Keiko Takahashi

To cast away everything, surrendering yourself to the flow of nature and just sitting in meditation. This is the essence of Dogen's Zen Buddhism. In the 13th century, Dogen, a young Japanese monk traveled to China to find his true master. There he found a monk who taught him that sitting in Zen meditation is the true and only path to enlightenment. Returning to Japan, Dogen risked his life to pioneer Zen Buddhism, inspiring millions of Zen Buddhists who practice around the world today. (asianmediawiki.com)

Shiro's struggle with his father's cancer and impending death leads to a realization that he must communicate his love and admiration for him before it's too late. A series of flashbacks reveals their relationship over time, and the trouble Shiro faced connecting to his strict father who was also his teacher and soccer coach. With a consuming secret of his own, Shiro, now in his late twenties and about to get engaged, must eventually learn how to share it with his loved ones. (Japan Society)

Chiyo runs a store, the same small place where her mother, now deceased, once sold baked goods of local renown. Her daughter, however, lacks the strength to continue the tradition. Instead, like the other people who live nearby, she blunders along, bound by her phobias and tired of a life filled with conflict rather than with people close to her heart. (kviff.com)

A 16-year-old girl works in a factory to pay her late father's debt. When she makes up her mind to be a hostess, a young man approaches her with kind and gentle manners. It's the first time for her to be treated nicely like this. Actually, he is a yakuza (gangster) and forces young girls into prostitution, but this time he falls in love with her.

A farmer and his fellow villagers try to resist the effort to turn the unspoiled region in which they live into a land development, they are ultimately unsuccessful.

Story of Shinsuke and his stepmother, ranging from Shinsuke's infant-hood to his mid-teens. Coal workers and the mines dominate nearly every aspect of the life of the characters. Shinsuke's father dies while bravely using dynamite to rescue a group of trapped Korean miners. Several older men attempt to help he and his mother cope, including a kind Korean and a Harley-riding yakuza.

Love Letter illustrates a retrograde societal schema in which the recluse woman exists only through her man. Thus the dramatic turning point equates a flirtation of the abandoned lover with a betrayal of a man who does not bother with such considerations. The film portrait attempts to show the boredom and idleness of a cloistered and dependent woman.

An ardent culture-vulture youth, previously charged for the murder of a woman when he was young, plans to hold hostage a local bank.

Favorable portrayal of Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, who approved of the bombardment of Pearl Harbor, as a patriot. The film is a jingoistic defense of Japanese imperialism.

Kakuei Kakkun Tanaka is a superhero who hangs out with his friends. In his misadventures, he becomes prime minister of Japan, visits New York and prevents a nuclear war.

Depicts the conflict between the wife and the child left behind by the man who ran for the life expectancy as long as the old lover, the friendship of the wife and the lover.

After several strangely threatening calls from a local salesman, a homemaker becomes increasingly afraid to answer her apartment door.

In a small town in Japan, Kirie comes upon her boyfriend's father silently videotaping a snail. He seems unaware of her presence and she thinks no more of it. Later, the mans obsession with spirals becomes more and more bizarre, ending in his suicide in a washing machine which turn his body into a spiral. Soon other inhabitants become possesed with different forms of spirals, one student seems to be mutating into a snail, another's hair becomes strangely medusa-like. The entire town becomes possesed. (imdb)

A freelance writer is given a bizarre assignment by the sexy editor of "Black Book Monthly": find a bug with the power to bring humans back from the dead, in order to report on the afterlife. With his trusty companion Endo in tow, he sets off on a quest for the elusive insect and along the way meets the mysterious Sayoko, a former dominatrix and habitual wrist-cutter who delights in rubbing wasabi into her wounds. (imdb)

A blind girl of around ten years old is not having a pleasant upbringing. She is poor, neglected, shunned and even loses a friend. Yet, she does not give up hope. That is the adaptation of the actual story of Kiyo Awazu who grows up to educate blind children. The young Fumiko becomes an apprentice to a masseuse and works hard to learn a skill. She also studies to learn braille.

Satoshi Yanagita (Takashi Tsukamoto) travels through time on a quest to find his dying dad's former lover.

Koki Hirota was the only civilian hanged as a Class A war criminal by the Tokyo Tribunal after World War II. His execution remains controversial and this drama makes the case that he always worked for peace. He did not defend himself against the capital charge because he failed to stop the aggression of the Imperial Army.

Set after World War II on Awaji Island in Hyogo Prefecture, Komako (Emi Takei) is a teacher at an elementary school. She and her students decide to form a boys' baseball team with Komako as their coach. She tries to give hope to her students through baseball.

27-year-old Hatsumi Takimoto (Aki Asakura) is a former teacher and now waitress. She holds a secret. Three years after her boyfriend died, she receives a letter from him. After meeting a former student, Hatsumi Takimoto confesses about her past.

Shuji Tokita (Eiji Okuda) is a film director and a professor at a university. He goes through a difficult time trying to film his new movie. He believes his movies reflect his own personal expriences. A female high school student, Ritsuko (Yukino Murakami), appears in front of Shuji.

Ippei Akabane is an unpopular novelist. He barely makes ends meet writing serials novels under different pen names. Daigo Kurei is on death row. He killed four women twelve years ago. During his murdering spree, he sent pictures of his decapitated victims with flower decoration to the police. The murders and photos caused widespread panic in Japan. One day, Ippei is contacted by Daigo from prison. He asks Ippei if he wants to interview him and write his memoirs.

Hitoshi Nagano (Kazuya Kamenashi), who works at an electronics store, picks up a cellphone left behind by a customer and goes about a scam. He calls the person's mother and pretends to be her son. He then gets the mother to transfer money to his bank account. Soon, Hitoshi gets a lot more than he bargained for. (Asian Wiki)

A former retainer to a noble family kills his wife's father when he tries to expose his past crimes. When he begins an affair with the daughter of another clan's retainer, her father tries to poison him but the substance instead claims an innocent victim… (letterboxd.com)

Genshiro is a famous Kenkaya of Edo. He turns up in incidents to get interfering fees but gets involved in a terrible incident… the Shichikudano Whistles known as Akinonanakusa and her seven sisters. The sisters were killed one after another. The whistle, in fact, shows the place of 300 thousand Ryo that their ancestors left. Genshiro gets one of the whistles and devotes himself try and solve the mystery.

A woman works as a prostitute and attendant to make a living at a bathhouse. She is athletic and is an avid runner. She has met and adopted a white dog and the two have become inseparable. It is the biggest tragedy and calamity when the dog is found dead, killed, or murdered. The woman swears to find justice by finding the murderer and making things right.