Kumiko Asô

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Set in a small Nagano village in the 1930s, the film follows Hanji, a young boy captivated by a local kabuki performance. Inspired by Yukio, Hanji learns kabuki with Utako. As they grow, they become skilled actors, performing in a final kabuki before World War II. After the war, Hanji returns to revive kabuki and restore the community’s spirit. In the 1980s, as he nears death, the villagers organise a final performance in his honour, where he performs “Tenryu Koishibuki” for Yukio.Read More »

In the summer of 2015 in Tokyo, Japan. Ryoichi dreamed of becoming a punk rocker when he was younger, but became a timid salaryman at a musical instrument parts company. He has feelings for Yuko, but he can‘t tell her how he feels. One day, he has a fateful meeting with a turtle on the rooftop of a department store. He names the turtle Pikadon and he adores it, but his co-workers laugh at him. Ryoichi throws Pikadon into the toilet. He regrets what he did. The turtle though goes through sewerage and meets an old man who lives in the underground. Something then happens.Read More »

A love triangle blooms between a team of three ninjas before tragedy strikes and forces them to reassess their clan’s principles.Read More »

The story of a man who has memorized the Holy Quran. In this movie, life of the famous poet from Shiraz (Hafez Shirazi) is presented symbolically.Read More »

Tatsuo and his daughter Haru run Takano Tofu Store in Onomichi. When Tatsuo discovers he is ill, he worries his daughter will be left on her own and, unbeknownst to her, sets out to find Haru a match. Although the plot could fill (and already has filled) quite a few family dramas, here, with the magnetic the presence of veteran Tatsuya Fuji (Empire of the Senses), the main character is given a sophisticated characterization, which fills the plot with an earnest dimension.Read More »

Synopsis: In a world with an alternate history, a great war finally comes to an end leaving the earth diseased and polluted. The geneticist Dr. Azuma vies for support from the government for his neo-cell treatment that he claims can rejuvenate the body and regenerate humankind. The government leaders, guarding their own deeply entrenched powers, turn down the professor. Driven to complete his work, Dr. Azuma accepts a secret offer from a sinister faction of the powerful military. After an incident occurs in Dr. Azuma’s lab, a race of mutant humans known as the Shinzo Ningen are unleashed upon the world. Now only the warrior known as Casshern, reincarnated with an invincible body, stands between the Shinzo Ningen and a world on the brink of annihilation.Read More »

Machisu is a painter. He never had the success he thinks he is entitled to. Regardless of this, he always remains trying to be successful. His wife Sachiko keeps supporting him, despite all setbacks.Read More »

The film concerns Dr. Akagi, a doctor on an island in the Seto Inland Sea area during World War II. He runs into conflict with the military while trying to combat a hepatitis epidemic. Akagi earns the nickname “Dr. Liver” (カンゾー先生 Kanzō-sensei) because of his work, though the townsfolk use it as a humorous dig at his persistent diagnosis. Though the broad circumstance of Japan slowly losing the war is the setting, many of the interactions and situations tilt into humor, for instance; the very music used for the doctor running from patient to patient has an upbeat and light-hearted tone.Read More »

A haunting tale of destiny and life’s unpredictability: an elite bureaucrat, humbled by an incident which ruined his promising career, has a chance encounter with a glamorous hostess, heartbroken by her husband’s death.Read More »