Discoveries from Japan World Cinema

Comedy of an entertainment agent and strip-teasers.

A man is immobile and incapacitated, but has professional and nonprofessional volunteers serve and help him. Though, he takes full advantage of the situation and uses and abuses the volunteer crew.

Lum & her girlfriends are invited to Neptune by Oyuki. There she shows them her new business venture at a ranch of flying sherbets, birds capable of producing sherbet cones from their beaks. Ran convinces Oyuki to let her borrow one, her goal is to make some quick cash selling sherbets on Earth. Unfortunately, the combination of being overworked and a hot summer day has made the sherbet extremely cranky, even from its refrigerated cage. It breaks from its cage and escapes, but not before attacking Ran and Lum, and trashing Benten's brand-new bike by shooting sherbet cones at it. Now it's up to Ran to retrieve the sherbet before Benten blasts it out of the sky, and more importantly, before Oyuki finds out.

This is a story of love between a society girl and a yakuza boy. Mami lives an ordinary life in Tokyo, being with her friends and studying. Her biggest interest is ladies hats. She is rather well off, as her father is the ambassador of Japan in Spain. One day when she is out driving, she is attacked by a group of yakuza, but is saved by the honorable yakuza Jiro. This will change her life forever.

The story takes place over a 24 hour period. In the southernmost part of Japan, 20 fishing boats of an unknown nationality suddenly fire upon and occupy parts of the Hateruma archipelago. Members of the Japan Coast Guard are detained. Under the extremely tense situation, the Japanese government sends Aircraft Carrier Ibuki and an escort fleet to the area. Ryota Akitsu is the captain of the Aircraft Carrier Ibuki and Toshiya Niinami is second-in-command. It is now 6:23 am. and Japan faces one day which they never have before.

Azalea has been residing on the Colony-Planet of Dinahl, and she can't recall anything about herself until she hears a voice calling her name. Then there is another voice summoning her to go to a park on top of a skyscraper. Once she arrives there, she meets up with other people who also have no recollection of who they are or what they were doing before arriving at this destination as instructed by the voice. All the people assembled there possess superhuman powers, such as Eno's psychic power, Umoth's x-ray vision, Neia's teleportation powers, Azalea's telepathy, and Locke's electrical wizardry. Who has summoned them, and what will the five super-psychics confront?

Five men plot to steal a large sum of money from the local yakuza, but everything does not go as planned and the men find themselves hunted down by contract killers.

A youngster, Wil had a dissatisfaction to the society which the computer controls the total life of a person. One day he catches a strange telepathy from outer space.

A Japanese film that tells the tale of the birth of VHS. It follows Kagatani Shizuo, an electronics employee who rallies his coworkers to save their jobs by increasing sales. They do this by developing the VHS standard. They battle with Sony and their standard and ultimately prevail.

"Tsubaki Sanjuro" is a remake of Sanjuro (1962) by Akira Kurosawa. Sanjuro returns with sharper, faster, subtler sword, talking and perception. He uses them to settle the trouble and uses them good!

One day, a boy's body is found again under the same bridge. The case is eerily similar to Masaki's case from 22 years ago. Haru has a connection with the deceased boy. Akira meets Haru while investigating the boy's death. By meeting each other again, the three men face the case from 22 years ago that they buried deep within their minds.

A girl suffering from an incurable disease get in a coma, while her boyfriend visit her to the hospital, she visits the beyond.

Oshima’s magisterial epic, centering on the ambivalent surviving heir of the Sakurada clan, uses ritual and the microcosm of the traditional family to trace the rise and fall of militaristic Japan across several decades.

The fear of rape suddenly befalls women who live peacefully in Shinjuku, as the perspective of the film alternates between the point of view of a rapist who calls himself a "shark" and the women who are raped.

The second 'Yakuza Emblem' film.

Pandora and Akubi are crossing dimensions to collect the "fragments of disaster," which have the power to destroy worlds. The first half of the film takes place in the setting of an American Western and the second half of the film takes place on a snowy mountain where mysterious spirits exist.

Shimada is a student of U College. When the college's baseball team wins the day, he and his friend Ito drug two girls they met at the game.

Eiji Akutsu is a newspaper reporter. He is working on unsolved case that took place 30 years ago. The case involved a group of people extorting several companies for money. The group sent cassette tapes to the companies. Eiji Akutsu comes across a mysterious cassette tape. Meanwhile, Toshiya Sone lives in Kyoto and runs a tailor shop. He discovers a cassette tape among his late father's possessions. He plays the cassette tape and hears his voice from his childhood days.

A detective tries to outwit an art loving thief who has kidnapped the daughter of a jeweler to get to an exquisite diamond.

The fourth film of the “Truck Yaro” series. A comical road movie of two long-distance truckers, “Momojiro” and “Kinzo,” who travel around Japan in highly decorated trucks. Momojiro goes to Shikoku this time, and he falls in love with a beautiful designer named Wakako, who is on a pilgrimage.

A commoner inherits lordship of debt-ridden Tanjousan Bun. Officials inform him of new role and substantial debts. He learns he is son of retired Daimyo when position becomes vacant.

Set at the end of the Sengoku period to early Edo period, "Sanada Ten Braves" follows 10 members of a ninja group who all serve under samurai warrior Yukimura Sanada.

At the Penguin Village, the dinosaurs styled monster named Dodongadon appeared. But he was small as Arale and did not have strong power. Arale defeat him very easily, and Dodongadon called his mother Mamangadon. She was huge and had a big power. How Arale can defeat this big monster?

A frustrated wife who is married to a gay husband has an affair with another man. But she is set up by the husband’s parents who hire a dominatrix and a SM specialist to deal with her infidelity in a rather harsh and pervered manner.

The moment he's released from prison, the honorable gangster Miyamoto recovers the stolen diamonds he had stashed before getting pinched. When he returns to his haunt to make good by friend who took a bullet for him, he is diverted by the greedy boss Oyane and his insatiable taste for Miyamoto's precious stones.

Hitomi, a former orphan who is trying to leave behind her delinquent ways, one day agrees to tutor a wealthy young boy who has just become an orphan himself…

A stay-at-home nerd's dream comes true when he unearths a strange breastplate and awakens a sexy monster hunter named Dogoo, who brings him along her adventure with wacky monsters. (Movie edit of several episodes of the TV show)

1958 Japanese movie

Set 3 years after the drama series. Kitano Yuichiro comes to give a lecture in the town where divorcee Sasamoto Sawa now lives quietly. The two meet again and their love story continue.

Set on an alternative Earth, Superheroes are celebrities and a high rating TV show rates their achievements, awarding them points until an annual King of Heroes is crowned. Old-school hero Wild Tiger is assigned a new partner with very different views on the heroes role in society but soon a vigilante criminal presents them with a serious problem.

Can women make up for each other's physical deficiencies? ! Even though it is not allowed, it is a ritual. It doesn't matter if I break down...The bigger the price, the deeper I can drown in pleasure...Put our lips together and exchange love. My consciousness recedes from the endless caress. Women fall into forbidden love...

In the fourth film of series, Secret Assignment, Raizo again plays the Jiro Shiina. This time he's out to discover who is spying for the British in the Foreign Ministry, under the code name “Cat's Eye”.

This is a biographical film about the late Yoko Araki, who was the wife of Japan's leading photographer, Nobuyoshi Araki.

Rival private eyes Ryo Saeba and Umibozu must find a way into a high-tech luxury hotel to rescue their friends who are being held hostage and stop a mad South American dictator's plans to use the hotel's supercomputer to unleash a nuclear holocaust. Highly reminiscent of Die Hard, right down to a scene where Ryu bunjee-jumps off of the roof of the hotel skyscraper with a fire hose. Written by Christopher E. Meadows

A girl from a peaceful, Edo-era Japanese village seeks revenge for the death of a disgraced elder with the help of her sister and a lethal lady ninja nun. It's the time of the samurai and ninja, and Shogun Yoshimune rules Japan. Beneath the idyllic façade of the quant villages populating the countryside dwells a twisted sexual underbelly that affects the wealthy and impoverished alike. When one of the village elders commits seppuku after being raped, Kaede and her sister decide to take justice into their own hands and track down the perpetrator. Aided by a nun who believes in Old Testament-style retribution, the two sisters embark on a bloody mission of vengeance. Along the way, the three women slice and dice their way through lies and secrets while discovering that the story behind the rape is much more complex than any of them suspected.

On her way to school, high school girl Nana sees a train accident. Then Nana and her friend Kanae start to come across various bizarre phenomena, including red fingerprints and a female spirit who 'lives' on the station platform. One day, Nana's younger sister is lost, and the only possibility seems to be that she had been taken by these spirits. The missing tracks. The predictions that a mysterious woman makes.

A group of junior high school must find out the truth of their classmate's death is he was killed by someone or committed suicide.

Follows a young med student's relationships with two women: a dangerous affair with a childhood friend and his mother's struggle to rebuild their estranged relationship.

Five different directors adapt the works of Japanese author Otsuichi in this collection of unconventional live-action and animated shorts. A woman is murdered under odd circumstances in the title film, "Zoo"; twin sisters are treated differently in "Kazari and Yoko"; two siblings find themselves trapped in "Seven Rooms"; a survivor learns about life and death in "When the Sun Shines"; and parents lose the ability to see each other in "So Far."

Hibiki Shimada, a normal 17-year-old high-school student, still does not know how to fall in love—although surrounded by love "experts"—until one day she realizes she's fallen in love with her hot and nice 26-year-old teacher, Itō. She then takes a path to make her teacher understand how she feels for him.

A story of friendship between two women, Yae and Kiyoko. Their friendship is tested when artist Yae, who suffers from fatal illness, develops special feelings towards her best friend Kiyoko’s boyfriend Kosuke.

In a cone-shaped land named Kikyōgahara in Shin Province, there lives a girl named Hana. She is a gentle girl, who always thinks of her family, in particular her great-grandmother Chiyo, whom she affectionately calls "Granny." One day, a traveling entertainment troupe named the Natsugawa Genzaemon Troupe happens by, and the villagers welcome them warmly. Upon finishing their performance and receiving their acclaim, the troupe's leader spots Hana with some "oyaki," his favorite food, and transforms into a fox in his excitement. It turns out that the leader Genbanojō, and his companions O-Natsu and Shinzaemon, are all foxes who have taken on human forms. Genbanojō hastily negotiates with Hana, telling her that in exchange for keeping their secret, he will grant her one wish. She answers, "I want to let my Granny see the cherry blossoms."

A nurse starts to investigate why a woman who came to her office committed suicide. She discovers that a Yakuza gang is using an unusual drug to sexually enslave women. But she gets caught and when she is injected with the drug rather gruesome side effects appear, much to the surprise of the gang.

The movie is part of the Kindaichi TV movie series. Kindaichi is played by actor Goro Inagaki. The character's grandfather began with the written word. Kousuke Kindaichi started life in the novels of Seishi Yokomizo, written and set in post-war Japan. Inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, Kindaichi is still very much a unique character, giving the Japanese their very own literary hero-detective. Young Hajime Kindaichi is a young man with bad dandruff and worse dress-sense (decades before Columbo), who wears a trademark, scruffy sunhat. He also happens to be better than the police at deductive reasoning. Having gained publicity for solving a high-profile murder case, the detectives allow him to work with them again. This story is slimmer than the twisty plots of Inugami and Village, but is graced by the presence of Chiaki Kuriyama (Battle Royale, Kill Bill Vol. 1, The Great Yokai War) in the title role.

Teacher Akira Suzuki breaks away from long-held customs and norms at his school. He tries hard to have the ideal classroom by using his own "Suzuki method". The new semester begins. His homeroom 2-A class is about to have a student council election and preparations for a school festival. A man then takes a female student hostage...

An American scientist constructs a laser satellite with hopes of preventing any nuclear conflicts from occurring. However, after a fatal error from both the US and the USSR governments, war breaks out and humanity faces a new bloodshed.

A Christmas Eve power outage provides a collection of troubled Tokyo denizens the opportunity to come clean on the misdeeds of their past.

When an underhanded pharmaceutical company goes to a remote tropical island to steal King Kong for advertising purposes, they get more than they bargained for when the gigantic ape attacks an unsuspecting village and an enormous octopus.

Atsuko and Akira are a husband and wife duo with a daughter and a son. Atsuko is in charge of the retirement finances. She saves from money given to her by her husband and also earns money herself by working part-time. She stretches every yen by leading a frugal life. yet, expenses come up. These include their daughter's upcoming wedding and the funeral expenses of the husband's father. Then, and at exactly the worst time, the couple finds itself unemployed.

The second film in the five-part Gundam: G no Reconguista Movie series.

Cyborg 009 movie based on the manga of the same name. Features 009's origin and an epic battle against Black Ghost and their evil robot forces.

Reinhard von Müsel, a poor nobleman's son, one day discovers that his sister, Annerose, has been sold to the royal family. To get her back he sets out to rise quickly through the military along with his friend Siegfried Kircheis.

The Norimaki Family, the Soramame Family, Suppaman, and Dr. Mashirito end up coming to a summer resort which is really a haunted castle filled with monsters. While enjoying the many facilities, such as the arcades and hot spring baths, they all end up falling into the clutches of Vandora, a female vampire who intends to feed off them.

Third movie of the Sangokushi animated film trilogy. The movie covers the longest time span of the three films, from Liu Bei's expedition to Shu in 211 CE to the death of Kongming in 234 CE.

It is a taboo story about love and incest between twins. It's not about sex, it's about the feelings the two have for one another and how society views them.

A carpenter, Shigetsugu, learns a lesson of love and humanity from five orphaned children and an affectionate woman named Oritsu. It's a winning combination of drama and humor. The warm friendship that grows between the carpenter, the woman and the children making this into a true masterpiece.

Reunited by the death of a friend, a group of former schoolmates reassess themselves and their earlier times together.

Shinko Terasawa was always considered to be the odd ball of the bunch. At a time when romance was against school regulations, Shinko was the first to take a bite out of the forbidden fruit. Expelled from her former school, she finds herself in an all-girls school in Jokamachi, where rumors fly. One day, Shinko delivers an anonymous love letter addressed to her English teacher, Ms. Shimazaki. Convinced that the students are playing a prank, Ms. Shimazaki is adamant about getting to the bottom of this "problem”.