Set in the traditional city of Kyoto, Japan, this deeply poetic TV movie revolves around Chieko who becomes bewildered and troubled as she discovers the true facets of her past. With the harmony and time-honored customs of a Japanese backdrop, the story becomes poignant as Chieko’s longing and confusion develops.
The inhabitants of a small Japanese town become increasingly obsessed with and tormented by spirals.
Genshiro is a famous Kenkaya of Edo. He turns up in incidents to get interfering fees but gets involved in a terrible incident… the Shichikudano Whistles known as Akinonanakusa and her seven sisters. The sisters were killed one after another. The whistle, in fact, shows the place of 300 thousand Ryo that their ancestors left. Genshiro gets one of the whistles and devotes himself try and solve the mystery.
A drama about a father and his son centered around the Great Hanshin earthquake.
A high school girl is the best in her judo club until a girl from a rival academy arrives and takes her down. Can she summon the heart to beat her rival and become the next representative for the nationals?
27-year-old Hatsumi Takimoto is a former teacher and now waitress. She holds a secret. Three years after her boyfriend died, she receives a letter from him. After meeting a former student, Hatsumi Takimoto confesses about her past.
An ardent culture-vulture youth, previously charged for the murder of a woman when he was young, plans to hold hostage a local bank.
Inuyama is intrigued by the existence of "Jake," a mysterious crocodile that has been sighted in many countries around the world. He continues to travel around the world, listening to the testimonies of various people of different ages, nationalities, and sighting situations who have seen "Jake".
Asian Blue focuses on Koreans brought to Japan to work in forced-labor brigades during World War II
Though a farmer and his fellow villagers in this Japanese film resist the effort to turn the unspoiled region in which they live into a land development, they are ultimately unsuccessful.
Japanese Drama film about the female experience during the war years.
A former retainer to a noble family kills his wife's father when he tries to expose his past crimes. When he begins an affair with the daughter of another clan's retainer, her father tries to poison him but the substance instead claims an innocent victim...
A freelance writer is given a bizarre assignment by the sexy editor of "Black Book Monthly": find a bug with the power to bring humans back from the dead, in order to report on the afterlife. With his trusty companion Endo in tow, he sets off on a quest for the elusive insect and along the way meets the mysterious Sayoko, a former dominatrix and habitual wrist-cutter who delights in rubbing wasabi into her wounds.
Satoru Mizushima is a designer, who prefers traditional things like handmade items and handwritten works. One day, he happens to meet a mysterious woman, Miyuki Miharu, at the cafe named Piano. She seems to have similar values to him and he is attracted to her. Satoru asks for Miyuki's cellphone number, but she doesn't own a cellphone. They make a promise to meet at the cafe every Thursday. Since then, Satoru and Miyuki meet every Thursday and their relationship develops romantically. Satoru decides to propose Miyuki, but she doesn't show up at the cafe.
Ippei Akabane (Takaya Kamikawa) is an unpopular novelist. He barely makes ends meet writing serials novels under different pen names. Daigo Kurei (Shinji Takeda) is on death row. He killed four women twelve years ago. During his murdering spree, he sent pictures of his decapitated victims with flower decoration to the police. The murders and photos caused widespread panic in Japan. One day, Ippei is contacted by Daigo from prison. He asks Ippei if he wants to interview him and write his memoirs. Soon, more women are killed in the same grisly manner as the serial murders from twelve years ago. Now, Ippei becomes the prime suspect of the police and Ippei must quickly find the real murderer. Based on the novel "The Serialist" by David Gordon (published by Simon & Schuster; Original edition on March 9, 2010).
The Saigo no Kotoba book follows Kawashima's life after her mother's death, and her pursuit of her singing dreams by performing free concerts on the streets of Tokyo's Shibuya district.
Shiro's struggle with his father's cancer and impending death leads to a realization that he must communicate his love and admiration for him before it's too late. A series of flashbacks reveals their relationship over time, and the trouble Shiro faced connecting to his strict father who was also his teacher and soccer coach. With a consuming secret of his own, Shiro, now in his late twenties and about to get engaged, must eventually learn how to share the pain of it with his loved ones.
In the early 1200s, Dogen brought Chinese Zen philosophy to Japan, and established the Japanese Zen school of Buddhism. He taught that a person was capable of realizing Buddhahood within himself, by way of Zazen. Zazen is extended hours of sitting and meditating to achieve a state of “Mu” (nothingness, or empty existence).
"Tokyo Rhapsody" consists of 11 short films all centered around the music genre known as "Kayokyoku". Kayokyoku is a catch-all term to describe the music that defined two generations of post-war Japan. Although the term survives, it has a strong connotation with a simpler, pre-"Economic Bubble" era when Japanese people shared a common identity in the reconstruction of their nation.
A man fed up with city life moves to a village in the mountains
Hitoshi Nagano, who works at an electronics store, picks up a cellphone left behind by a customer and goes about a scam. He calls the person's mother and pretends to be her son. He then gets the mother to transfer money to his bank account. Soon, Hitoshi gets a lot more than he bargained for.
A hard-boiled man who lived in the world of the Yakuza, leaves everything behind in search of revenge for his great friend.
Before going to Tokyo from her hometown of Mishima, Fukushima Prefecture, Kyoko stopped by at Tsuchiyu Onsen and was handed an "old woman's skin." This allowed her transform herself into an old woman, enabling her to find out what's truly in the heart of the man she cares about ...
G-men of Japan fifth installment. A young detective, questioning a double suicide involving his police officer friend and a Turkish girl, travels all the way from Kyushu to Tokyo. Disguising himself as a yakuza member, he intends to root out the underworld's base of operations, weaving together love, guns, and violence to unravel the mystery behind the enigmatic incident and the true nature of evil. This thrilling action drama combines suspense with excitement, depicting a tale filled with love, fists, and firearms.
Shuji Tokita (Eiji Okuda) is a film director and a professor at a university. He goes through a difficult time trying to film his new movie. He believes his movies reflect his own personal expriences. A female high school student, Ritsuko (Yukino Murakami), appears in front of Shuji.
Story of three people, a barber, a Christian and a graduate of the Tokyo Military Academy during the 2nd World War.
Set in a barren, futuristic Tokyo of highways and wastelands, a rowdy group of punk bands and their fans gather to protest slow, boring, Japanese living.
Yasuko, a housewife, lives in an urban high-rise apartment with her husband Satoru and her son Takuto. Annoyed by spam calls and door-to-door salesmen, Yasuko slams the door on a salesman’s hand when he tries to squeeze a flyer through the apartment's chained front door. He leaves, but the next day, her nightmare starts.
Based on a blockbuster song by Kaguyahime, a folk group. Makoto, a college student who belongs to a puppet theatre club, meets Michiko, who works at a printing factory, and they come to learn the bitterness and sadness of love. The two live humbly by the River Kanda, but are viewed coldly by people around them.
Akiyama is an intern, disgusted with the noise pollution caused by the bullet trains and the heart attacks that noise has been causing in older hospital patients, plots to disrupt and, in ten days, destroy a unit of the operation. He warns the Japan National Railway, that, if nothing is done to reduce the noise, he will derail a bullet train. Takigawa is the police detective sent to stop him.
A 16-year-old girl works in a factory to pay her late father’s debt. When she makes up her mind to become a hostess, a boy approaches her with kind and gentle manners...(Also occasionally known in English as “Play”)
Yumi Ishikawa (Mari Atsumi) is nineteen and a popular geisha. Orphaned when a child, Yumi she was raised by Shizuko, the madame of a geisha house. Yumi is impulsive, out-going. And although she cannot claim to be good at Japanese dancing or playing musical instruments so necessary to a geisha, she is a whizz at go-go and will dance the hula at parties. But before becoming a full-fledged geisha, Yumi must go through the ceremony of the "mizuage", when a budding geisha surrenders her virginity to an experienced man who makes her a woman. Takida, a rich money-lender, is chosen for Yumi's mizuage but she offers herself first to Keiichi (Ryo Tamura), who she really loves although she knows that his world and hers are too far apart for a successful marriage.
A drama depicting the conflict between a man that ran to an old lover suffering from advanced leukemia, his wife and child that were left behind, and the friendship that develops between his wife and his former lover.
Yuko is in love with an old poet who happens to be also a married man. She waits patiently for him and only him, yet she is constantly being lust by others.
A serial rapist's violent daily routine is disrupted when a disaffected young woman who shares his primal lifestyle begins living with him.
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.
A free-spirited girl living in a Japanese province spends her time working in a brothel and running with her dog. When her routine is shattered she gets on a path of hate and self discovery.
A film about an orphan kid in Japan in 1943
Comedy film.
Ai is a call girl that makes good money for what she does but there’s always at risk no matter how good the money is.
A woman run a store in a tiny seaside hamlet near the cliffs where people come to commit suicide.
Adaptation of the classic masterpiece about the relationship between parents and their children.
Directed by Banmei Takahashi of "New Love in Tokyo." A drama centered around identity, with a half Korean/Japanese man and a hermaphroditic woman.
An old man falls into a coma and dreams about his childhood during WWII.
Junko's only son dies in an accident. Junko is exhausted by despair and grief, and her husband, who should be there to support her, instead blames her. But her father-in-law, Tsuneo, finds her dear.
When an explosion occurs, alcoholic bartender Kikuchi, who was wanted for a bombing 20 years ago, is suspected. Having lost two friends in the incident, Kikuchi sets out to find the real culprit.
On January 25th, 2024, Hiroshi Uchida, a 70-year-old man with terminal cancer made a deathbed confession to the Kamakura hospital staff treating him: “I am Satoshi Kirishima.” On January 29th, he died. For 49 years, Kirishima was a fugitive pursued by the police for his involvement with the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front’s bombing campaign that terrified Tokyo in the 70s. While others from the group were caught and sentenced to death, Kirishima remained on the run and off the radar by working as a day-labourer and living a solitary life amongst neighbours who affectionately dubbed him “Ucchan,” a quiet guy known to like a beer and rock music.
Part of the Young Guy [若大将] series.
A blind girl of around ten years old is not having a pleasant upbringing. She is poor, neglected, shunned and even loses a friend. Yet, she does not give up hope. That is the adaptation of the actual story of Kiyo Awazu who grows up to educate blind children. The young Fumiko becomes an apprentice to a masseuse and works hard to learn a skill. She also studies to learn braille.
What would you do on the last day of your life? A nurse knows she's dying of cancer, but she hides the truth in order to support the patients that depend on her.
Shōzō, heir to a tonkatsu shop and ice hockey star, faces a series of challenges when his team’s fundraiser goes wrong. Amid rivalry, romantic tension, and an amateur rule violation, Shōzō’s determination leads him to a triumphant return to the ice with help from his girlfriend, Ayako.