Ume
A drama of two aging women who live a solitary life collecting discarded items from a nearby town. One day they return home to find a young girl knitting a red sweater in their house. Each time the girl finishes her dress, she promptly unravels it and the mystery unfolds.
Azumaya
When Tetsuya (Yosuke Kubozuka) was 10-years-old he met Emi (Meisa Kuroki), who suffered from a heart disease. In hopes to cure Emi's condition, Tetsuya decided to become a doctor. Following through on his dreams, Tetsuya is now a doctor and is about to marry Emi. One day though, Tetsuya hears about Don (Edison Chen). Tetsuya remembers the times he spent with Emi and Don as a child and also feels insecure about Don.
Based on the first novel, Spring Snow, of Mishima Yukio's Sea of Fertility tetralogy, it follows the troubled and illicit affair between two youngsters amongst the aristocracy and rich of early twentieth century Japan.
Narrator (voice)
A sheltered aristocratic woman in feudal Japan, bored and unfamiliar with the world outside her estate, passes the time copying a special Buddhist sutra sent by her father who has been absent on official business for years. While gazing out her window one late afternoon, the setting sun creates a vision of a holy figure in the distant mountains.
Higuchi Ichiyo is the first female professional novelist in Japanese literature. This tanpatsu drama is a biography of her personal life.
2004 film
Winter Days is a 2003 animated film, directed by Kihachirō Kawamoto. It is based on one of the renku (collaborative linked poems) in the 1684 collection of the same name by the 17th-century Japanese poet Bashō. The creation of the film followed the traditional collaborative nature of the source material – the visuals for each of the 36 stanzas were independently created by 35 different animators. As well as many Japanese animators, Kawamoto assembled leading names of animation from across the world. Each animator was asked to contribute at least 30 seconds to illustrate their stanza, and most of the sequences are under a minute (Yuriy Norshteyn's, though, is nearly two minutes long).
Otome
In a world where vendettas are officially sanctioned, the people sometimes needed help in carrying out their vengeance. Sanada Hiroyuki stars as Sukeroku the Helper, a ‘cool and rambling yakuza’ that has made a business out of helping victims carry out their revenge. When he returns to his hometown to pay a visit to his mother’s grave he meets a deadly ronin who carries a secret which eventually leads him into a vendetta of his own.
Based on the ancient Japanese Tale of Genji. This film is set in 900AD and tells the story of a famous female writer of the time, Murasaki Shikibu. Her story begins from the death of her husband, a Japanese noble, then moves on to her recruitment to train the Prince's young 'wives in waiting'. It is dotted throughout and actually composed mainly of one of the fictional stories she wrote, the tale of Genji. Genji is a rich playboy who falls in love and has a son to his stepmother. He falls in love often and has many wives whom are all completely subservient to him. Genji is played by a woman actress from the all-female Takarazuka theatre. The two interrelating stories are also interrupted occasionally by fantasimical musical clips from a past Japanese teen-idol, Seiko Matsuda.
Cleaning Lady
Kotaro and Kuroe marry almost immediately in a Christian ceremony and move into an apartment. Life is completely joyous until, one day, Kuroe falls ill.
A new magistrate in the town of Horisoto—widely reputed to be the most lawless township in Japan, uses guile and his opponents' own misperceptions and prejudices to defeat his enemies and uproot corruption.
Produced for Fuji TV in 2000, the film reinterprets the story of a special samurai force - the Shinsengumi - at the end of the Edo period.
Taeko Kano
Mitsu works in a factory and has a crush on Tsutomu, a young man she met on the Tokyo streets. One day the two go out, and after some deception, Tsutomu manages to have his way with her. Coming from a broken home, he is frightened by love, so he cruelly allows her to wake up alone. A month passes and a more grown-up Tsutomu returns. The lovers joyously reunite and move in together. All is blissful until both notice a strange sore on Mitsu's arm. The doctors diagnose it as leprosy. Without telling Tsutomu, Mitsu checks into a leper sanitarium. Hanging out with society's pariahs gives her much insight. She discovers the old lepers to be wonderful people. In turn, Mitsu becomes their source of joy and renewed hope. Still, she misses her Tsutomu. One day, the doctors inform her that they erred and that the sore is not leprosy. Happily she heads back to her true love until she realizes with a guilty pang that to return to him would mean unhappiness for her newfound friends
Kotake Tajimi / Koume Tajimi
A band of samurai warriors places a curse on a family fortune thus frustrating the heir 4 centuries later.
School Master
Sequel to the 1995 film Haunted School aka Gakkou no Kaidan. Similar to the first, in that it's about a group of youngsters that get stuck in a haunted school and have to deal with an assortment of ghosts.
Ohama
Thief Yaheiji (Keizo Kanie) helped a dying young samurai (Hiroaki Murakami), after recovering, he lost his memory and returned to Edo under the name of Yataro Tanigawa. Yaheiji meets Yataro again in Edo, by which time Yataro has become a dark hunter (Hired Assassin). The boss of thieves to whom Yaheiji obeys is killed, and Yaheiji participates in the battle to take his place Yataro helps him defeat and save his life, and Yaheiji also tries to save Yataro from the world of assassins... The drama "Dark Hunter" is based on the novel by Shotaro Ikenami, who is best known for his TV series Onihei Hankacho, Kenkaku Shobai and Fujieda Baian's Shikake-nin. The film version directed by Hideo Gosha is well known, but this version is more faithful to the original.
Period piece about a samurai who marries a mysterious beautiful young woman who claims to have lost her memory.
Old geisha Miyako (cameo)
Hong Kong student Ben Lee becomes friends with his mainland Chinese classmate Chang Chih while studying abroad in Japan. Ben is unmotivated to study and only cares about money and on the other hand, whenever Chih encounters a Chinese person, he would ask whereabouts of his childhood sweetheart. Ming is also from Hong Kong and in order to elevate his social status, he becomes involved with a bar hostess and owner Yuriko, hoping to become Yakuza leader Yamada Ishikawa's brother in-law.
Natsu Mizukami
The patriarch of a bickering family announces his retirement, stirring competition about who will succeed him as a leading practitioner of Noh theater, his granddaughter or grandson.
Maid-In-Waiting
Warlords Kagetora and Takeda each wish to prevent the other from gaining hegemony in feudal Japan. The two samurai leaders pursue one another across the countryside, engaging in massive battles of cavalry and infantry. Younger and less brutal, Kagetora must find the strength to be as brutal as his opponent, but at what cost?
Narration (voice)
On her fifteenth birthday the princess finds a diary written by her mother when she was young. The diary tells of the Queen's secret, early love. The Princess goes into the forest to meet her mother's former lover. When she looks into his eyes, she realizes why her mother had fallen in love...
Wife
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.
Kichibi
Based on the folk tales "Repayment from a crane". One snowy night a beautiful woman named Tsuru (Crane) visits poor peasant Taiju and says she will become his wife...
Narrator
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...
Benten
Having been demoted for failing to prevent the murder of one of his superiors, Mondo is startled by a group of masked thugs who are soon attacked in turn by an unseen force. He begins to suspect the work of assassins, but whose side are they on?
The Gotokuji family has a colossal amount of money. Yuri is a paid housekeeper and sent to this family. While working at the house, she finds a new form of love.
Nobuko Kitashiro
A 30-year-old man's life gets up-ended when his girlfriend accepts an arranged marriage meeting with a more successful man.
Kuginukiya
Story of famed Japanese actress Kinuyo Tanaka, with an emphasis on her working relationship with director Kenji Mizoguchi.
Ohba, Head Nurse
Two interns and a nurse are interrogated by American MPs for their involvement in an atrocity during the war: the vivisections of a downed American air crew.
Fusako Ishimoto
Narumi Rokuheita and his wife Noriko spend their lives separated. Soon they start looking for love elsewhere.
Based on the comic book of the same name by Youko Shouji
Self
An extremely lovely tribute to Ozu, on the 20th anniversary of his death. It uses a combination of footage from vintage films and new material (both interviews and Ozu-related locations) shot by Ozu's long-time camera-man (who came out of retirement to work on this). Surprisingly (or perhaps not), it focuses less on Ozu's accomplishments as a film-maker than on his impact on the lives of the people he worked with..
Kimie Hasenuma
Naomi is a university student who is leaving for the US to study in a week; Shuichi is a washed-up gumshoe who's hired by Naomi's father to bodygard his daughter until she leaves. Shuichi finds the job annoying and wants to quit. But he also has a screwed-up ex and alimony to pay. Things go from bad to worse when Naomi and Shuichi stumble upon a murder which might involve the yakuza. They decide to find out who committed the murder but God knows what it will lead to.
Following her mother’s suicide, Maya seeks out her father, who deserted them.
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.
Adaptation of a 1956 novel by Yukio Mishima.
Grandmother (voice)
A young boy learns he is part of a powerful race of psionic humans who must fight the normal humans determined to keep them from Earth.
Shima Ikegata
Hell manifests itself through the sins, shame and desires of an upper class rural family and a mother's grief from beyond the grave.
An epic drama about Nichiren's life. Nichiren was a Buddhist monk who lived for 60 years during the Kamakura period (1185-1333) in Japan. Nichiren taught devotion to the Lotus Sutra as the exclusive means to attain enlightenment. Because of his devout belief, Nichiren is met with opposition throught his travels, with life on the line, can Nichiren accomplish his goal?
Omon
The story of Sanshiro Sugata, a young man who wants to learn the new art of judo. A wise teacher reveals to Sanshiro that judo is not merely a means of combat nor a demonstration of physical skill, but an art which reveals the artist to himself.
An ambitious Kansai yakuza don moves in on Tokyo using financial and political tactics, sparking conflict with a local criminal association.
Kimiyo Tarumi
In a rural village with a poorly understood but long standing curse from the Dog God, outsiders from a major Tokyo mining corporation scouting for uranium destroy a small shrine and crush a dog under their jeep wheels. After one of the mining company employees marries the daughter of a prominent member of the village, the Dog God’s wrath boils over and people start to die. The village girl and mining company employee start a new life in Tokyo, but the Dog God possesses her and she is deemed mentally ill. The couple returns to the village to perform an exorcism, but it is unsuccessful. As the body count accumulates, the cause of and remedy for the curse becomes more opaque.
Ochika
Utamaro was an artist who lived in Edo (which was later to become modern-day Tokyo) in the late 18th century. This film, which has a complex and wide-ranging storyline, recreates the world of that time, as it appeared in Utamaro's paintings.
Kakin Miyakawa
O patriarca da família Inugami morreu e em seu testamento deixou toda a sua fortuna sob controle de uma garota sem parentesco sanguíneo, causando muita polêmica entre as suas filhas legítimas, e logo a família se envolve em uma cadeia de assassinatos que torna a situação muito mais complexa. Contratado para auxiliar o advogado responsável pelo testamento, o detetive Kosuke Kindaichi acaba se envolvendo mais do que esperava nessa trama, com o intuito de ajudar o seu cliente e a polícia na investigação.
Narrator (Voice of the Prophecy)
Professor Nishiyama, after studying and interpreting the prophecies of Nostradamus, realizes that the end of the world is at hand. Unfortunately, nobody listens to him until it is too late. As the effects of mankind's tampering of the earth - radioactive smog clouds, hideously mutated animals, destruction of the ozone layer - rage out of control, the world leaders hurtle blindly toward the final confrontation. The film sparked controversy in Japan and was subsequently pulled out of circulation, with no official video release of the uncut film.
Mama, the girl's mother
Bored with her school life, a 16-year-old student leaves home to take a trip along the Pacific Ocean. After meeting with a theatre group she falls sick and is rescued by a fisherman with who she shares her life with.
Second part of an epic drama of war and its effects upon human beings, follows the fortunes of the Godai family from 1935 through Japan's invasion of China. Based on the novels by Jumpei Gomikawa, who also penned The Human Condition.
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.
Akie
Michi's first encounter with Nobuyuki Ishida, secretary to the chairman of a private school, takes place in the drawing room, when she attempts to swindle him out of two million yen for alleged rape by his son. Akie (Kyoko Kishida), Ishida's wife and the chairman's daughter, offers her a million, but he gives her what she demands. Now Michi is not only satisfied, but she has a mad desire for Ishida and calls him every day asking for a date. His sympathy for her gradually evolves into love, and he soon allows her insatiable passion to strip him of his decency.
Miriam / Jaris (voice)
Lindamente construído, 1001 Nights permanece fiel ao cenário exuberante e misterioso da história bem conhecida e antiga. Tezuka remodela a história em uma fantasia escapista, onde um trabalhador dos anos 60 é transportado de volta a uma era de detalhes árabes inteiramente fictícios. Aparentemente em desacordo consigo mesmo, 1001 Nights se desdobra consistentemente de uma forma que combina gráficos da Playboy, design de tapete árabe e pinturas japonesas tradicionais em pergaminho. Parece uma mistura estranha? Pode apostar e ao longo do caminho experimentamos algumas das grandes justaposições culturais que tornam Tezuka o estilo imprevisível que é.
Oharu Tsutaya
Writer Jippensha Ikku hears Tsutaya Juzaburo, a wholesaler of picture books, mutter on his deathbed, "Where has Sharaku gone?" He begins to figure out the true identity of Sharaku, who disappeared after about 150 portraits of actors he created came out.
"The Time of Reckoning" transforms a screwball-comedy plot into a sober study of a successful businessman with serious relationship problems involving three women: his wife of ten years who announces she is pregnant by another man; a mistress who wants to have a baby with him; and an ex-lover who claims he fathered her son.
Urao
Three tales of women that resided in the Shogun's harem (o-oku) during the Edo period.
(voice)
Documentary about the relationships between mothers and their children.
Nurse
A businessman with a disfigured face obtains a lifelike mask from his doctor, but the mask starts altering his personality.
Mikie Shima
Kaoyo
Provincial 14th century governor Moronao, attracted to the wife of a court magistrate, tries to seduce her and when she rejects his advances plots to send her husband into battle.
A short experimental anime about a woman desperately in love. Made by Yoji Kuri, a well-known Japanese indie animator.
Sonoko Kakiuchi
The four principals in a love affair collide when jealousy, blackmail and suicide enter the picture.
A Japanese detective, Kikuchi, is framed for a murder and sent to prison. When he is paroled, he joins a private detective agency to investigate his case and investigates Mitsue Takazawa, the wife of a local trading firm whom is really a crime lord responsible for Kikuchi's imprisonment and now sets sights on Setsuko, a woman Kikuchi becomes romantically involved with.
Yoko Saijyo
Namiko gets a crush on Ishizuka, a young CEO of a nightclub, but he was plotting to destroy her husband’s company by greenmail.
The Woman
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.
Lady Hagi
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.
The story of five easygoing Yakuza who come together to save the live of a young innocent girl, Oichi, from an evil vassal.
Inone
Warlord Oda Nobunaga seeks to unite a fractured Japan. A young man trained in the arts of ninjitsu is manipulated by a ninja master into attempting to assassinate the warlord before he completes his task.
'Kaoru' no Madame
Quando o viúvo Shuhei Hirayama, um militar que lutou na Segunda Guerra Mundial como fuzileiro naval, encontra com seu velho professor, fica sabendo que sua filha ainda não se casou porque teve que ficar cuidando do pai. Com medo de que Michiko, sua filha de 24 anos, acabe com o mesmo destino, ele começa a procurar um bom homem para se casar com ela. Também preocupada com a possibilidade da moça manter-se solteira para não abandonar o pai, uma das irmãs do viúvo sugere que ele se case novamente, de modo a permitir que a filha pense sobre seu próprio casamento.
Chiyo's Friend
The days leading up to a toddler's second birthday are seen alternately from the child's point of view as well as that of his parents.
Reiko
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.
A montage of scenes that describe how people can be as bad as animals.
Inoko's wife
Ushimatsu's father told him never to reveal his lower-caste heritage; years later, he now contemplates confiding in an activist fighting against such discrimination.
A bittersweet love story between yakuza Hiroshi and a married woman Reiko.
Yoshiko Hoshino
A love melodrama.
An employee at an oil cartel (Mihashi) is haunted by an act years before when he euthanized a fellow soldier when the two were adrift at sea during the Pacific War. Matters are complicated further when he falls in love with the soldier's younger sister (Tsukasa).
Sayoko Goto
Kaze is a philandering TV producer. His wife and nine of his mistresses conspire to kill him. However each woman would rather keep him alive, as long as she was the only woman in his life.
Ryûko
Nesta parte final da trilogia, Kaji é o único sobrevivente de sua unidade e acaba se rendendo ao exército Soviético. Ele é preso na Sibéria, onde espera melhor tratamento do que recebeu de seu próprio exército, mas, ao contrário, é acusado de assassinato e ameaçado de execução. Kaji tenta, desesperadamente, recuperar sua liberdade.
Sally
Gang of robbers quarrel about the loot, but when one of them gets killed, his younger brother seeks them out to ice them one by one.
Mrs. Tanuma
Set in 1926 when Japanese tradition was much stronger, this drama looks at the inner workings of a small family, especially the relationship between a sister and brother.
In this Japanese drama, a village girl goes to Tokyo and becomes a hooker to support her ailing mother. While there she meets an unmarried teacher (at least he says he's unmarried) and falls in love. When she learns that he lied and is married to a woman whose child was fathered by another man, she is crushed. He returns to his wife. The woman becomes more distraught when she learns her uncle has misused the money she has sent. As the final straw, her mother dies, and the girl becomes sick.
Sumiko Tsuboi
Comedy about three soldiers, two female reporters, six prostitutes, and the wife of an officer, all stranded on a South Seas island at the end of World War II.
The common-law wife and daughter of a wealthy old man plot to murder him and steal his fortune, with the help of their male acquaintances.
Sakie
A young offender who is already guilty of many crimes is sentenced again for rape. Upon his release from prison, a year later, the victim waits to kill him.
Three short tales from stories by Ichiyo Higuchi. In one, a young woman is degraded by her family after an arranged marriage. Another deals with the troubles heaped upon a young servant by her family and the wealthy people who employ her. The final story tells of a prostitute and her hopes of finding a new, respectable life.
