Toru Takemitsu

The story of the first century of Japanese cinema from the point of view of the controversial Japanese filmmaker Nagisa Ōshima.

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.

Um poderoso conglomerado japonês inaugura, em plena Los Angeles, a Torre Nakamoto. Na festa de lançamento uma série de empresários americanos são convidados, por estarem em negociações com os japoneses. Entretanto misteriosamente a garota de um dos executivos orientais aparece assassinada, durante a festa. Para investigar o caso são chamados o agente Web Smith (Wesley Snipes) e John Connor (Sean Connery), que viveu durante muito tempo no Japão. Enquanto Connor ensina a Smith aspectos da cultura nipônica, ambos investigam o assassinato.

Exquisite exploration of landscape and Toru Takemitsu's music for a Japanese moss garden.

In 1971, author and film scholar Donald Richie published a poetic travelogue about his explorations of the islands of Japan’s Inland Sea, recording his search for traces of a traditional way of life as well as his own journey of self-discovery. Twenty years later, filmmaker Lucille Carra undertook a parallel trip inspired by Richie’s by-then-classic book, capturing images of hushed beauty and meeting people who still carried on the fading customs that Richie had observed. Interspersed with surprising detours—a visit to a Frank Sinatra–loving monk, a leper colony, an ersatz temple of plywood and plaster—and woven together by Richie’s narration as well as a score by celebrated composer Toru Takemitsu, The Inland Sea is an eye-opening voyage and a profound meditation on what it means to be a foreigner.

Late in the 1500s, an aging tea master teaches the way of tea to a headstrong Shogun. Through force of will and courageous fighting, Hideyoshi becomes Japan’s most powerful warlord, unifying the country.

Shigematsu Shizuma lives with his senile mother, his wife Shigeko, and his niece Yasuko in a village near Fukuyama. He, his wife, his niece and his close friends in the village were present at the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The Shizumas look for prospective husbands for Yasuko, but find that the families withdraw on finding out she was at Hiroshima.

The 1986 Eurythmics tour of Japan. It is the end of the world tour during which Annie Lennox (vocals) and Dave Stewart (guitar) promote their latest album "Revenge". It is also, between concerts, the shock of discovery: a world of sounds as cultivated by the Japanese, both brutally technological and highly refined traditional expressions.

Young Kinu Yamabe is drawn to low-born Onimaru, who is vital and charismatic, but viewed by his father as a demon. After her first period, Kinu suffers the fate of any women born near the Sacred Mountain: she must leave the Mountain and serve as a priestess.

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.

This gripping docudrama is a fictionalized account of what could happen to a Japanese family when one of their sons shames them in front of the entire nation.

No Japão medieval, um velho senhor da guerra se aposenta, entregando seu império a seus três filhos. No entanto, ele subestima amplamente como o novo poder irá corrompê-los. O senhor de guerra japonês Hidetori Ichimonji decide que chegou o momento de se aposentar e dividir seu feudo entre seus três filhos. Seus filhos mai velho e do meio, Taro e Jiro, concordam com sua decisão e prometem apoiá-lo nos dias restantes de aposentadoria. O filho mais novo, Saburo, discorda de todos eles argumentando que há pouca probabilidade dos três irmãos permanecerem unidos. Insultado pela impaciência de seu filho caçula, o senhor da guerra o expulsa. Quando o senhor da guerra começa sua aposentadoria, ele rapidamente percebe que seus dois filhos mais velhos são egoístas e não têm intenção de cumprir suas promessas. Isso leva à guerra e só o banido Saburo pode salvá-lo.

Tatsuo, a reverent lumberjack, seeks to disrupt plans to build a marine park on his family land, instead promoting his traditions in reactionary ways.

In 1985, Chris Marker traveled to Japan to attend the filming of Ran, directed by Akira Kurosawa. Marker analyzes the progress of filming; the infinite patience of a team under the orders of a meticulous director down to the smallest detail; the antithetical mixture of the modern with the traditional; of the real with the fictitious; of life with cinema… and literature.

In 1985, Chris Marker traveled to Japan to attend the filming of Ran, directed by Akira Kurosawa. Marker analyzes the progress of filming; the infinite patience of a team under the orders of a meticulous director down to the smallest detail; the antithetical mixture of the modern with the traditional; of the real with the fictitious; of life with cinema… and literature.

Catalan architect Antonio Gaudí (1852-1926) designed some of the world's most astonishing buildings, interiors, and parks; Japanese director Hiroshi Teshigahara constructed some of the most aesthetically audacious films ever made. With camera work as bold and sensual as the curves of his subject's organic structures, Teshigahara immortalizes Gaudí on film.

The story of a Japanese man who as a 16-year-old went to Maui to work in the sugar cane fields in order to support his family back in Japan. Now 89 and still living in Hawaii he is visited by his granddaughter who brings him a letter from his disinherited and recently dead son. This brings back memories of his life with his wife and family following the attack on Pearl Harbor, in particular of his son who had gone off to join the war for the Americans.

One of the major documentaries on a specific chapter in modern Japanese history, this look at the trial of Japanese militarists accused of war crimes is excellently handled by director Masaki Kobayashi. Kobayashi and his assistants had to plough through 30,000 reels from the proceedings of the International Military Tribunal which took place between May, 1946 and November, 1948. It took two days to read the charges against the 100 alleged war criminals in the docket (only 28 top officials are actually in the courtroom, which was limited in space), and the final judgment took one week to read.

This rare documentary is one of the very last efforts from preeminent documentarist/activist Susumu Hani best known for his feature films. This one is a short documentary about the 1945 atomic bombing and its devastating consequences. The film came out of the "10 Foot Movement". A movement organized by the Japan Peace Museum, which mobilized Japanese citizen activists to buy back small segments of film footage of the effects of the atomic bomb from the U.S. National Archives. The film combines recent footage of survivors of the atomic bomb with American archival footage, portraying the sorrow of atomic bomb survivors in the cold war period.

Rennyo was the key figure responsible for the restoration of Shin Buddhism in Japan, in particular the Honganji lineage that had a slump in its fortunes during the Middle Ages. According to the legend, his motivation was a pivotal childhood incident at the age of six when his mother summoned him and told him about his destiny to revive the fortunes of the Honganji school to which he was the next in line. She then mysteriously disappeared from the temple. Taking her words to heart, from a background of great poverty and hardship, at the age of 16 he set out to spread the word across the land.

After a handful of groundbreaking films detailing the tragedy and suffering of the mercury-poisoned Japanese town of Minamata, documentary master Noriaki Tsuchimoto revisits the subject of Minamata through the eyes of the celebrated husband-and-wife painting duo Iri and Toshi Maruki. Tsuchimoto follows the Marukis from their quaint homestead studio, where they paint slews of ghastly, psychotropic mural panels depicting the effects of Minamata disease, to the streets of Minamata, where they meet and paint portraits of several victims of mercury poisoning.

'Ki or Breathing' is a spare concoction assembled from slow motion shots of nature and set to a score by the much-acclaimed Tohru Takemitsu.

An adaptation of “The Courier for Hell” (“Meido no Hikyaku”) by Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1725).

Set in Japan's Tenpyou era (729-749 CE), four young monks are sent to China to study Buddhism and bring a high priest back to Japan with them. The film tells the tale of the four monks' youth and the life and times of the high priest Ganjin.

Through puppets and animation, a traveler tells his story of walking through Settsu, coming to the town of Ikuta. He asks if someone can show him the Seeker's Mound. Late that day, a solitary maiden says she will lead him there.

An hour long documentary looking at the life of the Kato family, Japanese farmers living in Miyazaki city, Miyagi prefecture

A very beautiful Japanese woman is in love with Persian carpets. She is being chased by lecherous Saburi Shin and a handsome young photographer. Lecherous Saburi Shin knows what she wants, and is able to produce it for her.

Em uma aldeia japonesa por volta de 1895, Seki decide assassinar seu marido com a ajuda do jovem amante Toyoji. Eles estrangulam Gisaburo, se livram do corpo e mantêm o romance em segredo, para evitar suspeitas. Tempos depois, no entanto, as fofocas surgem, um inquérito é aberto e o fantasma do marido surge para assombrá-los.

A blind traveling musician is abused and oppressed wherever she goes, even as the modern world imposes change around her.

An industrialist is diagnosed with terminal cancer. He is on a trip to Europe at the time, and a glimpse of a Japanese woman in that setting causes him to fantasize about her as the personification of his impending death. As his dialogue with his imagined mortality continues, he actually meets the living woman who is the template for his fantasy, and together they tour rural churches. Gradually he comes to some kind of peace about the diagnosis. When he returns to Japan, he is met with a series of challenges which profoundly test the lessons he has learned.

A mountain man beheads his many wives to prove his love to an alluring woman he meets in an enchanted forest.

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.

Follows a young med student's relationships with two women: a dangerous affair with a childhood friend and his mother's struggle to rebuild their estranged relationship.

Minoru visits his home on Okinoerabu island for the first time in thirty years. Seeing the old man who used to be in love with his mother, Minoru recalls the old days spent on the island with his young, beautiful mother.

Sunaoko come to Okinawa to find his brother Tsuruo. Her searching is not very painless because it tears up old wounds in complicated relationships, some of which date back to the horrors of war.

The plight of U.S. Army deserters from Vietnam on the run in Japan, centering on the culture clash between the troubled Americans and the Japanese who try to help him.

Two Jesuit priests encounter persecution when they travel to Japan in the 17th century to spread Christianity and search for their mentor.

The story takes place in feudal Japan, when any commerce with the rest of the world was strictly prohibited. An idealist suddenly appears in an isolated inn (the one that the title refers to), the head-quarters of a group of smugglers, with stolen money intended to ransom his loved one who is forced to work in a brothel.

Masuo e Ritsuko, meio-irmãos que viveram na casa do avô poderoso e que agora já passam da juventude, estão de regresso pois receberam um telegrama com notícia nada auspiciosa. No caminho de volta, Masuo relembra sua vida permeada de perdas e uma cerimônia de casamento surreal. Nagisa Oshima narra em tons próximos de autobiografia a queda de uma tradicional família japonesa cheia de excessos e desenganos.

Vários contos na vida de habitantes de favelas de Tóquio, incluindo um jovem mentalmente deficiente obcecado com a condução de seu próprio bonde. Ao mesmo tempo trágico e transcendente, esse filme de Akira Kurosawa acompanha o cotidiano de um grupo de pessoas maltrapilhas em uma favela nos arredores de Tóquio. Por mais desesperadoras que sejam suas circunstâncias, cada um deles - O pai e o filho sem teto imaginando a casa de seus sonhos; A jovem abusada pelo tio; O garoto que se imagina um condutor de bonde - encontra razões para continuar. O inesquecível Dodes'ka-den foi feito num momento tumultuado na vida de Kurosawa. E todas as suas esperanças, medos e paixão artística estão em exibição fervorosa neste filme, seu primeiro filme gloriosamente a cores. (e 12 - Estimado 12 Anos)

Enquanto tenta recuperar a sua câmera, confiscada pela policia durante as filmagens de uma manifestação estudantil, um jovem testemunha o suicidio de um amigo, que deixa um filme inacabado como testamento. Junto com a amante abandonada pelo companheiro morto, tenta acompanhar os seus últimos paradeiros, mas apenas se perdem no cenário quotidiano, começando a refilmar as mesmas paisagens, tentando penetrar na personalidade do amigo desaparecido, de maneira a compreender o significado do filme-testamento, e por conseguinte, da sua própria morte.

Thriller about a Japanese-American CIA agent (Kayama) in Japan.

Successful and married with children, paper-mill owner Jihei knows better than to contradict the strict social and moral codes of 18th-century Japan. But when he meets the lovely courtesan Koharu, he becomes a man obsessed. Koharu returns his love, even foregoing other customers while Jihei schemes to somehow buy her freedom. His efforts yield ruinous consequences for his business and his family life, and Koharu is meanwhile purchased by another client.

Successful and married with children, paper-mill owner Jihei knows better than to contradict the strict social and moral codes of 18th-century Japan. But when he meets the lovely courtesan Koharu, he becomes a man obsessed. Koharu returns his love, even foregoing other customers while Jihei schemes to somehow buy her freedom. His efforts yield ruinous consequences for his business and his family life, and Koharu is meanwhile purchased by another client.

Documentary on the city of Kyoto, Japan. Topics include the Ryoanji Temple stone garden, a geisha residence, the Katsura Imperial Villa, and the Gion Festival.

Zensaku, middle-aged and deaf in one ear, learns that his son's fallen for the daughter of a war officer responsible for the maiming.

A private detective is hired to find a missing man by his wife. While his search is unsuccessful, the detective's own life begins to resemble the man for whom he is searching.

A teenage goldsmith with a dark past tragically falls in love with a young nude model.

Love story of a working-class boy and girl.

A man is involved in a fatal car accident, and though he is blameless, his company transfers him to a remote branch in a small town. Before he leaves, he gives the man's widow a large sum of money that she uses to move back to her hometown.

A mãe do único herdeiro de um senhor feudal é raptada para longe do marido pelo lorde. O marido e o seu pai samurai devem decidir se acatam a decisão injusta ou arriscam a morte para recuperá-la.

Former playmates (Naito and Tamura), both long ago abandoned by their parents, recall their youth and fall in love.

A businessman with a disfigured face obtains a lifelike mask from his doctor, but the mask starts altering his personality.

A businessman with a disfigured face obtains a lifelike mask from his doctor, but the mask starts altering his personality.

Seeking revenge against the guard who tormented him, a young man returns to the island where he was imprisoned in reform school. But his plans for vengeance are disturbed when he encounters a strange and beautiful young woman

Epic saga of an idealistic land-owning family dealing with militarism, war, social change and economic reform.

A look inside the world of a young Japanese woman during the time of the Tokyo Olympiad (1964), from French New Wave Left Bank director Chris Marker.

"When human beings venture too far along a trail made by wild beasts, it is said, they quite often discover themselves on a road of no return." Based on the novel of the same name by Seichô Matsumoto.

The ghost of a samurai's wife takes revenge on her husband.

Years of warfare end in a Japan unified under the Tokugawa shogunate, and samurai spy Sasuke Sarutobi, tired of conflict, longs for peace. When a high-ranking spy named Tatewaki Koriyama defects from the shogun to a rival clan, however, the world of swordsmen is thrown into turmoil. After Sasuke is unwittingly drawn into the conflict, he tracks Tatewaki, while a mysterious, white-hooded figure seems to hunt them both. By tale’s end, no one is who they seemed to be, and the truth is far more personal than anyone suspected. Director Masahiro Shinoda’s Samurai Spy, filled with clan intrigue, ninja spies, and multiple double crosses, marks a bold stylistic departure from swordplay film convention.

Traveling to Africa in a cultural exchange program, a young Japanese engineer discovers a world completely unlike the one he knows. His interaction with the Africans he meets reveals to him that he has been living a lie, and that he is not the man he thought he was.

This is the sequel to Jose Torres (1959), the portrayal of Puerto Rican boxer Jose Torres, who won a silver medal in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. We follow Torres from his training in preparation to challenge world lightweight champion Willie Pastrano, to the match and Torres’ victory in 1965. The contrast between the nervous Torres before the match, filmed in painstaking detail, and the first round, filmed in one shot, is striking.

When the man who seduced the famous painter Otoko as a teenager--and then wrote a bestselling novel about it--reappears in her life, her pupil--and lesbian lover--hatches a plot to destroy the man and his family.

Produção japonesa contada em quatro histórias. Em "Black Hair", samurai divórcia-se da mulher que ama para se casar com outra pelo dinheiro; em "The Woman in the Snow", lenhador encontra mulher congelada e o espírito dela aparece para revelar detalhes de sua vida, pedindo a ele que jamais conte a ninguém - mas dez anos depois ele esquece a promessa; em "Hoichi the Earless", o jovem e cego Hoichi vive num monastério e passa a cantar para fantasmas do império; e "In a Cup of Tea" fala de um escritor que vê uma misteriosa face refletida numa xícara de chá.

Produção japonesa contada em quatro histórias. Em "Black Hair", samurai divórcia-se da mulher que ama para se casar com outra pelo dinheiro; em "The Woman in the Snow", lenhador encontra mulher congelada e o espírito dela aparece para revelar detalhes de sua vida, pedindo a ele que jamais conte a ninguém - mas dez anos depois ele esquece a promessa; em "Hoichi the Earless", o jovem e cego Hoichi vive num monastério e passa a cantar para fantasmas do império; e "In a Cup of Tea" fala de um escritor que vê uma misteriosa face refletida numa xícara de chá.

Mixed-race children in Japan become involved in the petty theft of car parts.

A young woman (Dan) who worked as a prostitute in the days following World War II finds herself sexually dissatisfied with her husband and contemplates returning to an old lover who comes back into her life.

Assassination begins with the events of 1853 when "four black ships" anchored at Edo Bay, sparking civil unrest and the major political manoeuvring that saw the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate. At a time when assassination had become a disturbing political tool, Shinoda's film follows Hachiro Kiyokawa, an ambitious, masterless samurai whose allegiances drift dangerously between the Shogunate and the Emperor.

As Japan is preparing to host the Olympics, a gang member wanting to go to America is sought after by the police after helping his friend conduct a robbery.

Mototsugu is the younger son of Akira Sakawa, a director of an advertising agency whose mother, Nobuko, is ill with cancer of the liver. His elder brother, Ichiro, works at the Bank of Japan whose wife, Masuko, is from a very high-class family. Mototsugu becomes disgusted with such strait-laced living and leaves home to marry Yoshiko, a blind masseuse, and they live in a small apartment near a pinball parlor where he works.

Muraki, a hardboiled Yakuza gangster, has just been released from prison after serving a sentence for murder. Revisiting his old gambling haunts, he meets Saeko, a striking young upper-class woman who is out seeking thrills, and whose presence adds spice to the staid masculine underworld rituals. Muraki becomes her mentor while simultaneously coping with the shifts of power that have affected the gangs while he was interred. When he notices a rogue, drug-addicted young punk hanging around the gambling dens, he realizes that Saeko's insatiable lust for intense pleasures may be leading her to self-destruction.

Um entomologista amador resolve sair da cidade e passar o fim de semana numa área desértica do Japão, a fim de coletar insetos raros. Ele pernoita numa casa onde habita uma estranha mulher. Logo ele vai perceber que caiu em uma armadilha sem saída.

A day in the life of Ako, a 16 year old Japanese girl, and her friends and co-workers. An alarm clock wakes her in a dorm; she gets ready for work and travels to a large bakery. We see her with friends, chatting and laughing, as well as working. They go out, seven of them jammed in an old Pontiac: bowling, then to an amusement park, then driving around. Car trouble may put her at risk. Is she going to be okay?

Kenichi Horie is determined to challenge his family, the law and the nature crossing the Pacific to America in a small sailboat. Despite his careful planning many unforeseen events will test his determination.

As her husband Eiichi becomes more entangled in his life as businessman, Naoko looks for ways to expand her own life even as her husband's life shrinks in scope and intimacy. She finds new interests, new love, and a greater sense of her place in the world.

In this Japanese drama, a dry goods merchant's daughter is surprised to discover that she has a twin sister. In rural Japan it was thought that twins bring bad luck, so the sister was abandoned at birth. Later her parents tell her that her sister was kidnapped. The woman doesn't believe this and when she eventually meets her twin, both women are involved in love affairs. The merchant's daughter is seeing an educated fellow. Trouble ensues when she begins suspecting that he may be more interested in her sister.

Takashi Fujiki stars as a rebel in this drama about life on the Yokohama waterfront by New Wave director Masahiro Shinoda. The rebel works as an errand boy for a shipping company and vents his frustrations by plucking on the guitar. His interpretations of popular trends in music are sometimes right-on, and sometimes not exactly. Bereft of his guitar, the rebel's modes of expression are not as effective in generating interest as the Yokohama docks themselves, a fascinating world in their own right.

Em um tempo de paz os samurais não eram necessários e estavam vivendo em completa miséria sem alguma casa para servir. Alguns pediam para realizar o harakiri dentro das residências de nobres apenas para extorquí-los; com pena, os senhores davam algum dinheiro ao guerreiro e o mandavam embora. Um nobre recebe um jovem samurai com este propósito e decide obrigá-lo a tirar a própria vida.

A montage of scenes that describe how people can be as bad as animals.

A man wanders into a seemingly deserted town with his young son in search of work. But after a bit of bad luck, he joins the town's population of lost souls.

A man wanders into a seemingly deserted town with his young son in search of work. But after a bit of bad luck, he joins the town's population of lost souls.

Diretores ao redor do mundo apresentam diferentes perspectivas sobre o que é o amor aos 20 anos.

On his deathbed, a wealthy businessman announces that his fortune is to be split equally among his three illegitimate children, whose whereabouts are unknown to his family and colleagues. A bevy of lawyers and associates scheme to procure the money for themselves, enlisting the aid of impostors and blackmail.

A woman becomes dissatisfied with her marriage and joins a political theater troupe to protest the U.S. Security Pact.

A young woman arrives at a resort and is soon pursued by a young man. Initially, he appears to be infatuated with her, but it becomes clear he simply wants to seduce her.

A young delinquent takes part in a robbery and is sentenced to a juvenile detention center, where he clashes with other youths and reflects on his life experiences.

A reckless student contemplates terrorism in a prescient film that confirmed Shinoda as a fearless member of Shochiku’s iconoclastic New Wave. At the height of student protests, Shimojo (Shinichiro Mikami) takes his aggressions to another level, beset by seemingly insoluble feelings of alienation.

A documentary about the eponymous Puerto Rican boxer

Tane, the lady proprietor of an inn for amorous couples, lives there with her three children. When her eldest daughter loses her fiancé due to the fact her mother is a mistress, her despair drives her to become a cabaret hostess.

Two brothers compete for the amorous favors of a young woman during a seaside summer of gambling, boating, and drinking.

A surrealist commercial for bicycles.