Japan

“What secrets lie deep in the buried forest? Veteran filmmaker Oguri Kohei, the director of such films as The Sting of Death and Sleeping Man, helms The Buried Forest (a.k.a. Umoregi), one of a select group of Japanese films entered in competition at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. With a cinematic look seemingly pulled straight from yesteryear, the film kicks off by focusing on a high school girl named Machi (Karen). To break up the monotony of summer, Machi decides that she and her friends should have some fun and start telling each other stories.Read More »

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At some point beating and ravaging others becomes a routine pastime when two kids go on a rampage. Taira picks his target of men and goes for broke, while Kitahara puts down his camera long enough to instead go after women. There is enough blood shed during the course of one night to paint a mural of red for the whole city to see.Read More »

A demonic reincarnation of a Japanese general from the 10th century appears in the early 20th century Tokyo with a mission to destroy the blooming city.Read More »

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When suicide hotline counselor Rinko (Asuka Kurosawa) receives explicit photos of herself from a mysterious caller, she is thrown into a depraved game of hidden fantasies and unrestrained sexual desire. As the voyeuristic stalker becomes determined to alter her passionless life, Rinko’s compulsively clean husband Shigehiko (Yuji Koutari) attempts to hunt him down and the three disillusioned soul’s paths will inevitably intertwine.Read More »

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Three high school girls about to take their final exam, secretly plan to ruin the diploma ceremony in order to avenge themselves of that school which treated them as delinquents. Two classmates who discovered their plan decide to join the rebellion. They steal all the graduation certificates, use their charms to get weapons from Jieitai soldiers and establish their base in the mountain.Read More »

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A light-heartedly humorous take on post-war female emancipation, Carmen Comes Home is a fairly typical offering from Shochiku, a studio renowned at the time for its conservative output specialising predominantly in comedies and domestic dramas based firmly within the framework of the traditional Japanese family structure. Produced at a time when the company’s fortunes were still riding high, to celebrate their 30th anniversary studio head Shiro Kido (himself the subject of a retrospective at the Nederlands Filmmuseum in 1994) allowed director Keisuke Kinoshita to direct this light and breezy comedy drama in Fujicolor, and thus Japan’s first ever colour motion picture came to be made.Read More »

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In mid-career, while he is on a winning streak, and in the middle of a fight he is winning, a young boxer is revolted by the violence of the game. He allows himself to be beaten up and quits the match and the sport. He also leaves his wife and child and lives alone with his moth-eaten old dog, all the while losing his sight. Years later, he is hunted down by a young man who is ambitious to become a prize-winning boxer. Persistence pays off, and he eventually persuades the ex-boxer to be his manager and trainer. The boy begins his rise to success, though he has a stormy relationship with his manager.Read More »

Synopsis: A mountain man from Hokkaido comes to Tokyo in search of the woman he loves, but has to brave the city’s dystopic underworld of gladiatorial fights and underground opera to rescue her.Read More »

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A 20-year-old woman feels entrapped in her relationship with her current boyfriend – she wants out of her “nowhere” life and into something better. To that end, she hooks up with a photographer for whom she poses in the nude. She then starts a relationship with a well-known actor who is able to introduce her to an acting job. Maybe her life will change to the better after all.

Based on the best-selling novel by Hiroyuki Itsuki.Read More »