Mexican Free-for-All

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.

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.

Jesse, a small-time criminal, high-tails it to Los Angeles to rendezvous with a French exchange student. Stealing a car and accidentally killing a highway patrolman, he becomes the most wanted fugitive in L.A.

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.

In the year 199X, on the dark, shady streets of New Kabuki Town, the free-for-all between gangs of young delinquents and a corrupt police force is further complicated by the appearance of a mysterious girl named Asuka.

VISITAS

Unites 8 Latin American filmmakers from countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Spain, and Mexico in a single feature to count depict in seven stories some of the most brutal crimes that have happened in these countries.

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.

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.

Emilio Fernandez directs Dolores Del Rio and Pedro Armendariz in a classic tale of family and obsession. Raimunda's daughter Acacia hates her stepfather Esteban, and in order to escape her suffocating home life she's accepted a marriage proposal from a man she doesn't even love. But Esteban has become obsessed with Acacia, and in order to ensure that she doesn't leave he's plotting to murder the girl's unsuspecting fiancée. As Esteban's true nature emerges, mother and daughter must band together to support one another and make sure that their family bond remains strong even in the darkest of times.

After his mother's death, a young man edits the family's home videos to bring back her image. As he delves into the occult he begins to reveal the paradoxical magic of memories and cinema.

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.

The story contrasts the life of two doctors, former classmates and now both assistant professors at Naniwa University Hospital in Osaka. The brilliant and ambitious surgeon Goro Zaizen stops at nothing to rise to a position of eminence and authority, while the friendly Shuji Satomi busies himself with his patients and research.

Camelia, a prostitute who works in a low-class cabaret in Mexico City (called "The Blood Stain') meets Guillermo, a young man from the country who just arrived in the city looking for a better life. She offers to take care of him until he gets set up, and the initial friendship soon turns romantic. This inevitably causes problems with Gastón, Camelia's pimp.

While her son, Kichi, is away at war, a woman and her daughter-in-law survive by killing samurai who stray into their swamp, then selling whatever valuables they find. Both are devastated when they learn that Kichi has died, but his wife soon begins an affair with a neighbor who survived the war, Hachi. The mother disapproves and, when she can't steal Hachi for herself, tries to scare her daughter-in-law with a mysterious mask from a dead samurai.

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.