Discover Movies

Police detective Heiji is assigned to catch the masked Maboroshi gang of robbers who have terrorized all of Edo, leaving few clues as to their leader's identity.

The family was destroyed by the Tokugawa clan before the founding of Edo, and when Ietsuna destroyed the shrine, it began to be haunted. The ghost of a woman haunts Yajima-no-Kyoku and tries to kill her and her son, but the heart of a man overcomes the ghost.

In the final days of the Edo shogunate, a government commander enters Edo Castle to inspect the Ōoku. Ignoring warnings, he steps into a forbidden room where, 200 years before, Lady Oyuki, a favored concubine, was forced to commit suicide by Tokugawa Tsunayoshi over a suspected affair. Consumed by vengeance, her spirit continues to haunt all those involved in the tragedy.

“In Search of Unreturned Soldiers was about former soldiers of the Japanese army who chose not to return to Japan after the war. I found several of them who had remained in Thailand. Two years later, I invited one of them to make his first return visit to Japan and documented it in Outlaw-Matsu Returns Home. During the filming, my subject Fujita asked me to buy him a cleaver so that he could kill his ‘vicious brother.’ I was shocked, and asked him to wait a day so that I could plan how to film the scene. By the next morning, to my relief, Fujita had calmed down and changed his mind about killing his brother. But I couldn’t have had a sharper insight into the ethical questions provoked by this kind of documentary filmmaking.” —Shôhei Imamura

On the first day of opening, a small Italian restaurant is set on fire, killing three customers, and the unidentified survivor, who was injured and taken to hospital, somehow escapes. Detective Tono and his team, who are renowned for their interrogation skills, realise from evidence left at the scene that there are still survivors who have fled the scene. After obtaining information about the customers from the owner-chef, who was slightly injured, Tono visits the suspects, but they all seem to be acting strangely and are hiding something. The hidden relationship between the suspects, who seemed unrelated, is then revealed.

The second TV series by Kiyoshi Kurosawa made just after the pop of the economic bubble in Japan. His comical (and melodic...) analysis of Japanese society corresponds to Godard's films about French society in the 60s.

Hosted by veteran comedian Tamori, "Bizarre Tales 2004 Spring Special" presents five tales. 1. Koroshiya desu no yo (It's a Hitman, You Know) - starring Mizuki Alisa. 2. Jibun-counsellor (Self-counsellor) - starring Inohara Yoshihiko. 3. Be Silent - starring Watabe Atsuro. 4. Sasoimizu (Pump-priming) - starring Harada Taizo. 5. Saigo no Hitotoki (The Last Moment) - starring Nagasaku Hiromi.

A beginning editor, Odamachi, slips back in time to the year 1973 and meets Osamu Tezuka. Tezuka, then, is out of luck. He has failed in animation business. His company has gone bankrupt. He has declined in popularity. Tezuka in front of Odamachi is in the miserable situation. Still Tezuka never loses his energy for creation. He cuts out sleeping and continues drawing manga. Odamachi is gradually involved in such Tezuka’s energy and encounters various people who support Tezuka, including Kabemura, an editor who trusts and waits for Tezuka till he finally receives manuscripts. Fun and excitement of creation are surely in Tezuka’s atelier. Focusing on how “Black Jack”, the watershed work for Tezuka, is created, and how Tezuka challenges to make animations again. The drama depicts Tezuka’s way of life. ~~ Based on manga series "Black Jack Sousaku Hiwa - Tezuka Osamu no Shigotoba kara" by Yoshimoto Koji and Miyazaki Masaru.

A human drama that rethinks what it means to be a family through the images of a couple, parent and child whose paths have crossed.

***Fushiawase wo Anata ni (We Bring You Misfortune) A woman sees a company called "Fushiawase wo Anata ni" (we bring you misfortune) promoting a new sales concept: giving its clients misfortune to motivate them to seek greater happiness. ***Kuuhaku no Hito (Blank Person) A woman wakes up in her bed every morning not remembering the events of the past night, and finding that someone has moved around the things in her room. ***Jigoku wa Manin (Hell Is Full) As there is no more room in hell, the evil/sinful find they cannot die. ***Kako kara no Nikki (Diary from the Past) A struggling author chances upon a diary which changes his life. ***Aketekure (Open Up!) A woman's husband dies in a car accident, but that same evening he is heard pounding on the door for someone to let him in.

Junji Inagawa recreated horror experiences from his own life in this horror omnibus. The three-episode structure includes "Come to the Land of Meditation", "Trap of Memory", and "The Unwelcoming".

A live-action adaptation of Jun'ichirō Tanizaki's masterpiece "Shōshō Shigemoto no Haha (Captain Shigemoto's Mother)". Set in the glorious Heian Dynasty, the TV movie decipts the story of a mother and son torn apart for an irrational reason, and how they are reunited 40 years later.

King of Minami TV Movie

One-episode drama starring Beat Takeshi depicting the turbulent life of the protagonist Takeyoshi Sengoku, based on the "Jesus' Ark Incident".

Super criminals are planning to infiltrate Earth with mass nuclear destruction! Only Starman can defend civilization by thwarting evil!

After surviving from an incident of Cruise ship hijacking, both doctor Tamaki and the boy injured in the incident, Ryota Inamoto, suffered from different degrees of PTSD. Meanwhile, Doctor Chiharu Kanbayashi's wife is about to give birth to their first children. Would these doctors and patients succeed in overcoming their problems and welcome a happy new year?

While out for a stroll, the famous detective Kogoro Akechi enters a museum and encounters a woman staring at a poster of someone who looks exactly like him. The woman is the renowned art photographer Fujiko Maiya...

It has been 100 years since the Battle of Sekigahara. The Nagatsuno domain and Koyama domain at the southern edge of Tohoku have been at odds for a long time. Soya Danjo , the Nagatsuno domain’s chief retainer, keeps invading and plundering the Koyama domain. His deeds trouble his sister Akane. One day, a young boy from the Koyama domain is covered with injuries after being attacked by an unknown monster. He escapes to a Nagatsuno village and is brought to Akane by the wandering samurai Sakakida Soei. The approaching monster strikes fear. Together with Sakakida and painter Kikuchi Enshu, Akane musters wit and courage to fight against the monster and uncover the mystery of its birth in order to protect her people.

A man looking to transplant cherry blossoms along the countryside encounters a blind woman who accompanies him for the journey.

A series of mysterious numbers began arriving at the Tamamura family, a family of jewelers. They were terrifying death threats. Kogoro Akechi sets out to investigate, but the culprits strike first and kidnap him, holding him captive. With Akechi in a life-or-death situation, is there any way he can escape the man who calls himself “The Magician”? And why is this magician, possessing the cunning of a devil, targeting the Tamamura family?

I want to be this girl! Momoko Kamei has the mysterious ability to mimic any woman's face while imitating what she wears and the way she speaks. Not knowing such a secret, Takafumi, who was fed up with Momoko's relentless stalking, said, "Go out with me!"

Akina (Umika Kawashima) and Takumi (Kodai Asaka) have been dating since high school. Akina started working as a bus tour guide in Saga Prefecture after graduating from high school. On the other hand, her boyfriend Takumi stayed in town, got a job in a factory. Being 1 hour train ride away from her boyfriend, romance oriented Akina struggled not to miss her boyfriend Takumi so much. But one day, on their date, one Akina’s action made Takumi’s mind to end their relationship. Was Akina the only one who was madly in love?! Three years later, Akina was living changing job to jobs, not having a particular goal in her life. She still had a feeling for Takumi, and one day her friends announced her the shocking news about him. Takumi was dealing with a disability. Leaving everything behind, Akina goes to see him. Can she get close to Takumi’s deeply hurt, closed heart? The second chapter of their romance begins!

This TV drama special depicts the obsession of a sister and two detectives searching for her missing brother who witnessed the crimes of a political fixer.

20-year-old Ozawa Tsubasa has been helping out in the eatery that her mother Yukiko runs in a port town in the Tohoku region. She loves songs and secretly wishes to become a singer. However, she is on the verge of giving up that dream since it is practically impossible. Seeing her mother keep on working despite the hardships as well as the deserted town, she doubts that dreams and wishes come true. But one day, Tsubasa travels back in time to Tokyo in the year 1975 in an unexpected way. She meets 20-year-old Ozora Tsubasa, a cheerful and positive girl with the same name and dream as her. The unsuspecting Tsubasa had left home and come to Tokyo under the mistaken impression that she was scouted by a television station.

The fourth in a series of Japanese TV movies about a police detective who has adopted the dress and mannerisms of famous American TV detective Columbo, based on a series of novels by popular mystery author Yasuo Uchida.

A elusive thief nicknamed 'King of Terror' can disguise himself as anyone, and targets only first-class artworks. His next target is the 'Tears of Anastasia', a treasure belonging to Ryoko, a beautiful violinist's prestigious Kobayakawa family. The great detective Kogoro Akechi is asked by Inspector Namikoshi to provide security.

A despicable boss uses a husband's “promotion” as bait to assault his subordinate's wife (Chieko Matsubara). The wife finally kills him, but...

A middle-aged office worker, Masao Okada (Eiji Okada), discovers that his worsening illness is terminal cancer. Shaken and resigned, he meets a mysterious man, Suzuki (Haruo Tanaka), who knows every detail of his life. Also a dying patient, Suzuki proposes a “game”: two men with little time left will live in suspense, wondering when and how the other might kill, using paranoia as a way to escape the greater fear of death. Directed by Yasuharu Hasebe and based on a story by Kyotaro Nishimura, this short TV film from "Horror Theater Unbalance" blends psychological dread with social reflection. Alongside Okada’s fragile romance with nurse Akiko (Masumi Harukawa), the story introduces a nihilistic subplot where a reckless young couple (Renji Ishibashi among them) engage in a fatal dare that ends in self-destruction — echoing the era’s sense of emptiness and contrasting Okada’s struggle to find meaning in the face of death.

Popular model Koyuki plays the role of the mermaid princess who cannot speak and has a limp, but drives men crazy with her beauty.

Itsuki, who lives on welfare with her sick mother and baby sister, has given up on her dream of becoming a nurse and been hopeless for the future. One day, a transfer student named Kazuma, who has a secret about falling behind in his previous private middle school, joins Itsuki’s class. He also struggles under pressure from his elitist father. Sparked by this encounter, they break out of their circumstances and gradually find hope for the future on their own, involving many adults around them.

Suspense TV movie adaptation of an original story by Sawako Ariyoshi, starring Yukiyo Toake.

Satomi leaves her job after a bad break up and on the way home she she falls in love with a Shiba Inu puppy, Ku-chan. She stay at home for a bit but when she tries to return to work, the puppy cries all day. Ku-chan is then diagnosed with separation anxiety at the vet.

High court judge Holly McPhee devises blueprints for criminal operations and offers them for sale to the crime world. Her scrupulous operation falls apart when she takes part in a multi-million dollar bank robbery and becomes an accessory to murder.

Hirosue and Nagase will play a married couple in this tearjerker, based on a true story of two parents who are told that their daughter Miho (played by Manatsu Kimura) has one year left to live due to a brain tumor. The drama depicts the family's remaining time together, including the 359 letters that Miho drew before her death. --Dramawiki

Japanese horror movie from 1973.

Hirayama Konosuke is a retired man who expects to spend a peaceful life with his wife, Fumie. However, his world is turned upside down when Fumie reveals her long-held dream of opening a book café—using his retirement savings. This disagreement soon escalates into a potential divorce, deeply affecting their family.

In the era of the ninth shogun, Ieshige, the Ooku of Edo Castle was a world of only women, with Tokiwa at the head and numbering up to a thousand. The town girl Otoshi catches the eye of Oitsu-no-kata and is brought into the Ooku. Oitsu receives the favor of Ieshige and is blessed with an heir, but Oko-no-kata resents Oitsu to the point of wanting to curse her to death. At that time, rumors of an evil spirit in the unopened room spread throughout the Ooku.

In post-war Japan, a publisher goes to visit her former teacher for help on a modern translation of a legend about a mummified Buddhist monk who was revived and who, centuries later, turned into a sex demon who terrorized a village in pre-modern Japan.

In a quiet farming village in northeastern Japan, there lives an elderly couple. One day, a notice arrives in the mail about an antique camera sale in Tokyo. This triggers the old man's memory of the time when he used to love cameras and he decides he wants to go to Tokyo. Going on this shopping trip is like embarking on an adventure for them and is is full of surprises and unexpected happenings, but through this adventure, the old couple's lives slowly get revealed. Before heading home, the couple stops by Tokyo Station, a place that holds fond memories for them. They take a photo together with the old man's camera and quietly reflect back on the long life that they spent together.

A daughter of Hatamoto (high-ranked soldier) Otsuyu (Akiko Kana) and a Ronin living in Choya (cheap apartment) Shinzaburo Hagihara (Yoichi Hayashi) fell in love with each other. They could not see each other for a while, but Otsuyu visited Shinzaburo's place late at night, led by a servant Oyone (Shoko Yagi). Tomorrow night and next night as well.

Set in the town of Furano in Hokkaido, Kita no Kuni Kara centers around the story of the Kuroita family. Narrated by the son, Jun, the tale follows the lives of two children torn between their parents and their parents' divorce. Jun, and his sister Hotaru, grow and mature in the harsh climates of Hokkaido, and learn the ways of life through their interaction with the folk of Furano.

The fifth in a series of Japanese TV movies about a police detective who has adopted the dress and mannerisms of famous American TV detective Columbo, based on a series of novels by popular mystery author Yasuo Uchida.

Kohei Akiyama, a popular master swordsman, and his son Daijiro live in the town of Edo in good faith. While running a dojo, Daijiro and his father find themselves wrapped up in a series of events with the town's people.

Ichitaro's adventure goes on. He starts to feel earthquakes, which no-one else does, and a voice telling to kill Ichitaro. His grandma gives him one flower's seeds and also tells Ichitaro's mother to let him go to Hakone. Mother approves it and Ichitaro takes up a trip to Hakone with Matsunosuke, Hakutaku and Sasuke, but only two of them arrive to Hakone, where earth trembles even more and people are more vulgar.

A group of short 8mm works before visual artist debut of Mr. Tezuka Makoto

Army Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda (Nakamura Shido) has been fighting guerrilla warfare in the jungles of Lubang Island in the Philippines with his subordinates Corporal Shimada (Yanagiba Toshiro) and Private First Class Kozuka (Nishijima Hidetoshi) since the end of the Pacific War, without knowing the war had ended. Eventually, the two men die, unable to fulfil their duty to their homeland, and Onoda is left alone, but when a rescue team is sent out from the home country, he does not obey the order to return, believing it to be a diversion by the enemy, as the form of the return order is different. However, an encounter with adventurer Norio Suzuki (Masato Sakai), who has come from Japan to look for Onoda, leads to Onoda's return to his homeland in March 1974, 30 years after the end of the war, after completing his intelligence work on Lubang Island.

The drama special satirizes the daily life of a wife with a businessman husband who is busy with his work.

The vampire Yoshitsune appeared at Rashomon every night and drank the blood of women kidnapped by his servant, Musashibo Benkei. Then a mysterious woman appeared at Rashomon.

Beppu Sumire is a wedding planner who works for True Love Bridal (TLB), a well-established wedding hall. Her late mother, Sakura, showered love on her and would always tell her that she is lovely. After she passed away, Sumire lived with her father, Tetsuro. Sumire gave up on her own romance long ago because of her disappointing looks. But she works hard with a smile even when she gets scolded by her stern superior, Umemiya Hitomi, her impertinent junior, Sudo Yuri, pins trouble on her, and her relationship with her father is not working out, in order to bring smiles to many people’s faces.