Dolls

Dolls takes puppeteering as its overriding motif, which relates thematically to the action provided by the live characters. Chief among those tales is the story of Matsumoto and Sawako, a young couple whose relationship is about to be broken apart by the former's parents, who have insisted their son take part in an arranged marriage to his boss' daughter.

Behind the Painting

An older Nopporn looks at a simple painting and recollects the story behind it. As a young student in Japan, he once met and fell in love with Kirati, who was unhappily married to an older man.

Der Liebesbaum

Fukushima 50

Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi facility in Japan risk their lives and stay at the nuclear power plant to prevent total destruction after the region is devastated by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

Pilgrimage at Night

Adapted by Yasumi Toshio and directed by Toyoda Shiro, this is a literary work based on a full-length novel of the same name published by Shiga Naoya of the Shirakaba School.

The Cinderella Addiction

Fukuura Koharu works at a child welfare office and plunges into despair overnight. Then she meets Daigo, a private-practice doctor raising his 8-year-old daughter on his own. She resolves to build a happy household, but things don't go as expected.

Kindaichi Kosuke vs Akechi Kogoro

The Ganso and Honke are two medical wholesalers which have had a long history of exchanges. They were originally a wholesaler set up by Tokiya Manemon who invented a drug. After he fell ill, he imparted the formula to his two beloved disciples. But the two were at loggerheads and the enmity between them caused a split into two factions, the ‘original’ (Ganso) and the ‘originator’ (Honke). One day, an incident finally occurred. Kiichiro (Endo Kaname), the eldest son of the Honke, launched an attack on the young master of the Ganso, Nagahiko (Oshinari Shugo).

In Wake of the Crashing Dawn

In a dystopian present, a young Japanese-American man battles the cascading effects of his family's wrongful incarceration in the 1940s.

Rashomon

Brimming with action while incisively examining the nature of truth, "Rashomon" is perhaps the finest film ever to investigate the philosophy of justice. Through an ingenious use of camera and flashbacks, Kurosawa reveals the complexities of human nature as four people recount different versions of the story of a man's murder and the rape of his wife.

Wag the Dog

During the final weeks of a presidential race, the President is accused of sexual misconduct. To distract the public until the election, the President's adviser hires a Hollywood producer to help him stage a fake war.

The Last Samurai

Nathan Algren is an American hired to instruct the Japanese army in the ways of modern warfare, which finds him learning to respect the samurai and the honorable principles that rule them. Pressed to destroy the samurai's way of life in the name of modernization and open trade, Algren decides to become an ultimate warrior himself and to fight for their right to exist.

Midnight Swan

Nagisa is transgender. She grew up in Hiroshima as a man, but now lives in Shinjuku, Tokyo as a woman. Due to an incident, she begins to live with middle school student Ichika, who is a distant relative. Ichika has been neglected by her mother Saori. From living in solitude by herself, to now living with Ichika, Nagisa develops maternal instincts for the first time.

Ben-Hur

In 25 AD, Judah Ben-Hur, a Jew in ancient Judea, opposes the occupying Roman empire. Falsely accused by a Roman childhood friend-turned-overlord of trying to kill the Roman governor, he is put into slavery and his mother and sister are taken away as prisoners.

Okiku and the World

Two rogue vagrants make their living as “manure men”, turning the waste from the tenement toilets into fertiliser sold to local farmers. Enter Okiku, the only daughter of a fallen samurai, and amongst the overflowing piles of excrement, a well-nourished love story unfolds.

Twisted Justice

Starting in 1970s Hokkaido, the film charts the moral descent of Detective Moroboshi over three decades, the young cop quickly gets a bit too cozy with the other side of the law when his senior colleague Murai teaches him the ropes and ruts of the police business. Soon, he swaggers and rants through the streets of Sapporo a lean, mean, sex‐crazy bully, indistinguishable from a yakuza.

The Dark Horse

This 1946 film stars Phillip Terry as a war veteran, who is persuaded by machine politico Donald MacBride to run for alderman. Ann Savage plays the "honest government functionary" with whom the hero falls in love. Terry finds that disreputable politicians are using his war record to push through some shady legislation, so he renounces these hacks.