Birthday Present

A genius film director, Tadashi Kobayashi holds an audition for his new film project. Several actors and actresses answer the open call, but most will only be cast as extras. Can the film come to a completion without accident?

"The Pine's Branches" is the latest work in Murata Tomoyasu’s series “Sei toshi ni matsuwaru kioku no tabi (Journey through memories of life and death),” which he began following the Tohoku earthquake in 2011.

Brimming with action while incisively examining the nature of truth, "Rashomon" is perhaps the finest film ever to investigate the philosophy of justice. Through an ingenious use of camera and flashbacks, Kurosawa reveals the complexities of human nature as four people recount different versions of the story of a man's murder and the rape of his wife.

Nathan Algren is an American hired to instruct the Japanese army in the ways of modern warfare, which finds him learning to respect the samurai and the honorable principles that rule them. Pressed to destroy the samurai's way of life in the name of modernization and open trade, Algren decides to become an ultimate warrior himself and to fight for their right to exist.

A young salary man and his wife struggle within the confines of their passionless relationship while he has an extramarital affair.

In medieval Japan, a woman and his children journey to find the family's patriarch, who was exiled years before.

Mushi are beings in touch with the essence of life, far more basic and pure than normal living things. Most humans are incapable of perceiving Mushi and are oblivious to their existence, but there are a few who possess the ability to see and interact with Mushi. One such person is Ginko who travels from place to place to research Mushi and aid people suffering from problems caused by them.

Two young brothers become the leaders of a gang of kids in their neighborhood. Ozu's charming film is a social satire that draws from the antics of childhood as well as the tragedy of maturity.

A lighthearted take on director Yasujiro Ozu’s perennial theme of the challenges of inter­generational relationships, Good Morning tells the story of two young boys who stop speaking in protest after their parents refuse to buy a television set. Ozu weaves a wealth of subtle gags through a family portrait as rich as those of his dramatic films, mocking the foibles of the adult world through the eyes of his child protagonists. Shot in stunning color and set in a suburb of Tokyo where housewives gossip about the neighbors’ new washing machine and unemployed husbands look for work as door-to-door salesmen, this charming comedy refashions Ozu’s own silent classic I Was Born, But . . . to gently satirize consumerism in postwar Japan.

The legendary one-eyed one-armed swordsman Tange Sazen is back to aid a Magistrate in his efforts to steal bribe money on its way to Edo for the benefit to poor farmers.

Two friends who work together at a Tokyo laundry are increasingly alienated from everyday life. They become fascinated with a deadly jellyfish.

Masaki, a baseball player and gas-station attendant, gets into trouble with the local Yakuza and goes to Okinawa to get a gun to defend himself. There he meets Uehara, a tough gangster, who is in serious debt to the yakuza and planning revenge.

On a quiet street in Helsinki, Sachie has opened a diner featuring rice balls. For a month she has no customers. Then, in short order, she has her first customer, meets Midori, a gangly Japanese tourist, and invites her to stay with her.

5 university students gather to exchange information on their job search activities. They encourage each other and post their thoughts & worries on Twitter, but behind that they have a lot on their minds. Takuto Ninomiya observes those around him. His roommate Kotaro Kamiya has a bright personality and communicates well with others. Mizuki Tanabe is Kotaro Kamiya’s ex-girlfriend. Takuto Ninomiya has feelings for his roommate's ex-girlfriend. Rika Kobayakawa is determined to land a job. Takayoshi Miyamoto is critical of job-seeking activities, but he later tries to get a job.

Hanako Haibara was born and raised in the city of Tokyo. After she gets dumped by her boyfriend, while in her late 20's, she goes on blind dates to find a man to marry. Miki Tokioka was born in a province. She studied very hard and entered a prestigious university in Tokyo. She experienced difficult financial times, but she now works at an IT company. Due to a man, Hanako Haibara and Miki Tokioka meet each other.

Genki Ogasawara enrolls in an all boys high school. He then sets out to become popular with girls and looks for a club to join at school. Genki then comes across a performance of "Romeo and Juliet" performed by the school's drama club. Genki falls for the lead playing Juliet and decides to join the drama club. Genki isn't aware that the drama club is about to be shut down and that the person playing Juliet is actually a senior male student in drag.

Jeong-yeon decides to celebrate her 60th birthday by visiting her daughter who’s been married and living in Japan. At her arrival, Jeong-yeon is greeted not by her daughter but instead by her young granddaughter, Uekusa An.

A nameless ronin, or samurai with no master, enters a small village in feudal Japan where two rival businessmen are struggling for control of the local gambling trade. Taking the name Sanjuro Kuwabatake, the ronin convinces both silk merchant Tazaemon and sake merchant Tokuemon to hire him as a personal bodyguard, then artfully sets in motion a full-scale gang war between the two ambitious and unscrupulous men.

The unknown life of Ukiyo-e artist Katsushika Hokusai in the Edo period, who is said to have painted more than 30,000 works throughout his life, such as "Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji"

In the summer of 1941, the United States and Japan seem on the brink of war after constant embargos and failed diplomacy come to no end. "Tora! Tora! Tora!", named after the code words use by the lead Japanese pilot to indicate they had surprised the Americans, covers the days leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, which plunged America into the Second World War.