A member of an elite paramilitary counter-terrorism unit becomes traumatized after witnessing the suicide bombing of a young girl and is forced to undergo retraining. However, unbeknownst to him, he becomes a key player in a dispute between rival police divisions, as he finds himself increasingly involved with the sister of the girl he saw die.
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.
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.
An assassin is shot by her ruthless employer, Bill, and other members of their assassination circle – but she lives to plot her vengeance.
A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food.
Nagasaki at the end of the Edo period had the taste of a criminal paradise, where, despite the exotic, dangerous work was always in demand. Here, three wandering samurai who earn their living by killing get to know each other. Soon they learn that government officials will be transporting a large cargo of gold and decide to steal it.
Young coal miner Takeda leaves Kyushu in search of a better job in Tokyo, only to fall into the lucrative yet dangerous life of a yakuza.
Yuki's family is nearly wiped out before she is born due to the machinations of a band of criminals. These criminals kidnap and brutalize her mother but leave her alive. Later her mother ends up in prison with only revenge to keep her alive. She creates an instrument for this revenge by purposefully getting pregnant. Yuki never knows the love of a family but only killing and revenge.
In a small Tokyo apartment, twelve-year-old Akira must care for his younger siblings after their mother leaves them and shows no sign of returning.
Murakawa, an aging Tokyo yakuza tiring of gangster life, is sent by his boss to Okinawa along with a few of his henchmen to help end a gang war, supposedly as mediators between two warring clans. He finds that the dispute between the clans is insignificant and whilst wondering why he was sent to Okinawa at all, his group is attacked in an ambush. The survivors flee and make a decision to lay low at the beach while they await further instructions.
A young boy takes interest in piano while his family begins to disintegrate around him after his father loses his job.
Journalists Ichiro Sakai and Junko cover the wreckage of a typhoon when an enormous egg is found and claimed by greedy entrepreneurs. Mothra's fairies arrive and are aided by the journalists in a plea for its return. As their requests are denied, Godzilla arises near Nagoya and the people of Infant Island must decide if they are willing to answer Japan's own pleas for help.
Based on a real-life story, this drama focuses on a small group of Allied soldiers in Burma who are held captive by the Japanese. Capt. Ernest Gordon, Lt. Jim Reardon and Maj. Ian Campbell are among the military officers kept imprisoned and routinely beaten and deprived of food. While Campbell wants to rebel and attempt an escape, Gordon tries to take a more stoic approach, an attitude that proves to be surprisingly resonant.
After finding out that her husband, Rudi, has a fatal illness, Trudi Angermeier arranges a trip to Berlin so they can see their children. Of course, the kids don't know the real reason they're visiting -- and the catch is, neither does Rudi...
37 year old sales manager Iwatsu is so caught up in work, he's unable to truly live his life. One night while looking at his graduation album on his phone, he receives a sudden call from a girl named Kana. He's taken to his hometown Kobe, where he lived as a teenager. Slowly, by way of Kana, Iwatsu's past is resuscitated.
Ai's mother sends her to live with a cult commune, where she remains for seven years. After the cult is broken up by the police, Ai struggles to fit in with society.
After suffering through a long and unsuccessful series of fertility treatments, Satoko and her husband Kiyokazu make the decision to adopt a child. Six years after adopting a boy they named Asato, Satoko has quit her job to concentrate fully on her husband and son. The family lives a peaceful existence until the arrival of a stranger.
Tsuchiya, who lives with his single mother in Osaka, does not get serious work once he graduates from high school, but rather devotes himself to mailing jokes to the “Ohgiri” variety show. Seeking to be recognized as a show “Legend,” he devotes his entire life to laughter, setting himself the task of submitting hundreds of entries per day. At loose ends, he encounters a drifter, Pink, who finds him work at his bar while Tsuchiya now devotes himself to becoming a “postcard craftsman” who submits material to a radio program. The entertainers on the program begin to use material from his postcards. A comedian Tsuchiya admires, one of a comic duo called “Bacon,” says on the air that he admires Tsuchiya’s material and that he wants “to do material together.” Dreaming of another chance, Tsuchiya heads for Tokyo.
In the future, the Japanese government captures a class of ninth-grade students and forces them to kill each other under the revolutionary "Battle Royale" act.
The struggles of a group of outcasts living in "Yentown", in an alternate-future Japan.