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Language
日本語
Description
With an intergalactic cast of thousands, Koji Masunari's colorfully explosive debut feature sets a new high for visual spectacle and sheer inventiveness of character design - in what has to be one of the most gleefully surreal depictions of alien life forms ever portrayed in cinema. It seems like just another lazy summer is in store for Amane and her older cousin Natsuki. Lolling about the Japanese countryside, the days are blithe and boundless. But...
22) Wife of a spy
Language
日本語
Formats
Description
Master filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Pulse, Cure, Tokyo Sonata) won the Silver Lion (Best Director) at the **Venice Film Festival** for this riveting, gorgeously crafted, old-school Hitchockian thriller shot in stunning 8K. The year is 1940 in Kobe, on the eve of the outbreak of World War II. Local merchant and amateur filmmaker Yusaku (Issey Takahashi, Kill Bill) senses that things are headed in an unsettling direction. Following a trip to Manchuria,...
23) Rashōmon
Series
Language
日本語
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Description
A riveting psychological thriller that investigates the nature of truth and the meaning of justice, widely considered one of the greatest films ever made. Four people recount different versions of the story of a man's murder and the rape of his wife. This eloquent masterwork and international sensation revolutionized film language and introduced Japanese cinema, and a commanding new star.
24) Departures
Language
日本語
Description
Daigo Kobayashi is a devoted cellist in an orchestra that has just been dissolved and finds himself without a job. He decides to move back to his old hometown with his wife to look for work and start over. He answers a classified ad entitled 'Departures' thinking it is an advertisement for a travel agency. He discovers that the job is actually for a 'Nokanshi' or 'encoffineer, ' a funeral professional who prepares deceased bodies for burial and entry...
Language
English
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Description
To avoid jail time, street racer Sean Boswell is sent to live with his father, who is in the military and serving in Tokyo. There he discovers drift racing. After losing a race to Yakuza-connected D.K., the Drift King, Sean has to enter the Tokyo underworld to find a way to pay his debt.
26) Ran
Series
Language
日本語
Formats
Description
"Akira Kurosawa's brilliantly conceived retelling of Shakespeare's 'King Lear' magically mixes Japanese history, Shakespeare's plot and Kurosawa's own feelings about loyalty in the epic masterpiece, 'Ran.' Set in 16th century Japan, 'Ran' relates the tale of how an aging ruler, Lord Hidetora (Tatsuya Nakadai), announces his intention to divide his land equally among his three sons. Hidetora's decision to step down unleashes a power struggle among...
27) First love
Language
日本語
Formats
Description
A noir-tinged yakuza film blending genres in the story of a young boxer and a call girl, who fall passionately in love while getting innocently caught up in a drug-smuggling scheme over the course of one night in Tokyo. FIRST LOVE is directed by Takashi Miike, at his most fun and anarchic.
28) Enemy within
Language
English
Description
When a Japanese fighter pilot crash-lands on the tiny remote Hawaiian island of Ni'ihau, he is met with courtesy and traditional Hawaiian hospitality from the locals, until they discover he was part of the recent attack on Pearl Harbor.
Language
English
Description
Mitsuha and Taki are two total strangers living completely different lives. But when Mitsuha makes a wish to leave her mountain town for the bustling city of Tokyo, they become connected in a bizarre way. She dreams she is a boy living in Tokyo while Taki dreams he is a girl from a rural town he's never been to. What does their newfound connection mean? And how will it bring them together?
30) The last samurai
Language
English
Description
Tormented Civil War veteran Capt. Nathan Algren is coerced by a mercenary officer to train the Japanese Emperor's troops in the use of modern weaponry. Opposing this modernization are the samurai warriors who are holding fast to their traditions of honor, despite their strategic disadvantage. As a captive of the samurai leader, Algren learns, appreciates, and adopts the samurai code, switching sides for a climactic battle that will put everyone's...
31) True mothers
Series
Language
日本語
Formats
Description
After a long and unsuccessful struggle to get pregnant, Satoko and her husband decide to adopt a child. Over the next six years, the middle-class couple and their young son Asato settle into a comfortable, albeit routine, life. The family's orderly existence is shattered by the arrival of Hikari, a young woman claiming to be Asato's biological mother, demanding his return. As tensions mount, Satoko grows more and more emboldened to defend her family....
32) Still the water
Language
日本語
Formats
Description
On the subtropical Japanese island of Amami, traditions about nature remain eternal. During the full-moon night of traditional dances in August, sixteen-year-old Kaito discovers a dead body floating in the sea. His girlfriend Kyoko will attempt to help him understand this mysterious discovery. Together, Kaito and Kyoko will learn to become adults by experiencing the interwoven cycles of life, death, and love.
33) A silent voice
Language
English
Description
A deaf elementary school girl named Shoko Nishimiya transfers to a new school and meets a boy named Shoya Ishida. Shoya leads the school in bullying Shoko over her disability until she transfers to another school. Immediately, the class bullies Shoya for having bullied Shoko. Shoya loses contact with Shoko, and for years he suffers the consequences of his guilt. Upon entering high school, Shoya finally decides he must find Shoko, determined to make...
Language
English
Formats
Description
Mitsuha and Taki are two total strangers living completely different lives. But when Mitsuha makes a wish to leave her mountain town for the bustling city of Tokyo, they become connected in a bizarre way. She dreams she is a boy living in Tokyo while Taki dreams he is a girl from a rural town he's never been to. What does their newfound connection mean? And how will it bring them together?
36) Tokyo pop
Language
English
Formats
Description
Bleach-blonde wannabe rocker Wendy (Carrie Hamilton) is disillusioned with her life in New York City. After receiving a postcard from Japan saying “wish you were here,” she spontaneously hops on a plane to Tokyo with dreams of making it big as a singer. Quickly finding herself broke and a fish out of water, she moves into a youth hostel for gaijin (foreigners) and takes up work as a hostess at a karaoke bar. Just when she’s at her breaking point,...
37) Isle of dogs
Language
English
Description
In a near-future dystopian Japan where all dogs have been banished to a trash island after a flu outbreak, twelve-year-old Atari sets out for the island to find his lost dog Spots.
38) Unbroken
Language
English
Appears on list
Formats
Description
Olympian and war hero Louis Zamperini survived in a raft for 47 days after a near-fatal plane crash in WWII, only to be caught by the Japanese Navy and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp.
39) I am a hero
Language
日本語
Description
Thirty-five-year-old assistant manga artist Hideo Suzuki leads an unsatisfying, tedious life. To cope with his day-to-day stresses, he fantasizes scenarios where he is overcome with confidence and bouts of courage. But that's just what they are: fantasies. And yet, when a virus outbreak hits Japan turning the infected into mindless cannibals, Hideo is forced back to reality.
Language
English
Description
Herve Joncour is a married silkworm smuggler in 19th century France. He travels to Japan to collect his clandestine cargo after his original shipment was destroyed. While in Japan, he spots a beautiful Japanese woman who is the concubine of a local baron. He immediately becomes obsessed. Without speaking the same language, they communicate through letters until war intervenes. Their unrequited love persists however, and Herve's wife Helene begins...
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