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.
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 (Ciaran McMenamin), Lt. Jim Reardon (Kiefer Sutherland) and Maj. Ian Campbell (Robert Carlyle) 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.
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.
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.
The lives of an American expat and a half Japanese construction worker living in rural Japan are forever changed over the course of three days as they engage in an unexpected romance.
During her study in Japan, Viona falls in love with Yamada, a Japanese photographer. Their relationship is soon ruined when her long lost crush comes back into her life.
The Pass: Last Days of the Samurai
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?
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.
Dr Toma, a skilled surgeon, starts work at a regional hospital in Japan. After performing an operation to remove a patient’s liver cancer, something that normally would not be done at this hospital, he quickly gains a very good reputation amongst the town’s people. Some of his colleagues become so jealous they are resentful and waiting patiently for the perfect opportunity to crucify him. Soon they get their chance as Dr Toma considers performing a controversial operation…
A former American G.I. joins a yakuza family after his release from prison in post-World War II Osaka.
A sixth grade teacher raises a pig with his class.
Follows a young med student's relationships with two women: a dangerous affair with a childhood friend and his mother's struggle to rebuild their estranged relationship.
Director Koreyoshi Kurahara chronicles the lives of Flep and Leila, two foxes living in northern Japan. First, Flep must fight for Leila before the two can become partners and mate. After Flep defeats another male fox, he and Leila eventually produce a group of five cubs. However, with their family complete, the group must deal with human interferences in their habitat, such as chicken farms and snowmobiles, and fight against the debilitating cold of winter.
A blind traveling musician is abused and oppressed wherever she goes, even as the modern world imposes change around her.
The country of Iga is deep in the throws of war. With smaller villages falling one by one, the largest families are in position to vie for their share of the power. Sankai of Minamiyama has his sinister eyes fixed – not only on total control of the area, but on Kagerou as well. After fleeing the village of Shiroyama, Kagerou and Aoi have been relentlessly hunted. And now, with the civil war in full flux, and Aoi in enemy hands, it is time for one last attempt to escape the clutches of the deadly Shinobi hierarchy – or die trying. They are all alone. They can trust no one. They must find a way out.
In the world of the Ninja, fighting skills play a small role in one's rank in the Shinobi order. Kageru is the best in his class, but his birth predestines him to the lower class. His friend Aoi is dealt the same fate; together they'll have to question themselves.
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.