letterboxd wrote:
The film opens with kidnappers of a corporate executive making an unusual ransom demand: that a wizened executive from another company haul large bags of money through downtown Tokyo as the media documents his every move. When the first old man almost dies from exhaustion, a second, and eventually a third elderly corporate fat cat is ordered to do the same. The police detective assigned to the case (Tetsuya Watari) and his younger partner (Masatoshi Nagase) are livid with indignation at this sorry spectacle. They learn that these four men were involved in a massive industrial spill that poisoned an entire rural hamlet 20 years previous. Suddenly, the detective – who studied in the States and apparently absorbed some John Wayne-like mannerisms in the process – isn’t sure who are the victims and who are the villains.

Abduction.1997-YuY.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 49 min
Size: 	5.26 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1440x1038
Aspect ratio:  	1.85:1
Bit rate: 	6 883 kb/s

Audio
#1:  	Japanese 2ch AAC LC 

https://nitro.download/view/59120AC0867BF43/Abduction.1997-YuY.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/35064DD3794EA11/Abduction_(1997)_Final_Draft.srt

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English

thanks to @Prince Tyler for this copy and the subtitles.

The post Takao Okawara – Yukai AKA Abduction (1997) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

imdb:
Keisuke, an aspiring samurai-movie actor lands a major role in a new film, but must contend with a director who has nothing but scorn for him, but who continually fawns over the film’s obnoxious ham of a star. Meanwhile, Keisuke has been dumped by his girlfriend, Eri, after she becomes heartbroken when he considers working full-time as a bar manager rather than pursuing his dream. Through her job as a translator, she meets an Italian professor who claims to talk to trees, and who immediately starts trying to woo her.

Stereo Future.mkv

General
Container:	Matroska
Runtime:	1h 50mn
Size:	3.10 GiB

Video
Codec:	x264
Resolution:	720x480
Aspect ratio:	16:9
Frame rate:	26.850 fps
Bit rate:	3 804 Kbps
Audio
Japanese 2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 Kbps

https://nitro.download/view/3DBB46D4A181F36/Stereo_Future.mkv

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English, Japanese

Many thanks to @Evan for this copy

The post Hiroyuki Nakano – Stereo Future (2001)  first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
When Kotaro meets Kuroe, it is love at first sight. They resolve to spend the rest of their lives together. But one day, Kuroe collapses and X-rays reveal something resembling a flower budding in her lung. She refuses surgery and goes home with Kotaro, unable to drink water, lest the bud blooms. When Kotaro discovers that other flowers in the room cause the first water lily to shrivel up, so he fills the house with fresh flowers. Kotaro loses his job, but is more than ever desperate to meet the expense of fresh flowers for Kuroe. Kotaro is finally offered a job with the florist. The house literally shrinks around Kuroe, as the flower blooms inside her and she fades away.

Quote:
The haunting image of a young woman who discovers the bud of a flower is growing in her lung is at the center “L’Ecume des Jours,” one of the most famous novels of the influential post-war French author Boris Vian, a story that is transferred to Japan in Go Riju’s version of the book. Filled with beautiful imagery and intriguing elements, the film is nevertheless a little too languid to achieve widespread acceptance. However, further exposure on the fest route may give it a profile that could result in niche distribution in some territories.

Kuroe.aka.Chloe.2011.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	2h 8mn
Size: 	1.26 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	716x356 ~> 854x356
Aspect ratio:  	2.40:1
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	1 192 Kbps
BPP: 	0.195
Audio
#1:  	Japanese 2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 Kbps (Stereo)

https://nitro.download/view/3F4A046B6A45950/Kuroe.aka.Chloe.2001.mkv

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English, Chinese (muxed)

Many thanks to @Evan for this copy

The post Gô Rijû – Kuroe AKA Chloe (2001) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
Somewhere on the coast of Taiwan is Hotel Iris, a mouldering seaside establishment run by a cold and thrifty Japanese woman (Nahana) and her lonely half-Taiwanese daughter Mari (Lucia). One night, Mari hears the cries of a woman from the upper floors. Heading up to investigate, she witnesses a distraught woman in a red camisole dress escape an impeccably dressed but violent man (NAGASE Masatoshi) whose cold voice is entrancing. Mari’s initial shock turns into a strange fascination which drives her to follow the man to discover more about him. He is a translator who lives on an isolated island one can only reach by boat and rumours swirl around him and recent murders. The closer she gets to the man, the more a hidden layer of Mari’s personality awakens as she allows herself to be engulfed by his strange passions.

Hiroshi Okuhara - (2021) Hotel Iris.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 41 min
Size: 	1.40 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1024x552 
Aspect ratio:  	1.85:1
Frame rate: 	24.000 fps
Bit rate: 	1 748 kb/s
BPP: 	0.129
Audio
#1:  	Japanese 2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 kb/s (Stereo)

https://nitro.download/view/2AD03DAC757F45C/Hiroshi_Okuhara_-_(2021)_Hotel_Iris.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/D0EE8324B8E95CD/Hotel.Iris.2021.1080p.BluRay.Remux.AVC.DTS-HD.MA.2.0.srt

Language(s):Japanese, Mandarin
Subtitles:German, English

The post Hiroshi Okuhara – Hotel Iris (2021) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Part One of the Maiku Hama Private Eye Trilogy
Detective Maiku “Mike” Hama (Masatoshi Nagase; Mystery Train) navigates the Yokohama underworld with razor sharp threads, Belmondo cool and two-fisted street savvy. But when he comes to the aid of a Taiwanese waiter at a local mah-jongg parlor, the unflappable Hama has no idea what he’s in for. Though seemingly a luckless immigrant teetering on the threshold of Yokohama’s gutter, Hama’s Taiwanese client holds the secret to a ferocious gangland revenge triangle that soon has bullets, fists and severed fingers flying. Hama’s plunge into a dizzyingly escalating, brutally violent multiethnic gang war ultimately snares him in a web of revenge and deceit that spans continents and severs bloodlines.

Things aren’t what they seem in director Kaizo Hayashi’s glorious black and white widescreen valentine to French New Wave, American Film Noir and Japanese gangster flicks. Though a hard-boiled P.I. in the Spillane mold, Hama is really all heart and as likely to trip over his kid sister’s apron strings as trip up a two-faced gangster. Once he’s out of his movie theater office and on the case, Hama becomes a punching bag for everyone from corrupt cops to Yakuza thugs and even his detective mentor (Seijun Suzuki regular Shishido Jo).

Though The Most Terrible Time in my Life begins as a meticulous and sly parody of all things Noir, it is “at heart a work of infectious, unironic affection.” (The Village Voice). Hayashi’s shadowy retro gloss and self-made hero decorate a very real portrait of shifting allegiances in a modern Japan of ebbing compassion and a modern Asia with vanishing borders.

Waga jinsei saiaku no toki.1994.576p.BDRip-AVC.ZONE.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 32 min
Size: 	2.31 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1024x434 
Aspect ratio:  	2.35:1
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	3 000 kb/s
BPP: 	0.282
Audio
#1:  	Japanese 2.0ch FLAC @ 572 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/8AC225DC52795DD/Waga_jinsei_saiaku_no_toki.1994.576p.BDRip-AVC.ZONE.mkv

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English

The post Kaizô Hayashi – Waga jinsei saiaku no toki AKA The Most Terrible Time in My Life (1993) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
O-Shin is a young brothel worker who, one night, helps a young samurai escape from his pursuers. Against the warnings of her fellow workers, particularly Kikuno and the brothel’s owner, O-Shin falls in love with the samurai.

Quote:
19th century. Oshin is a prostitute in a brothel of a red-light district. A disgraced samurai, Fusanosuke, rushes in the brothel seeking for a refuge, because he had wounded a powerful samurai. Oshin hides him from the authorities and falls in love with him, against an older prostitute’s, Kikuno’s, misgiving. Fusanosuke advises Oshin to cleanse herself by giving up her line of work. Believing falsely that this is a promise for marriage, she turns her customers over to the other prostitutes, who are happy to help her. Funasukoke leaves to be reconciled to his family, but, when he returns, he reveals that he is engaged and is going to marry his fiancé. Some time later a desperate itinerant, Ryosuke, appears and Oshin falls in love again. Meanwhile, an older man asks Kikuno to buy her contract and marry her, but she is entangled with an old abusive customer of hers. One night, while the madam of the brothel is away to thermal baths, a storm hits the area and everybody tries to flee. Ryosuke kills Kikuno’s customer who tries to steal madam’s money and runs away. Oshin and Kikuno stay at the roof hoping for a rescue from the flood. Ryosuke returns by a boat.

Umi.wa.miteita.2002.576p.BluRay.DD5.1.x264-KG.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 59 min
Size: 	3.45 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1024x554 
Aspect ratio:  	1.85:1
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	3 500 kb/s
BPP: 	0.257
Audio
#1:  	Japanese 5.1ch AC-3 @ 640 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/0F16B6CEA2D8D64/Umi.wa.miteita.2002.576p.BluRay.DD5.1.x264-KG.mkv

https://rapidgator.net/file/e268982c085b3d70862c061c3bf25cc7/Umi.wa.miteita.2002.576p.BluRay.DD5.1.x264-KG.mkv

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English

The post Kei Kumai – Umi wa miteita AKA The Sea Is Watching (2002) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
Mike Hama is a private investigator who has been reduced to combing the mean streets of the Yokohama waterfront on a borrowed bicycle.

Harukana.Jidai.No.Kaidan.O.1995.1080p.BluRay.FLAC2.0.x264-PTer.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 42 min
Size: 	10.8 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1920x806 
Aspect ratio:  	2.40:1
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	13.9 Mb/s
BPP: 	0.376
Audio
#1:  	Japanese 2.0ch FLAC @ 518 kb/s (Japanese(Original Stero))
#2:  	Japanese 4ch E-AC-3 @ 640 kb/s (Japanese(Surround Mix))

https://nitro.download/view/0FECC88E1F77D68/Harukana.Jidai.No.Kaidan.O.1995.1080p.BluRay.FLAC2.0.x264-PTer.mkv

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English, Chinese

The post Kaizô Hayashi – Harukana jidai no kaidan o AKA The Stairway to the Distant Past (1995) (HD) first appeared on Cinema of the World.