Through Eriko's self-imposed life cycle, the meticulous camera captures the everyday sense of life in the city of Osaka, which should be the center of the story. The tasteful direction shows us the interaction between the rational discipline of the young man who happens to meet Eriko and her intuitive senses. The composition of the film is brilliant, as if a casual description can be traced back and brought to life when it is related to a later scene.
Suenaga Masami
Through Eriko's self-imposed life cycle, the meticulous camera captures the everyday sense of life in the city of Osaka, which should be the center of the story. The tasteful direction shows us the interaction between the rational discipline of the young man who happens to meet Eriko and her intuitive senses. The composition of the film is brilliant, as if a casual description can be traced back and brought to life when it is related to a later scene.
Hirayama is content with his life as a toilet cleaner in Tokyo. Outside of his structured routine, he cherishes music on cassette tapes, books, and taking photos of trees. Through unexpected encounters, he reflects on finding beauty in the world.
Filmed over nearly five years in twenty-five countries on five continents, and shot on seventy-millimetre film, Samsara transports us to the varied worlds of sacred grounds, disaster zones, industrial complexes, and natural wonders.
Early morning silence is broken by screeching tires as a helicopter bears down on a speeding vehicle. Taking a quick corner, the team tumbles out into the woods as their car pulls away. Now they must make their way through the thick of nature and thick gunfire to accomplish their mission. Not a single word of dialogue is spoken throughout the entire film. Instead, the music, sounds, images and deeply truthful acting turn a simple plot into an intense experience. Passion and intrigue keep building to the very end.
A young Japanese woman named Yoko finds her cautious and insular nature tested when she travels to Uzbekistan to shoot the latest episode of her travel variety show.
Tokyo schoolgirl Hiromi and her friends engage in a practice known as enjo kosai, or "compensated dating", where older men pay young girls for dates. Hiromi plunges deeper into this world to raise money for an expensive ring.
In a distinctly contemporary Tokyo that looks backwards to the city’s disappearing past, Yoko is a writer investigating the life of a modernist composer of the 1930s. She is pregnant by a man she does not want to marry and has found a kindred spirit in a used bookstore owner who aids her research.
High school student Aoi Aioi lives with her elder sister, Akane, after a tragic accident took their parents away 13 years ago. Because Akane has since been taking care of her single-handedly, Aoi wants to move to Tokyo after her graduation to relieve her sister's burden and pursue a musical career, inspired by Akane's ex-boyfriend Shinnosuke "Shinno" Kanamuro. Shinno was part of a band until he left for Tokyo to become a professional guitarist after the sisters' parents passed away, and he was never to be seen again.
A businessman, Tsuda, runs into a childhood friend, Kojima, on the subway. Kojima is working as a semiprofessional boxer. Tsuda soon begins to suspect that Kojima might be having an affair with his fiancée Hizuru. After an altercation, Tsuda begins training rigorously himself, leading to an extremely bloody, violent confrontation.
A mariner survives an attack from the dreaded pirates of the Black Freighter, but his struggle to return home to warn it has a horrific cost.
An aerobics instructor becomes a ruthless assassin after being possessed by a slain ninja's spirit, leading to a showdown with a martial arts expert.