place between Hajime (Masaki Okada) and Reika (Kaya Kiyohara). Hajime is a handsome young man, who is usually a second quicker than everyone else and straightforward. He works at the post office. Reika is a young woman, who is usually a step slower than everyone else. After Valentine's Day, Hajime wakes up and is unable to remember what happened that day.