Yoshitaka Sakamoto

Movie contains the stories of three people: Suzuki (Toma Ikuta), Kujira (Tadanobu Asano) and Semi (Ryosuke Yamada). Suzuki is a former middle school teacher. His girlfriend was killed, which led him to quit his job and attempt to take revenge on her murderer. To do so, Suzuki has to infiltrate the underground world of criminals. Kujira is a contract killer for hire. He makes his targets fall into confusion and eventually commit suicide. Semi is a contract killer who uses the knife to take out his targets.

Kinjiro, an official with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, is a good-natured fellow who goes around the country helping farm families. At his new appointment in Usuki City, Oita Prefecture, he visits a tea-growing family he has known for a long time. There, he finds the family head's granddaughter Minori, who lost her job in Tokyo and has just returned home.

In May 2003, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (or JAXA) launched an unmanned spacecraft of their own development to retrieve samples from an asteroid. Seven long years later, Hayabusa achieved its goal and was the first of any kind of craft launched from Earth to safely return samples of this kind to home base. The story was one of such great national pride for Japan, and in the wake of the tsunami and resulting tragedies in Japan it’s strong nationalistic message became the subject of no less than three rival films. Yukihiko Tsutsumi’s high-profile effort, simply titled Hayabusa (2011) starred the incomparable Toshiyuki Nishida. Most recently, Welcome Home, Hayabusa (2012) was released to Japanese audiences. Slipping in between those two was Hayabusa: The Long Voyage Home, concentrating on the people on the ground who helped return the probe safely.

Japanese history explodes across the screen in the life story of Hitokiri Nakamura Hanjiro, one of the great heroes of the Meiji Restoration. From his earliest beginnings as a country samurai raising sweet potatoes whose exceptional sword skills impressed Saigo...

Drama about a young doctor.

1943, two baseball teams play a last match before fighting in WW2.

In Hong Kong, Dr. Gao Jing is introduced to photographer and diver Dave Chen Guo Dong. They fall in love and Guo Dong invites Gao Jing to travel to Taiwan to visit an ancient submarine city, where he intends to propose. During the dive, Guo Dong vanishes, and Gao Jing is unable to recall what happened underwater. Her investigations open her eyes to something far more than she ever expected.

An American woman is stranded in Tokyo after breaking up with her boyfriend. Searching for direction in life, she trains to be a ramen chef under a tyrannical Japanese master.

A young girl meets a strange Old Monk.

In 370 B.C, China was separated as seven nations and several other small tribes, one of these being the city state of Liang. The nation of Zhao is led by the terrifying Xiang Yangzhong who orders his troops to conquer the small city. Leaping to the defense of the people of Liang is 'Ge Li' from the Mo-Tsu tribe, their last hope from the terrors of Yangzhong's troops.

Directed by Junya Sato and based on a book by Jun Henmi, "Yamato" has a framing story set in the present day and uses flashbacks to tell the story of the crew of the World War II Japanese battleship Yamato. The film was never released in the United States, where reviewers who have seen it have compared the military epic to "Titanic" and "Saving Private Ryan."

A new student ,Eiji is forced into playing the drums for the school band by his classmate, Nanao. From the first moment he holds a drumstick in his hands, the rhythm inside Eiji is awakened and he soon becomes captive to its sonic boom. The obsessive and demanding Nanao is soon swayed by Eiji's bright character and natural kindness. Under Nanao's leadership, the band starts making waves in local competitions. Despite their success, can they survive the pressures of school, relationships, and their dreams? In Beat Kids, Director Toshi Shioya weaves a passionate rock and roll coming of age story about a teenager who uses music to turn growing pains into something extraordinary.

Young assassins Azumi and Nagara continue their mission to prevent a civil war. In their hunt for Masayuki Sanada, who is protected by both an army and a dangerous clan, they meet Ginkaku, a person who shows a remarking resemblance with former friend Nachi.

LIFE IS JOURNEY is an anthology of four stories about people who live in solitude, but who yearn for togetherness. Each day brings chance meetings and reluctant partings, joy and pain. The first vignette, "Life", portrays half of a woman's life in one-scene, one-cut, nine-minute sequence. "N" is a comical take on a man abandoned by his lover. "Ya" explores the bond of female friendship as one woman consoles a brokenhearted girlfriend. In "Nowhere", a man and a woman roam the streets of a foreign land in search of lost time.

War between North Korea and Japan

When radicals from Japan's Red Army took a woman hostage in the resort town of Karuizawa, Nagano in 1972, Officer Atsuyuki Sassa was put in charge of diffusing the situation. But the task had its challenges. Upon arriving in mountainous Nagano, Sassa had to compete with freezing winter temperatures, conflicting opinions between the Tokyo Metropolitan Police and the Nagano Prefectural Police, as well as public opinion to gain entrance to the lodge that held the single woman captive.

A coming-of-age drama following the intense six weeks experienced by thirty young men and women gathered for the audition to star in a film. Popular talent Chiharu Niiyama gives a strong performance as the heroine, an aspiring actress struggling with her wavering emotions. A six-week audition begins to choose the lead actors for a Japanese-American co-produced film. Thirty young applicants, including the idol Akira, devote themselves to training while being bewildered by the outrageous casting director. But in the middle of the audition process, a scandal erupts that threatens to shake the entire competition.

"Quartet" tells the story of four young musicians as they form a string quartet and pursue fame.

When a major bank is caught paying off a corporate extortionist, the media and prosecutors begin to dig, breaking open a money-and-favours scandal that threatens to rock the entire structure of business and government to its core. While the bank's top executives continue to vacillate, a quartet of middle-management reformers, led by straight-arrow Kitano (Koji Yakusho), decide to stage a boardroom coup and install a new, clean management team. With the aid of a hotshot news anchor (Mayumi Wakamura) and a hard-nosed prosecutor (Kenichi Endo), heads begin to roll.

Yukie is a romance story about an American veteran (Bo Swenson) of the Korean War veteran and his undying love for a beautiful Japanese nurse named Yukie (Mitsuko Baisho) who marries him despite her parents' objections.

Jonko runs a group of high school girls involved in paid dating. Raku is a street dancer. Togo was brought up in the US, and after being back in Japan for one year, wants to escape to New York. Their contact with the world of talent scouts and yakuza places them in danger over the span of one day and night in the Shibuya district of Tokyo.

A young foot soldier in the yakuza seeks revenge when his prostitute girlfriend dies after a session with a high-ranking Japanese politician with a taste for torture. He sets out on a 'kamikaze' mission to kill his bosses and the politician; along the way, he acquires the aid of a taxi driver who has recently returned to Japan after living in South America for several decades and is struggling to cope with poverty and the prejudices of native-born Japanese.

"Don't pity me, just give me money." A smart little girl, Suzu, for the sake of her beloved sick mother, has no choice but to attempt all ways to fork up the money required for the operation. It includes stealing, cheating and almost anything that could yield cash. However, deep within her is a sadness unseen by many.

With the help of a six-inch-tall ancient samurai warrior, a lonely young environmentalist finds self-confidence and new companionship in protecting Japan's beautiful naturality from human mismanagement.

A youth drama depicting love stories between high school boys and girls that unfold on the Hankyu Railway Line and the streets of Kobe.

Ayase Shinsuke, a popular writer of a series of girl novels, visits Otaru, the town he grew up in. He meets a strange boy who calls himself by the author's real name.

A single mother uses marriage as a business, a way to make money and put food on the table. She regularly patronizes a bar, where she's friendly with the manager, unaware that not only is the man involved with her daughter but he secretly prefers the mother!

Two pilots compete to be the best jet fighter. A commander with a troublesome past, a female director who wants a good scoop, a competition that is looking for their best guy.

A young woman moves in with her estranged father after her mother passes away.

A recently divorced writer is reunited with the ghosts of his parents who died when he was a boy. However, every time he sees them he loses more life energy. Now, he must choose between starting a new life or staying forever in the past.

During the fervently nationalist months leading up to World War II, a rebellious teenager is transferred to a new primary school in a small Inland Sea town. He vies with the school’s reigning bully, who takes a romantic interest in his older stepsister. When they learn she’s going to be sold to a brothel to pay off her father’s debts, they form an uneasy alliance to free her.

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Ko, a motorbike enthusiast from the city wandering the Japanese countryside, falls for the carefree local Miyo and teaches her how to ride. When Miyo proves herself a biker prodigy, Ko begins to fear she's destined to crash.

Lonely and love-stricken high-school student Hiroki pursues a girl, but another one mysteriously appears in his life. Is she a figment of his psyche, or is she real?

A Japanese teenager travels to New Caledonia in search of the fabled "island closest to heaven" that her late father had told her about.

After noticing in the news there was a fire in an old canal town, Eguchi recalls visiting there a decade ago as a university student.

A legendary actress thought to be dead is discovered living in an isolated mansion. A screenwriter is tasked with writing her comeback film, which leads the two to live under the same roof.

Kazuko Yoshiyama is a third-year junior-high-school student. One day, while cleaning the lab, she smells lavender and faints. From then on, she has the power to travel through time.

9th-graders Kazuo and Kazumi take a tumble at a temple in a small seacoast town in Japan. Through supernatural intervention, their minds and bodies are switched, and the result is a touching and hilarious coming-of-age comedy as they attempt to survive the pressures of junior high school life.

Mitamura Yuka is a normal, shy high school student. Except for the fact that she has psychic powers. When a new student with similar powers begins to show her skills, creating a force of psychic Nazi student enforcers, Yuka and her friends vow to stop her. But behind it all is a mysterious force that will put Yuka's powers to the ultimate test!

A travelling group of young people running a pirate radio station from a small truck encounter an eccentric elderly couple who are on the run from the law.

Komori Chiaki is a budding tennis student. However, one day while training, her coach hits a ball into her eye on accident. At the hospital, the news that she will never regain the sight in her eye leaves her heartbroken. As a last resort, she undergoes a costly surgery from the mysterious doctor known as Black Jack, where after a successful operation, a mysterious figure starts to emerge in her vision, and only she can see it.

Hoping to find a sense of connection to her late mother, Gorgeous takes a trip with her friends to visit her aunt's ancestral house in the countryside. The girls soon discover that there is more to the old house than meets the eye.