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Akio Jissôji – Ra varusu AKA The Waltz (1990)
SynopsisOne night, a woman is allegedly raped by a man. Even though the man denies the charges, he ends up being prosecuted. After that, his lawyer tries to investigate wether his client is guilty or...
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Akio Jissôji – Aoi numa no onna AKA Blue Lake Woman (1986)
Blue Lake Woman tells the story of Nagare, a painter who wanted to commit a lover’s suicide with Mizue, the wife of his friend and patron Takigawa. Growing afraid at the last moment, he doesn’t go...
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Mamoru Oshii – Tenshi no tamago AKA Angel’s Egg (1985)
Synopsis:In the abandoned streets of a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a young girl protects a mysterious egg with her life. She meets a mysterious drifter who is interested in what may be inside the...
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Gisaburô Sugii & Arlen Tarlofsky – Ginga-tetsudô no yoru AKA Night on the...
Quote:On the night of a cat village’s Festival of the Stars, a kitten and his friend go on an celestial journey on a magical space locomotive. On that trip, they have various stops where they meet...
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Akio Jissôji – Ubume no natsu AKA Summer of Ubume (2005)
During the 1950’s, a Tokyo woman from a wealthy family has been pregnant for 20 months while her husband has been missing for a year, apparently after vanishing from inside a locked room. She lives...
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Jun Ichikawa – Bu su (1987)
Suzume moved in Tokyo where she will live in aunt’s house, basically a geisha house. She have no interest in any social activity, nor any friendship with classmates. She’s not into geisha life style...
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Tomu Uchida – Tasogare sakaba AKA Twilight Saloon (1955)
Synopsis:In Twilight Saloon a cast of diverse characters spend an eventful evening in a cheap beer hall filled with music, dance, drunkenness, and self-reflection. Witty and lively, it also has a...
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Satsuo Yamamoto – Kôtei no inai hachigatsu AKA August without Emperor (1978)
Taking the Chilean coup as an example, a group of young officers plan to overthrow the Japanese government on V-J Day. They aim to abolish the post-war constitution, restore the national army and...
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Takashi Miike – Gokudô Sengokushi: Fudô aka Fudoh: The New Generation (1996)
In order to settle a business dispute, a mob leader murders one of his own teenage sons. The surviving son vows to avenge his brother’s death, and organizes his own gang of teenage killers to destroy...
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Mikio Naruse – Onna ga kaidan wo agaru toki AKA When a Woman Ascends the...
Quote:This is the story of Mama, a.k.a. Keiko, a middle-aged geisha who must choose to either get married or buy a bar of her own. Her family hounds her for money, her customers for her attention, and...
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Kazuo Hara – Yuki Yukite shingun AKA The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (1987)
Synopsis:The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On is a brilliant exploration of memory and war guilt, a subject often ignored in modern Japan. In this controversial documentary, Kazuo Hara follows Kenzo...
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Hayao Miyazaki – Kaze tachinu AKA The Wind Rises (2013)
SynopsisJiro dreams of flying and designing beautiful airplanes, inspired by the famous Italian aeronautical designer Caproni. Nearsighted from a young age and unable to be a pilot, Jiro joins a major...
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Nagisa Ôshima – Gishiki AKA The Ceremony (1971)
Quote:The film takes place in postwar Japan, following a Japanese clan through their wedding and funeral ceremonies, and the lengths the family goes to preserve their traditions in spite of the damage...
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Shôhei Imamura – Erogotoshi-tachi yori: Jinruigaku nyûmon AKA The...
Synopsis:Mr. Ogata lives a complicated life: he is a pornographer making two skin flicks per day and trying to stay beneath the radar screen of the local mob; he deeply loves his ailing wife Haru...
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Juichiro Yamasaki – Atarashiki tami AKA Sanchu Uprising: Voices at Dawn (2015)
Synopsis:Yamasaki’s highly inventive take on the jidaigeki (historical drama) concerns a group of rural farmers treated poorly by tax authorities in the 18th-century Okayama town of Sanchu. On the...
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Nobuhiko Ôbayashi – Tenkôsei AKA Exchange Students (1982)
This hilarious movie catapults two youngsters hitting puberty into the opposite sex after a fall from which they recover in each other’s bodies. The timid sensitive girl becomes the effeminate...
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Nobuhiko Ôbayashi – Haishi AKA The Deserted City (1984)
Quote:After reading a newspaper article about a town being destroyed in a fire, Eguchi begins to recall the summer he spent there writing his thesis. It’s a beautiful canal town, the “Venice of...
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Hiroshi Matsuno – Kyûketsu dokuro-sen AKA The Living Skeleton (1968)
Quote:In this atmospheric tale of revenge from beyond the watery grave, a pirate-ransacked freighter’s violent past comes back to haunt a young woman living in a seaside town. Mixing elements of...
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Hiroshi Shimizu – Nanatsu no umi: Kohen Teiso-hen AKA Seven Seas: Frigidity...
“Seven Seas, the first of Shimizu’s great silent films of the 30s, was scripted by Kogo Noda, Ozu’s close associate, from a novel by Itsuma Maki (a pen name of the noted writer, Umitaro Hasegawa). The...
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Shohei Imamura – Ningen Johatsu aka A Man Vanishes [+Extras] (1967)
SynopsisOstensibly Imamura’s first work in documentary features, A Man Vanishes is much more, heralding the future work of Kazuo Hara and Werner Herzog, amongst others, in the genre-defying mix of...
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