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Kazuhiro Sôda – Senkyo AKA Campaign (2007)
Campaign provides a startling insider’s view of Japanese electoral politics in this portrait of a man plucked from obscurity by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to run for a critical seat on...
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Jun’ya Satô – Shinkansen daibakuha AKA The Bullet Train (1975)
Ken Takakura stars as a mad bomber who plants a device on a high-speed Japanese train, programmed to detonate if the train’s speed drops below 80 kilometres per hour. The trains conductor (Sonny...
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Junji Sakamoto – Dotsuitarunen AKA Knockout (1989)
A Japanese boxer stages a dramatic and dangerous comeback after suffering brain damage in the ring. Ranks No. 82 in Kinema Jumpo’s Top 100 Japanese Films of All Time Poll in 1999. Dotsuitarunen...
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Jun Ichikawa – No raifu kingu AKA No Life King (1991)
Via the New York Times: “The solemn, intent faces of the Japanese schoolboys playing video games in Jun Ichikawa’s “No Life King” bespeak a new type of modern horror. Addicted to their favorite new...
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Heinosuke Gosho – Aibu (1933)
Plot: Heinosuke Gosho evokes in this film the family conflicts engendered by the eternal problem of a father who projects his professional desires on the life of his son. The sister Machiko is the...
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Genjiro Arato – Akame shijuya taki shinju misui AKA Akame 48 Waterfalls (2003)
A man is trying to flee from his past, and he ends up in an underworld filled with strange characters. He finds a job skewering meat in a dirty old room in a shabby old house filled with prostitutes,...
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Kazuhiro Sôda – Senkyo 2 AKA Campaign 2 (2013)
In response to the Fukushima disaster, Yama-san is running an election campaign with an anti-nuclear message. But unlike last time, he hasno money, no machine, no nothing. Does he even stand a chance?...
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Shô Miyake – Keiko, me wo sumasete AKA Small, Slow But Steady (2022)
A hearing-impaired woman with dreams of becoming a professional boxer due to the pandemic is threatened closure of her boxing club and the illness of its ageing president, who has been her biggest...
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Yoshishige Yoshida – Beaute de la Beaute AKA The Beauty of Beauty (1974 – 1977)
Quote:Until 1973 Kijû Yoshida had made sixteen feature films in thirteen years. Having just completed his trilogy on Japanese history “Eros + Massacre” (1969), “Heroic Purgatory” (1970) and “Coup...
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Hara Yoshihiro – Ishoku Manga-shi 33-nen no Kiseki ~ Garo no Jidai o Yomu (1997)
Quote:Garo (ガロ) was a monthly manga anthology magazine in Japan, founded in 1964 by Katsuichi Nagai. It specialized in alternative and avant-garde manga. Snippet of an ArtReview article about a show...
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Kô Nakahira – Koroshita no wa dare da AKA Who Is the True Murderer? (1957)
Tokyo in the late 1950s. Eikichi, a car salesman, is baffled by the new business practices born with the Americanization of society. Near the ruins, he is approached by one of his younger competitors,...
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Heinosuke Gosho – Shindo: zempen Akemi no maki AKA The New Road: Akemi’s part...
The eldest daughter of a noble family is in love with an aviator while being courted by a fellow aristocrat she thinks is a dullard. Shindo.zempen.Akemi.no.maki.1936.DVDRip.x264-FuFu.mkv General...
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Sion Sono – Jisatsu saakuru AKA Suicide Circle (2001)
Quote:54 high school girls throw themselves in front of a subway train. This appears to be only the beginning of a string of suicides around the country. Does the new all-girl group Desert have...
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Tatsumi Kumashiro – Akasen tamanoi: Nukeraremasu AKA Street of Joy (1974)
It’s the evening before the day all brothels must be shut-down, according to the new law, in 1958. At the Kofukuya’s (literally, the house that sells happiness), five prostitutes decide to celebrate...
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Kazuo Hara – Reiwa Uprising (2019)
SynopsisKazuo Hara follows Ayumi Yasutomi, a transgender candidate, who is also a Tokyo University professor, as she embarks on a national campaign for a seat in Japan’s Upper House. Reiwa Uprising...
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Hsiao-Hsien Hou – Kôhî jikô AKA Café Lumière (2003)
Shochiku Studio of Japan commissioned several directors to create films reflecting on the themes of Ozu Yasujiro on the centenary of the director’s birth. Here we find Inoue Yoko, an apparently single...
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Naoto Takenaka – Rendan AKA Quartet for Two (2001)
SynopsisShotaro and Minako are arguing. Minako has confessed her infidelity to her husband and informs him of her intention to leave him. She has ceased to enjoy living with a submissive husband....
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Kôsuke Hishinuma – Kunoichi ninpô-chô: Kage no tsuki AKA Female Ninjas Magic...
Quote:It takes place in the 1730’s, when Shogun Yoshimune and his deputy, Muneharu, were struggling for control. As a way of fomenting dissent by embarrassing him, Muneharu drags out the Shogun’s...
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Keisuke Toyoshima – Mishima Yukio vs Tôdai zenkyôtô: 50 nenme no shinjitsu...
One of Japan’s most important 20th century literary figures, nominated for the Nobel Prize,, and as an unrepentant Japanese nationalist who wanted the powers of the Emperor to be restored. During the...
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Toshiharu Ikeda – Tenshi no harawata: Akai inga AKA Angel Guts: Red Porno (1981)
Nami is a staff member at an exclusive department store. Her libido is chiefly satisfied alone, until a co-worker talks her into subbing on a porno modeling job. Her appearance in the magazine Red...
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