Discoveries from Japan World Cinema

When an invisible man is run down by a car it’s up to an eager young reporter and a strange clown to bring a dangerous gang to justice.

An ordinary high school student– with an incontinent grandmother and extremely horny dad, are visited by an extremely pretty avatar to preform a “mind transfer” on Grandma. But before too long, Dad’s sniffing round to get it on with the great-shaped avatar.

An old man dies of heartbreak when a cruel landlord is about to repossess his land. The old man haunts the landlord from the grave. Since the man died in debt, his wife and daughter are indentured servants and are forced to work in the landlord's factory.

A horror drama presented by Hideo Nakata, the mastermind of the Japanese horror boom, with a group of gorgeous actors. A total of 2 episodes are included, including the story of a teacher who is troubled by spirits and a dropout student "The 5th Tatari in 6 rows".

Kinjiro Oribe, nicknamed Orikin, is a professional golfer who has not won a single tournament in his 17-year golf career. He arrives at the golf training course in the city center as a professional instructor, he is inspired by unique people, and he becomes obsessed with the idea of winning at least one victory on the tour, which he almost gave up...

Thirteen years afterward, I wonder if those who bombed Hiroshima are looking at me and saying: 'We did it! We were able to kill another person!' They should be," murmurs Minami (played by Kumiko Aso), one of the two leading female characters in Yunagi no Machi, Sakura no Kuni, as she lies dying in 1958, her life brought to a premature end by sickness resulting from her exposure to atomic bomb radiation. This is a story about those who at least initially survived the first U.S. atomic bombing of 1945 and their descendants in contemporary times. The film, based on a comic by Fumiyo Kono, jumps between the two time frames and quietly depicts the sorrow and mortification experienced through the everyday lives of laid-back and soft-spoken Hiroshima people. Only a few scenes of the bombing and the ensuing devastation are featured.

A teenager is transported to a parallel world where everyone who shares his family name is being hunted down by the dictatorial government.

Two young swordsmen, Akado Suzunosuke and Tatsumaki Rainoshin, arrive at the city of Edo in their quest to test and improve their skills. Soon they become involved in a conflict against a mysterious group of demonic criminals led by the king of hell, Taira no Masakado — a strugle to which both were destined since the moment they were born.

A compelling human drama about the growing social problems and public responsibilities regarding the welfare and ethical treatment of neglected dogs and cats at animal shelters. The story is told through the eyes of tormented vets who are relentless in their efforts to change the system to serve these animals with dignity.

An omnibus special comprised of four segments and a prologue.

A gang of vicious thieves and rapists invades the isolated summer home of a wealthy but morally corrupt family.

She's tantalizing. Spellbinding. Irresistible. And yet freelance photographer Uemura fights his attraction for the beautiful Mari with all his might. For not only is she the wife of the prominent head of a prestigious hospital, but all of those who've previously had affairs with this sensual succubus seem to have expired prematurely. It's a losing battle, however, and Uemura soon finds himself pulled into the arms of the voluptuous Mari and the jaws of a trap designed to suck men dry and spit out the husks. For it seems that Mari's husband, Ginjiro, is all too aware of who's been sleeping in his wife's bed, and the sexual predation that follows will pull Uemura into a world of bondage and depravity.

Based on an award winning novel, It's Only Talk is about the life of Yuko, a 35-year old woman. She is single and unemployed, and suffers from manic depression. The movie begins with Yuko moving to Kamata Town.

The southern tip of Shikoku. This village, surrounded by a bay, where, according to legend, the former warriors of the Heike clan settled, is famous for its bullfights. Today there is also a bull market in the village, and there are extremely many people here. The black bull "Great Tengu", which Gonzo from Misaki offered, cost 50,000, but was forcibly taken away by a Bakuro soldier, who possessed extraordinary strength and physique, for less than half the price. However, the violent soldier was in love with Tsunayo, the hostess of the inn and the organizer of the bullfight. One day, a young man from the city, an Ihara police officer, arrives in the village. And soon the real problems will begin…

If actresses Hirosue Ryoko, Igawa Haruka and Saito Yuki chose different paths at the turning point in their lives, what kind of life would they be leading?

Set loose in a postwar world with no rules, an ex-juvenile delinquent begins building the most powerful gang in Tokyo's glittering Shibuya ward.

Young men endure challenging flight training in the Yokaren, a program feeding new pilots into the Army and Navy. By the time of the filming, the pressure of the war had led the government to shorten the training and expand the age range of the recruits. Yokaren was highly selective, and thus an object of great fascination and desire for boys and young men. In this Navy–sponsored film, Setsuko Hara plays the daughter of a family that often entertains recruits on their days off—a surrogate sister to many trainees. Her fragile younger brother aspires to join the program, but is rejected. With perseverance and much support from Hara and their mother, he surmounts his weaknesses and becomes a flier.

Young geisha Koshizu's wish of reuniting with the man, Yukichi, who helped her ten years ago comes true. When she learns of the trouble Yukichi's business is facing, she stands ready to come to his aid, and thus repay a debt that's long overdue.

In front of a man who wants to be a movie director, Shingo, the ghost of Mr. Kawashita, who was a senior in the college film research department who committed suicide a year ago, suddenly appears on his death anniversary. Mr. Kawashita says that he was revived because he wanted to have sex with his junior, Aoi, who had a crush on him when he was in college. In order to fulfill his desire to work with Aoi-chan, Kawashita-san and Shingo will travel back in time on that day when he was in college, which was probably the only chance for Kawashita-san to work with Aoi-chan. There was a nostalgic college Aoi-chan there. Can Mr. Kawashita redo the past and do it with Aoi-chan? It's funny, but a little sad time slip love story begins.

Echizen Washi artisan Takeo has lived in emotional isolation since the death of his wife, but he collapses due to a brain tumor and is in need of care. Yona, a Korean woman in Japan on a working holiday, comes to his aid. Stubborn Takeo and pushy Yona butt heads repeatedly, but gradually Takeo opens up under Yona's care.

Enigmatic teenager Akira Inugami is, by night, a powerful werewolf, who falls for a beautiful young teacher, and copes with a ruthless teen gang leader, whose yakuza father murdered Akira's parents years before.

A husband is a workaholic and doesn't care about his family. The wife is tired of neighborhood relationships such as the neighborhood association of the housing complex that interfere with her privacy. Her husband pretends to be indifferent to the wife. She finally loses her temper and starts a rebellion against her husband, but then her evil seductive hand reaches out...

Stalwart soldiers of the Japanese Empire – Japanese and Korean alike – stand in defense of a military outpost threatened by "bandits."

How hard is it to kill an idiot? Just ask Kudo Kankuro! The acclaimed screenwriter brings his 2004 Kunio Kishida-winning stage play Donju (a.k.a. Dumb Animal) to the big screen in all its wacky tragicomedic glory. The one and only Asano Tadanobu sports a seriously nerdy bowl haircut to play the leading role of simple-minded novelist Dekogawa who has mysteriously disappeared. Dekogawa wrote an autobiography about his youth that reveals not only his past, but also some of his childhood friends’ best-forgotten secrets. In order to keep the skeletons in the closet, these buddies of yesteryear try to silence him permanently. But no matter how hard they try to kill Dekogawa, he just keeps coming back – because he’s simply too thickheaded to die!

Kazuo Mido is a pastor at a small church. He lost his wife 8 years ago and raises his only daughter, a junior high school student, singlehandedly. When she is diagnosed with an illness, he undergoes a drastic change.

Edogawa Rampo is a writer whose latest work is censored by the government, deemed too disturbing and injurious to the public to be allowed to be published. However, after burning his drafts, his publisher shows him a newspaper with an account of events just like his forbidden story. As the film progresses, fantasy and reality intermingle in a tale that draws heavily on influences from Poe and Stoker's Dracula. The film's strongly Expressionistic direction skillfully combines a variety of media (animation, computer-generated imagery, grainy black-and-white fast film stock, color negatives) for artistic effect.

Hikari's boyfriend is one of those killed in the Akihabara massacre incident. Suffering from the shock of her loss and unable to accept this reality, she cuts herself off from the outside world. She eventually manages to muster enough courage to visit Akihabara, the scene of the incident. There, she encounters many people who are still coming to terms with the aftermath of the incident and are still suffering from the aftereffects.

Second part of an epic drama of war and its effects upon human beings, follows the fortunes of the Godai family from 1935 through Japan's invasion of China. Based on the novels by Jumpei Gomikawa, who also penned The Human Condition.

A newspaper reporter's search for his girlfriend's missing father lead him into heart of the criminal underworld of Yokohama's Chinatown.

Set at the edge of the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, with its beautiful scenic views, the film revolves around two women from different backgrounds who develop a friendship, and how they begin to influence and change each other’s lives.

Kunio Shibano was bankrupted. He visits a snowland spa area to commit suicide. But he meets Geisha Moeko, and she gives him power to face life one more time...

A young boy, Masahiko Sakurai, grows up in Nagasaki where he sees the clear blue ocean everyday. His mother wants him to be a violinist. To make her dream come true, Masahiko goes to Tokyo to learn the violin, and stays with his aunt, Setsuko, in Kamakura near Tokyo. Director Mitsutoshi Tanaka's adaptation of Masashi Sada's novel of the same name received the 21st Japanese Cinema Reconstruction and Promotion Award and the 46th Blue Ribbon Award for Best Supporting Actor.

The Kumakichi Ishida family lived happily in a small house in Shibuya while their mansion in Azabu was requisitioned by the occupation forces. When the residence is released to them, Mrs. Ishida wants to turn it into a Western style hotel to recoup their fortunes, but returns to Shibuya, swindled and sober.

First Half: Kamasutra in three dimensions. Second Half: Report-movie-like short story.

Wang Xinglian returns from her studies in Japan to visit her father in Hong Kong where she has an encounter with the young Japanese Hasegawa Toru. The two meet again and fall in love in Hokkaido when Wang and her best friend Sugimoto Kanako are going on a holiday. Urged by her friend Zhang Yingming to concentrate on her studies, Wang remains ambivalent about the relationship, and is even more upset to realise that Sugimoto is in love with her fellow countryman. Feigning an engagement with Zhang, Wang initiates a break-up with Hasegawa and finds work in Singapore after graduation. Hasegawa learns the real cause of the break-up from Sugimoto in Hong Kong. A frenzy search finally leads to a reunion and a proposal in Kuala Lumpur. However, their love is doomed by a twist of fate as Wang must leave to see her desperately ill father in Hong Kong while Hasegawa has to leave for America to pursue his career.

Tamie’s husband Shuhei is a famous novelist. However he mysteriously disappeared after WWII. One day, his old friend Mikuni shows up to Tamie’s house. He accuses Tamie of killing him. Mikuni shows her proof, in the form of a letter the novelist wrote before he disappeared. However, the truth is much more twisted than he could imagine... This period film, set in post-WWII Japan, is truly one of the more bizarre and twisted Pink Films you'll ever see.

The first erotic suspense that depicts a horrible living hell that is unlawfully present in a secret cabal that does not exist. High school teacher · Sato Yuki is sent to the secret cell / area 88 due to a certain incident. It was a slave factory like hell that destroys the human nature of a prisoner and transforms it into livestock.

TheForbidden pure love story, based on the original work of Junichi Watanabe. Chitani Moriya is an ordinary 25-year-old office worker who is driven by a marriage desire.

A new female detective joins the special investigations team and dives into some of their hardest cases in this follow-up to the series 'Unfair.' The team investigates a grisly video circulating online that asks viewers to answer 'yes' or 'no' questions with potentially deadly outcomes.

Akira Mochizuki survived a kidnapping as a child. Now, she's a detective, and there are signs that the kidnapper may be back again after 20 years.

Harajuku, the fashion capital of Tokyo. Yasuko works at a boutique as a beginner seamstress. As snow covers the streets, the boutique's interior decorates itself with colorful clothing. An exhibition of the shop's spring line up is right around the corner. After a hard day at work Yasuko stops by at a produce market, setting all her unfinished work on the rear deck of a random truck. When she gets home, she realizes that she's missing a couple of things.

A romance occurs via email, between Jun Shibahara, the ace in his swimming team, and an ill girl.

Original story by Yasushi AKIMOTO, writer of the mega hit movie One Missed Call (Chakushin Ari) series. As the project was in development with an idea of an "infectious song (Densen-Uta)", one of the staff called out..."There was a real Densen-Uta!" He discovers on the internet of a song back in 1933, Hungary, which caused mysterious deaths of many people. In "Densen-Uta", high school girls get mixed up in the Japanese version of this infectious song, and with the help of third rate gossip magazine reporter, tries to solve the mystery and horror behind the song. They come to know just how real, an urban legend can become.

A murder that happened 30years ago is connected to the future! Depicting the moment when the past and future! This is time [trouble]splatter!

Nekoma High School's volleyball team recruits a new member: the half-Japanese, half-Russian Lev Haiba. Though the self-proclaimed ace is blessed with great height, he lacks basic volleyball techniques. This gives the team's setter, Kenma Kozume, a hard time when matching up with him. To everyone's surprise, Nekoma's coach suggests that Lev play in the Kunihira Senior High School's practice match, leaving Kenma no choice but to cooperate with the tall player. Will Kenma be able to overcome this new challenge?

35th-anniversary Fuji TV special featuring three new “Tales of the Unusual” shorts: Anata Hakubutsukan, Nanakai Tōsō, Tomaranakereba Ikirarenai Game, plus a one-night revival of the 1991 classic “Happy Birthday to My Home.”

One of Japan's most popular stories is the tale of Kutsukake Tokijiro, a traveling gambler who finds that he must take care of the wife and child of a yakuza he had been forced by the code of the gamblers to fight man to man. In a brilliant performance from super-star Ichikawa Raizo, with strong support from two of the greats from Toho, Shimura Takashi (7 Samurai) and Aratama Michiyo (Sword of Doom) the heartfelt story reaches new heights. Tokijiro, having learned the true nature of the boss to whom he was obligated for having spent a night and eaten at the gang's headquarters takes up arms against them in a running battle fought across the back roads of the entire nation. Another powerful rendition of this superb story, it is not to be missed!

In this offbeat coming-of-age tale, a charming, rebellious high school dropout named Kanta befriends the kind, provincial Shoji. The two bring out the best in each other, each gaining confidence from their friendship - especially regarding pursuit of the opposite sex. The working class Kanta becomes a sort of unruly anti-hero, maintaining his pride, defiance, and self-assurance even as his prospects seem increasingly grim.

On the way home from a small assault incident at a love hotel in Tokyo, Shuntaro Katagiri playfully entered the love hotel with his friend Iwanaka. When I fell asleep, I screamed and screamed from the room. Katagiri, who was full of blood, jumped out of the room after hearing the noise. A running girl, a bloody man, and a muscle man, a yakuza, a mysterious woman. The corridor of the hotel turned into a shambles for a moment, but Katagiri, a karate master, he slammed the place and he broke it. A strange space-This was his first encounter with the girl

A detective vs an international drug syndicate

I is a university, who came to Tokyo from his hometown. I lives alone and doesn't have friends or a girlfriend. I's university life is boring and he doesn't have a dream. I supports himself by working as a day laborer at a construction site. I meets two people at a hide-and-seek club. One is his Senior and the other person is Black Suit. By meeting them, I's boring life changes. They start the "Midnight Maiden War," which is their plan to destroy Tokyo.

The wife of a famous resident of Kamakura awakens to carnal passion . . . And when her blood cools down it's because she's been murdered!

A Hiromichi Horikawa movie

One day, Katsumi's girlfriend Sakura suddenly disappears, and all his friends do not remember anything about her. In pursuit of his love, Katsumi finds himself in a parallel world of Japan in the midst of a civil war between two clans Taira and Genji.

In Shibamata, Tokyo, Tora-san's family prepares for a wedding. Meanwhile, the traveling Tora-san meets an old acqaintance in Iwate Province. Tora-san refuses to drink with him, afraid that the acquaintance, now settled and married, will again become attracted to Tora-san's wandering existence. Tora-san becomes attracted to a female barber, but must break off their relationship so that she too can live a secure life. She instead gets into an abusive relationship with a motorcyclist.

Jun, the ace in his swimming team, lost against his rival, Naoki, at the summer college tournament. But since then there is a special feeling between them...