I Am Waiting

In the midst of an attempt to take over his company, a powerhouse executive is hit with a huge ransom demand when his chauffeur's son is kidnapped by mistake.

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.

In this loose adaptation of "Hamlet," illegitimate son Kôichi Nishi climbs to a high position within a Japanese corporation and marries the crippled daughter of company vice president Iwabuchi. At the reception, the wedding cake is a replica of their corporate headquarters, but an aspect of the design reminds the party of the hushed-up death of Nishi's father. It is then that Nishi unleashes his plan to avenge his father's death.

A gang lord hires Kamimura, a hit man, to take out a rival boss who's gotten greedy.

A noir action whodunit with Kobayashi his usual jaunty self as the smart aleck private eye whose missing person search soon becomes a murder case. Nightclub-managing, drug-dealing gangster Uchida is the prime suspect in the case until he commits suicide. Kobayashi then discovers evidence that points to the doctor sibling of an innocent girl. The climax in a rural snowy locale is suspenseful and well-staged.

After yakuza boss Kurata dissolves his own criminal empire, a rival kingpin offers a position to Kurata's top operative, Tetsuya "Phoenix Tetsu" Hondo. When the fiercely loyal Tetsu declines, Otsuka taps unstoppable Tatsuzo the "Viper", a ruthless gun-for-hire, to assassinate him. As the Viper trails his target through the countryside, the agile Phoenix Tetsu grows concerned that one of his former associates has betrayed him.

Koreyoshi Kurahara's ingeniously plotted, pocket-size noir concerns the intertwined fates of a desperate bank manager, blackmailed for book-cooking, and his resentful but timid underling, passed over for a promotion. The marvelously moody Intimidation is an elegantly stripped-down and carefully paced crime drama.

Udaka is a new, post-war city where corruption has already taken hold. A persistent district attorney wants to arrest and convict Katsumata, a laughing, self-confident thug. The D.A. gets an anonymous letter about the suicide five years' before of a city council member. Evidence about the case leads the D.A. to Tachibana, struggling to go straight after involvement with the mob and a prison sentence for killing the man responsible for the rape and suicide of his fiancée. One of Tachibana's friends is Keiko, the daughter of the dead councilman and the ward of another powerful official. How do these stories connect?

Businessmen arrange the early release from prison of Togawa, serving time for taking revenge on the truck driver whose carelessness confined Togawa's sister, Rie, to a wheelchair. They want Togawa to hijack an armored truck loaded with 120 million yen; their leverage is to promise him money for surgery for Rie. Togawa consents and plans the heist with three others. The plan is solid, but it doesn't go smoothly. Togawa must improvise, there are traitors somewhere, and double-crosses mount. Can Togawa escape with enough money to help his sister and ensure a passage out of Japan?

A sniper kills two prisoners in a police van, and the driver sets out to find the killer.

A gangster gets released from prison and has to cope with the recent shifts of power between the gangs, while taking care of a thrill-seeking young woman, who got in bad company while gambling.

Yuganda tsuki

When two brothers steal a valuable heirloom from an elderly Japanese woman, they unknowingly awaken her demigod son, Osaru, who does not take kindly to thieves.

Film director and screenwriter Seijun Suzuki (1923-2017), who in the sixties was the great innovator of Japanese cinema; and his collaborator, art director and screenwriter Takeo Kimura (1918-2010), recall how they made their great masterpieces about the Yakuza underworld for the Nikkatsu film company.

What do you fear? One year ago, 14 teenagers went missing. Tabetha is the only known survivor of the group. Found by the side of the road with no memory of who she is and the secret she holds, must find out what's in store for her through clues in her own sketches.

Against the backdrop of New York City of the early 1850s, a young woman -- naively seeking to win the love she reads about in the romance novels she devours -- finds one prospect in an earnest denizen of the Bowery, and another in an elegant young aristocrat. Focusing on the bygone era's fashions, the novelty of the bicycle-built-for-two, and an inventor's quest for the horseless carriage, the film gently stirs the audiences' nostalgia for simpler times.

Comedy - This entry in director Jean-Claude La Marre's Pastor Jones series sees the beleaguered clergyman coping with a gap in the church budget. When he can't make a payment on one of the church's loans, the pastor fears he may have to stop funding the choir, and turns to its two lead members (who happen to be quibbling siblings) to help save the day. Will they be able to put their pride aside and keep the choir together? - Jean-Claude La Marre, Nancy Bellany, Richardson Chery

Tyron is one of the top college basketball stars in the country and is expected to be a top NBA draft pick, but as the pressure to perform well in school threatens his ability to perform on the court, things start to fall apart. Then, when his brother, Blak, is released from prison, he is pressured to rejoin the family business hustling drugs on the street. In a last ditch effort to save his star player, Tyron's coach introduces him to Carmen, a tutor who Tyron falls deeply in love with.

Valerie is in love with the pastor at her local church, a "secret" known to the whole congregation but not the pastor. Then the pastor has an accident causing him to switch bodies with the church's gardener. Getting her man may be more difficult than she thought.