Tag Archives: Japan

Dr. Akagi, a rural physician in Japan during WWII, wages a one-man crusade against hepetitis, earning him a reputation as “Dr. Liver.” But his fanatic campaign brings him into disfavor with the Japanese army, and as the war seems more and more hopeless for the Japanese, Dr. Akagi finds himself increasingly a scapegoat.
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In this humorous paean to the joys of food, the main story is about trucker Goro, who rides into town like a modern Shane to help Tampopo set up the perfect noodle soup restaurant. Woven into this main story are a number of smaller stories about the importance of food, ranging from a gangster who mixes hot sex with food, to an old woman who terrorizes a shopkeeper by compulsively squeezing his wares.
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Convicted of killing the drug dealer who murdered her husband, Maria is blackmailed into serving as a covert assassin. She must do the government’s bidding if she is ever to regain her freedom, or her son. With each completed mission, her sentenced is further re- duced. Yet, with every job she feels further away from her goal of a peaceful life.
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The Dai-bosatsu toge trilogy is based on Kaizan Nakazatos unfinished long series of novels (41 books, written from 1913 to 1941). Set in the last period of the Tokugawa Shogunate, Daibosatsu Toge tells the story of Tsuke Ryunosuke, a nihilistic swordmaster who doesnt hesitate to kill anyone, bad or good.
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An affluent medical professor, Komiya, and his bossy wife, Tokio, are to look after Setsuko, their high-spirited niece from Osaka. Setsuko is a liberated woman who does what she wants, including smoking, even though she is a minor. On Saturday, the professor does not feel like going to his weekend golf game, but his wife packs him off anyway. So he leaves his bag at the apartment of his student Okada, and goes to a bar with a friend. Setsuko traces him there, and insists that he take her to a geisha house. When she gets rather tipsy, the professor calls Okada to take her home, while he sleeps at Okada’s. The wife becomes suspicious of Setsuko when she sees Okada bringing her home, and also of her husband when she discovers that he did not go golfing.
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Sawa Yamagishi (Sakura Ando) worked as a nursing-care helper. The family of an old man asked Sawa to sleep with him, which led her to eventually lose her job and house. Now, she has nowhere to go. Sawa finds elderly people in trouble and gets involved in their lives. Meeting them, their lives change and Sawa’s own wounds start to heal.
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With Ran, legendary director Akira Kurosawa reimagines Shakespeare’s King Lear as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan. Majestic in scope, the film is Kurosawa’s late-life masterpiece, a profound examination of the folly of war and the crumbling of one family under the weight of betrayal, greed, and the insatiable thirst for power.
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An unlikely kind of friendship develops between Fergus, an Irish Republican Army volunteer, and Jody, a kidnapped British soldier lured into an IRA trap by Jude, another IRA member. When the hostage-taking ends up going horribly wrong, Fergus escapes and heads to London, where he seeks out Jody’s lover, a hairdresser named Dil. Fergus adopts the name “Jimmy” and gets a job as a day laborer. He also starts seeing Dil, who knows nothing about Fergus’ IRA background. But there are some things about Dil that Fergus doesn’t know, either…
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In 1939, Sakura Nishi is a young army nurse who is sent to the field hospitals in China during the Sino-Japanese war. She has to assist the surgeon Dr. Okabe with an incredible number of amputations. In the crowded wards, she gives sympathy to some of the soldiers, including sexually servicing one who has lost both arms and has no hope of returning home. She falls in love with Dr. Okabe, and follows him to the front, even though he is impotent from his morphine addiction.
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Rinku is a suicide-prevention counselor, living with her husband Shigehiko. He’s older than she, scrubbing things constantly, sexually indifferent. They sleep apart. During Tokyo’s rainy season, Iguchi, a photographer Rinku has counseled by phone, sends her pictures he has taken through her skylight: she’s wearing a short skirt, masturbating. He offers her the negatives if she’ll follow his instructions. She’s humiliated and agrees. He tells her he’s only giving her license to express her inner desires. He sends her into the night to walk on the wild side. Then, she asks a favor of him, and soon her husband receives phone calls and photographs. Where will this triangle lead?
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