Tag Archives: japanese

In April 1895, the talented young Rentaro Taki comes to Tokyo from his home in Kyushu to enrol in the prestigious National Academy of Music. Hoping to become a pianist, he meets another student there, Yuki Nakano, who shares the same aspirations. With his elder classmate Suzuki’s encouragement, Rentaro practices furiously to perfect his technique, but loses his health in the process. Over the years, his health, as well as his devotion to and achievement level in music, fluctuates, as two friends adjust to the varying roles they can each potentially play in his life. Yuki receives the Japanese government’s first music scholarship to study in Berlin. At the same time, Rentaro composes wonderful music and songs like Bloom in the Moonlight which are still very popular in today’s Japan, while Suzuki quits the music school and becomes a hard labourer due to family crisis.
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Blue Lake Woman tells the story of Nagare, a painter who wanted to commit a lover’s suicide with Mizue, the wife of his friend and patron Takigawa. Growing afraid at the last moment, he doesn’t go through with it – but Mizue sinks to the bottom of Blue Lake. Some time later, Nagare follows an invitation by Takigawa, who claims to have forgiven everything. To Nagare’s shock, Takigawa’s new wife, Ameko, looks exactly like Mizue. While staying as Takigawa’s guest, Nagare becomes haunted by Mizue’s ghost, who wants to be reunited with him at the bottom of Blue Lake…
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It is spring, 1945. The war is going badly for the Empire of Japan. Outnumbered and outgunned, the soldiers of the Empire are being forced back, island by island, towards the homeland.
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The moment he’s released from prison, the honorable gangster Miyamoto recovers the stolen diamonds he had stashed before getting pinched. When he returns to his haunt to make good by friend who took a bullet for him, he is diverted by the greedy boss Oyane and his insatiable taste for Miyamoto’s precious stones. Replete with film noir style, “Underworld Beauty” is one of Suzuki’s best nods to the American gangster genre.
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When a space probe crash-lands on a far-flung Pacific atoll, the craft’s alien stowaways decide to take over their new world one creature at a time. Soon, the parasitic life forms latch onto three indigenous critters – a squid, a crab and a snapping turtle – and transform them into colossal mutant monsters.
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Based on real events reported in Japanese newspapers in 1966 “Boy” follows the title character, Toshio Omura, across Japan, as he is forced to participate in a dangerous scam to support his dysfunctional family. Toshio’s father, Takeo Omura, is an abusive, lazy veteran, who forces his wife, the boy’s stepmother, Takeko Tamiguchi, to feign being hit by cars in order to shake down the motorists. When his wife is unable to perform the scam, Toshio is enlisted…
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Takeshi Yasui, a junior high school student is found dead in a river. The police investigate it as a murder related to bullying. The dead boy turns out to have been murdered by two of his schoolmates, who he had been bullying.
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Hisamatsu’s son Hayato lives an honest, crime-free life but is best friends with Ogoshi’s son Daisuke, who’s still working as a bodyguard for the gang. It all kicks off when a reporter asks Hayato’s mother to reveal the truth about the original attack on the Goseikei, and soon history is threatening to repeat itself.
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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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