Tag Archives: Japan

Several intertwining stories explore the true meaning of “proper love”. A filmmaker dedicates himself to stop cheating on girlfriends. Meanwhile, a man intends to buy a gift for a part-time employee at the filmmaker’s favorite cafe, but instead falls in love with a shopkeeper. A longtime fan of a pop idol finally gets a chance to meet her after 10 years of pining. Unfortunately, she’s meeting him for the first time just as she’s about to get married…
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Mid 50s: the trials and tribulations of Shinsuke Ibuki, freshly arrived in Tokyo from Kyushu.
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After spending a year in solitary confinement, Matsu escapes from prison with six more convicts, followed by the guards led by the vengeful warden who wants her dead at all costs.
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A ruthless real-estate tycoon sets his sights on a small fishing village, which he believes he can buy cheaply and turn into a profitable tourist destination. He hires a handsome young ladies’ man named Junpei to seduce the women of the village and persuade them to sign over their land to his boss. He succeeds, but when the ladies discover the mens’ real plans, things take a different turn.
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The Kobayashi family finally get the chance to move out of their tiny, cramped Tokyo apartment in favour of the suburban house of their dreams. But all is not well: the house is infested by termites and the family starts cracking up: Son Masaki is studying so obsessively for his exams that he’s losing his mind; daughter Erika is oblivious of all but her forthcoming record company audition, grandfather Yasukuni starts getting World War II flashbacks and father Katsuhiko is so worried about his family’s “sickness” that he thinks can only be cured by group suicide…
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The story of men devoted to the yakuza lifestyle and their struggles during a time of fading yakuza power.
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A Choice between Loyalty or Duty of the Samurai! Can the heartlessness of society crush the honor of an individual? In the spring of the 18th year of Kanei (Feb/30/1624 – Dec/16/1644), Hosokawa Tadatoshi, feudal lord of the Higo area, died. Although Tadatoshi forbade his vassals to follow him in death before he died, they still committed seppuku one after the other. The new feudal lord, Mitsunao, Tadatoshi’s son, also gave the order forbidding seppuku. Abe Yaichiemon obeyed his former lord’s last wish but is now being called a coward by his comrades and finally decided to follow Tadatoshi in death in order to save his family’s honor. Mitsunao, upset by Yaichiemon actions, punished the Abe family unfairly. Objected to this, the Abe family shut themselves up in their manor as the lords troops moved in… This is the true story of what happened within the Hosokawa clan in early Edo era. A masterpiece by director Kinji Fukasaku that boldly depicts the struggle between humanity and the code of the Samurai.
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The first story concerns an attractive young woman who works in a Tokyo nightclub. Her plan for a solid financial future has a double whammy. She is investing in a company on the one hand, and on the other, taking action to snare the son of the company’s owner in matrimonial bliss. In the second story, a beautiful young woman is employed by an unscrupulous real estate agent to convince male clients to invest in worthless property. A scrub in the tub usually does the trick. The last story is about a widowed geisha who has no real financial worries and when she falls in love with a forger, she opts to wait for him after he is sent to prison, rather than follow societal or family dictates.
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Thirsting for revenge, Jokichi rashly attempts to assassinate the evil Chogoro but ends up being captured by Yakuza. His life is spared by Boss Juzaburo, in order that the harmony of an important commemoration not be further disturbed. Though now even more of an outcast, Jokichi is asked by another Yakuza boss, Umezo, to guard Oyuki, the wayward daughter of Juzaburo. The tragic consequences of this assignment will lead him into a deadly trap and a final confrontation with Chogoro.
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Akira, a teacher from Tokyo, has just arrived in a small rural town to begin his new job. Soon after arriving, he meets, and begins to fall for, Miki, a papermaker and part of a large and unusual family. When he learns of an ancient legend that the family carries the curse of the Inugami, or Dog God, he brushes it off as silly superstition. After a series of mysterious deaths, however, the townspeople begin to grow restless, and Akira must confront the truth about Miki and her family.
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After more than a decade of sober political dramas and socially minded period pieces, the great Japanese director Masaki Kobayashi shifted gears dramatically for this rapturously stylized quartet of ghost stories. Featuring colorfully surreal sets and luminous cinematography, these haunting tales of demonic comeuppance and spiritual trials, adapted from writer Lafcadio Hearn’s collections of Japanese folklore, are existentially frightening and meticulously crafted.
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When the patriarch of the Toda family suddenly dies, his widow discovers that he has left her with nothing but debt and married children who are unwilling to support her–except for her most thoughtful son, just returned from China.
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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.
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In a maelstrom of evil, can a new magistrate, samurai Mochizuki Koheita, with a reputation like an alley cat, bring order to the town of Horisoto, or is he, too a corrupt villain looking to gain wealth from the oppressed people?
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The film starts in the rural town of Shinshu in 1923. A widow, Tsune (O-Tsune) Nonomiya (Choko Iida), works hard at a silk production factory to provide for her only son, Ryosuke. When Ryosuke’s teacher Okubo (Chishu Ryu) persuades her to let her son continue to study beyond elementary school, she decides to support her son’s education even until college. Her son promises to become a great man…
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