Tag Archives: Japan

When her only relative, her elder brother is accused of robbing and murdering an old woman loan-shark Read More »

The Yakusa clan Inoshika decides to help a small family business, Taxi Tanaka, lured by the clan Jinryûkaï and deeply in debt.
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Playwright Matsuzaki (Yusaku Matsuda) crosses paths with a beautiful woman on her way to the hospital who tells him a friend is dying. Frightened of a mysterious older woman who sells the fruit of the Chinese Lantern Plant – rumored to be distaff souls – she implores Matsuzaki to accompany her.
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A surreal period film following an university professor and his eerie nomad friend as they go through loose romantic triangles and face death in peculiar ways.
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Filmed entirely in a desolate field, Violent Virgin opens with two cars travelling along a dusty road. Three men and three women, apparently members of a gang, have a couple bound and blindfolded. After they reach their demonstration, they drag the man and woman, whose names we soon learn are Hoshi and Hanako, out of the cars and dump them on the ground. It seems that Hanako was the boss’s girl, but she eloped with Hoshi. Captured, it seems that they are going to be murdered, but not before they are humiliated by the other gang members.
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A father and his son, a son and his father. Horikawa is a widower, a teacher, and a good father to Ryohei, who’s about 10. After a tragedy, Horikawa resigns from teaching and takes Ryohei from Tokyo to the town of Ueno, enrolling him in junior high; to the lad’s sorrow, he will be a boarder. Horikawa returns to work in Tokyo, their separation is complete. Jump ahead more than ten years: with dad’s help, Ryohei has finished college and has a teaching job in Akita. Horikawa considers living with his son, which Ryohei wants, but the elder’s notions of duty and hard work preclude it. Ryohei arranges a ten-day vacation with his father. Heartbreak comes quietly, nearly hidden by dignity.
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A retired warrior comes to see his former lord and learns that someone is making indestructible swords from some unknown metal. He is sent together with a swordsman to investigate the source. Along the way they meet a young girl working as a beekeeper. She is later witness to the appearance of three strange females from another dimension.
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The Clone Returns Home is a compelling meditation on the paradox of life and death, and the meaning of love and family. Set in an imaginary – yet utterly imaginable – future, this quietly provocative film skillfully transposes complex emotional drama into the realm of science fiction by exploring the influence of technology on human memory and experience. Filled with stunning imagery and haunting stillness, The Clone Returns Home deftly combines subtly nuanced sci-fi with a uniquely Japanese perspective on the universal themes of family, life, love, and death.
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Detective Azuma is a Dirty-Harry style rogue cop who often uses violence and unethical methods to get results. While investigating a series of drug-related homicides, Azuma discovers that his friend and colleague, Iwaki, is supplying drugs from within the police force. After Iwaki is murdered and Azuma’s sister is kidnapped, he breaks all the rules to dish out his particular form of justice.
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A young blind girl is abandoned by her mother. When her guardian is killed, she learns to wield a sword from a traveling “Ronin”. She travels to seek her mother and her revenge.
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