In feudal Japan, during a bloody war between clans, two cowardly and greedy peasants, soldiers of a defeated army, stumble upon a mysterious man who guides them to a fortress hidden in the mountains.
Following a near-death experience France's leading chef throws himself into a quest seeking the flavor that has confounded his life since he was defeated by a Japanese chef's bowl of noodles as a young man.
Dolls takes puppeteering as its overriding motif, which relates thematically to the action provided by the live characters. Chief among those tales is the story of Matsumoto and Sawako, a young couple whose relationship is about to be broken apart by the former's parents, who have insisted their son take part in an arranged marriage to his boss' daughter.
The classic story of English POWs in Burma forced to build a bridge to aid the war effort of their Japanese captors. British and American intelligence officers conspire to blow up the structure, but Col. Nicholson, the commander who supervised the bridge's construction, has acquired a sense of pride in his creation and tries to foil their plans.
The time spent between professional Shogi player Kiriyama and his three stories helps to heal his wounds. As he prepares to secure another win in an upcoming tournament, the father who left the three sisters appears and disturbs the peace.
A shy country girl chooses a part-time job at a maid cafe where she serves customers while dressed up as a maid.
An unexpected love triangle, a seduction trap, and a random encounter are the three episodes, told in three movements to depict three female characters and trace the trajectories between their choices and regrets.
He is Kikuji Murao (Etsushi Toyokawa), a former best-selling novelist who has had a decade-long dry spell that has reduced him to university teaching and magazine hackery. After divorcing his wife (Reiko Takashima) and leaving behind his teenage daughter (Shihori Kanjiya), he meets Fuyuka Irie (Shinobu Terajima), a housewife and mother of three who is a longtime fan.
The erotic novelist Taeko is writing a morbid story of a family destroyed by incest, murder and abuse. Her assistant, Yuji, sets on a mission to uncover the reality of this story, but the reality might be too much to bear.
In the years before World War II, a penniless Japanese child is torn from her family to work as a maid in a geisha house.
Anzukko (Little Peach) is the daughter of a successful writer. She turns down each one of her suitors, until she marries a beginning writer named Ryokichi. Their life quickly sinks into despair.
There were five Marines and one Navy Corpsman photographed raising the U.S. flag on Mt. Suribachi by Joe Rosenthal on February 23, 1945. This is the story of three of the six surviving servicemen - John 'Doc' Bradley, Pvt. Rene Gagnon and Pvt. Ira Hayes - who fought in the battle to take Iwo Jima from the Japanese.
Two New York cops get involved in a gang war between members of the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia. They arrest one of their killers and are ordered to escort him back to Japan. However, in Japan he manages to escape, and as they try to track him down, they get deeper and deeper into the Japanese Mafia scene and they have to learn that they can only win by playing the game—the Japanese way.
A family of four are the sole inhabitants of a small island, where they struggle each day to irrigate their crops.
Returning to their lord's castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the spirit's prophecy comes true, Washizu's scheming wife, Asaji, presses him to speed up the rest of the spirit's prophecy by murdering his lord and usurping his place. Director Akira Kurosawa's resetting of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" in feudal Japan is one of his most acclaimed films.
Aspiring to an easy job as personal physician to a wealthy family, Noboru Yasumoto is disappointed when his first post after medical school takes him to a small country clinic under the gruff doctor Red Beard. Yasumoto rebels in numerous ways, but Red Beard proves a wise and patient teacher. He gradually introduces his student to the unglamorous side of the profession, ultimately assigning him to care for a prostitute rescued from a local brothel.
Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.
That man who committed a woman who was a schoolgirl at the time. Fifteen years later, it reappeared in front of me. The same beast's eyes as those days, a hard meat stick ... What I've been waiting for in the depths of the woman's body ... On the other hand, the man's wife also has the experience of being squid by a stranger. Ripe lewdness that can be pried open by rubbing white big breasts. The joy of a woman who knew for the first time while trembling with fear ... When I think back, the lewd woman juice overflows. No way I had such a desire ...
Rei Kiriyama is a 17-years-old shogi (Japanese chess) player. He debuted as a professional shogi player when he was in middle school. He lives by himself in Tokyo, because his parents and younger sister died in an traffic accident when he was little. One day, Rei Kiriyama meets three sisters who are his neighbors. The three sisters are Akari Kawamoto, Hinata Kawamoto and Momo Kawamoto. This is his first meeting with someone outside of the shogi world in many years. Having meals with the Kawamoto family brings warm feelings to Rei Kiriyama. As Rei Kiriyama continues his shogi career, his interactions with his neighbors allows him to grow as a shogi player and as a person.
Chiba appears seven days before a person dies an unexpected death. His job is to observe the person for seven days then decide either to ‘execute’ or ‘pass over’. Today, again, in the rain, he waits. His subject, her death due in seven days, is Kazue Fujiki. She works for a manufacturing company in the complaints department. Exhausted after her day, she emerges from her office. It’s time for the Reaper to go to work.