Two lost souls visiting Tokyo -- the young, neglected wife of a photographer and a washed-up movie star shooting a TV commercial -- find an odd solace and pensive freedom to be real in each other's company, away from their lives in America.
Blind traveler Zatoichi is a master swordsman and a masseur with a fondness for gambling on dice games. When he arrives in a village torn apart by warring gangs, he sets out to protect the townspeople.
Satoshi Murayama, the shogi (Japanese chess) master known as the arch-rival of Yoshiharu Habu, the shogi genius of the century, died of an intractable disease at age 29. Satoshi devoted his life to fighting not only the disease but also his rivals, feverishly pursuing the highest title, at risk to his life. Director Yoshitaka Mori (Hyakuhachi (2008), Space Brothers (2012)) depicts Murayama's true struggling life, full of love from his parents and teacher, based on the non-fiction novel written by Yoshio Osaki. Kenichi Matsuyama intensely portrays Satoshi and physically embodies the character.
Fujio Yamadai, the third generation leader of Japan's largest organized crime group, Tamba-gumi, has passed away due to illness. Yamatatsu group leader Tatsuo Yamanaka (Hakuryu), who has become acting group leader, recommends Tamba group leader Kazuhisa Takemoto (Hitoshi Ozawa) to Kashira. However, Sumiko, the sister of the third generation Yamadai, who actually runs the Tanba-gumi, mentions that Takemoto is the man who will inherit the fourth generation of the Tanba-gumi. Eventually, the Takemoto faction and Yamanakaha became enemies, and the huge organization split into two. This spurs the assassination of the boss...
An assassin is shot by her ruthless employer, Bill, and other members of their assassination circle – but she lives to plot her vengeance.
Kingdom of Samurai
A mysterious spacecraft captures Russian and American space capsules and brings the two superpowers to the brink of war. James Bond investigates the case in Japan and comes face to face with his archenemy Blofeld.
Anzai, Mutoh, Hamada, Hagiwara, and Miru are in a car headed to a love hotel used by the Sugiyama Clan for money laundering. This one night only gang succeed in robbing them blind and though they were supposed to go their separate ways after splitting the money, the five end up being hunt down by a detective hired by the clan and clan members themselves. An ending nobody ever even dreamed of.
One night in Tokyo, Leo, a young boxer, meets his first love, Monica, an imprisoned sex worker. Caught up in a drug-smuggling scheme, they find themselves pursued by a corrupt cop, a yakuza, his nemesis, and a female assassin.
A month after Genji Takiya graduates, a new battle for supremacy at Suzuran All-Boys High School begins. Transfer student Kaburagi Kazeo combats Kagami Ryohei for the coveted top spot, amidst a brewing inter-school conflict with Kurosaki Industrial High.
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 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.
Since they were both five, Ryosuke has been stalked by Momoko - the ugliest girl in the village. Her love for Ryosuke is so boundless that she has her face surgically altered to suit his taste - but still he wants nothing to do with her. Ryosuke goes in for fleeting romance - for example, with the girlfriend of a gangster boss. But when he finds out about their affair, he has Ryosuke's little finger hacked off. Magically, the finger falls into Momoko's hands, and she uses it to clone Ryosuke, so she can finally have him (or almost him) for herself. And this is just the first five minutes of Lisa Takeba's short-but-powerful feature debut. Just like in her previous short films, the director - who cut her teeth in the advertising world and as the writer of a video game - throws a lot of genres and techniques into the mix: from science fiction to gangster films, from hospital eroticism to animation. Hectic and absurd, but with its heart in the right place. © IFFR
After being excommunicated from the yakuza, Ginya Yabuki returns from the shadows as leader of his own crime syndicate known as the Tokyo Mafia.
A family reunites after 15 years. They each have a story to tell as they have not forgotten what happened years ago.
High school students Takeshi and F1 were working part-time to earn money by stealing mopeds and selling them to delinquents. One day, Ayaka, who has transferred to the school Takeshi attends, joins them, and the three of them decide to steal a moped. When he tries to steal a moped parked in his apartment, he is found by a woman wearing a mask who seems to be the owner. Takeshi and his friends escape on a motorcycle, but they are quickly overtaken by a running woman with unbelievable physical abilities. This masked woman was a slit-mouthed woman who ran 100m in 6 seconds with her mouth split all the way to her cheeks.
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.
Betrayed and disgraced, big-city reporter Kazuya Mizuno is banished to a desk at Kaname's boring little town newspaper. But Kaname isn't as boring as it seems on the surface. Not with characters around like Shimeko, a girl genius with a childlike lack of propriety, and her ace fisherman/folk-singer dad. Or the overbearing and unpleasant local Shinto priest, a former Christian cultist. Or Endo, Kazuya's new colleague, a bitter drunk after his son's suicide. Or Kin, a former terrorist, now a hermit on his boat engaging in secret "research." Or perhaps most importantly Teruko, the hypnotically beautiful bar owner, the focus of all manner of innuendo and intrigue. Something mysterious, even mystical, is going on Kaname, and hapless Kazuya is about to be thrown into the middle of it.