Teruyuki Kagawa

By turns an elaborate wartime drama of China, suffering under Japanese occupation during the 1930s and 40s, and an absurdist comedy of madness, cultural disconnects and historical booby-traps that Samuel Beckett would recognize in an instant. (Film Forum)

A speculative reconstruction of a never fully explained incident from 1973: the five-day disappearance in Japan of Kim Dae-Jung. Kim (codenamed 'KT') was on a secret fund-raising visit to Tokyo when he was snatched from a hotel room; the film says the kidnappers were Korean CIA men abetted by Japan's army-in-all-but-name, the Jieitai, both working with the tacit approval of the USA. (asianwiki.com)

As a labrador puppy, Quill is sent to live with a couple, Isamu (Teruyuki Kagawa) and Mitsuko Nii (Shinobu Terajima), who work as volunteers, training guide dogs (seeing eye dogs). When he grows to an adult dog, he is taken to a guide dog school, by a friendly, yet firm trainer Satoru Tawada... (imdb)

Something bizarre has come over the land. The kingdom is deteriorating. People are beginning to act strange... What's even more strange is that people are beginning to see dragons, which shouldn't enter the world of humans. Due to all these bizarre events, Ged, a wandering wizard, is investigating the cause... (imdb)

Set during "The Genpei Wars" at the end of the 1100s, the Minamoto and Taira gangs face off in a town named Yuda, while a deadly gunman (Ito Hideaki) comes to the aid of the townsfolk. (imdb)

Shou Kawajiri is told to clean-up the apartment of his deceased aunt Matsuko. Having never known her, through his research we are brought to her bittersweet and tragic life story.

What's a guy to do when he loves guns, particularly American ones featured in movies, but he lives in a country where it's illegal to own one. Well, he ends up being sent to an institution that is more like a military academy than US prison. This very funny film studies the everyday obsessions of prisoners who have nothing left to do during their days but wonder about their next meal or contemplate their next soak in the tub..... (imdb)

Yuko volunteered to be an aid worker in Iraq and was taken hostage there. When freed she returned to Japan, but after being home six months she is still the ongoing object of harassment from her own countrymen. A co-worker finds many angry postings on the Internet denouncing her and spreads them very vocally, causing her boss let her go. He tells her that the atmosphere at the hotel where she works as a chambermaid has changed negatively as a result... (imdb)

As Serpent's Path opens we see two men, named Nijima (Kurosawa regular Sho Aikawa) and Miyashita (Teruyuki Kagawa), drive their car to an abandoned warehouse on the edge of town. Out of the trunk they drag a man, who they take with them into the building and chain to a wall. Miyashita is out for revenge against the killers of his eight-year old daughter. Nijima, a schoolteacher by trade, is helping him, though exactly why and how these two men decided to team up remains unclear... (midnighteye.com)

One year after the suicide of C-list model Miki, five of her fans come together for a commemorative meeting: fan club leader Iemoto (Shun Oguri), Oda Yuji (Yusuke Santamaria), Snake (Koide Keisuke), Yasuo (Tsukaji Muga), and Ichigo Musume (Kagawa Teruyuki). Sitting down together for the first time, they reminisce about their idol, wondering how someone so bright and beautiful could have possibly taken her own life. That's when they reach a revelation - she must have been murdered! (AsianMediaWiki)

Who is the mysterious "Friend" and how does he tie into Kenji's youth? Why are there disappearances and deaths tied into Ochanomizu University? Their memories hold the keys to the puzzle, but time and age have clouded their minds. The strange occurrences and the reach of the "Friend" conspiracy grow by the day. It will all culminate on New Year's Eve 2000. Will Kenji and the others be able to put together the puzzle and save the world? (robojapan.blogspot.com)

Mild-mannered and earnest Minoru helps out with the family business, a gas station in Yamanashi prefecture. His younger brother Takeshi works as a photographer in Tokyo. However, their worlds are turned upside down by an apparent murder on a suspension bridge that holds many memories for the both of them. (Yahoo! Movies)

The movie started with Jinhe, the narrator, after a brief visit, leaving the small village where he spent his childhood, and had not returned for ten years. At the end of the two-way bamboo bridge outside of the village, Jinhe ran into Nuan, the girl whom he loved when he was a teenager, and promised to come back to marry when he was leaving for a college in a big city. (imdb)

Middle-aged Minako is a milk woman in Nagasaki, living and uncomplicated and unhurried life delivering milk daily around the city. In their youth she and Keita were in love, but separated after his father and her mother died together causing a scandal. She never married, but Keita did and is now a city official with a terminally ill wife, Yoko. Before she dies Yoko tries to reunite the former lovers, but this disturbs and angers Minako. (ftvdb.bfi.org.uk)

"TOKYO!," the dynamic new film by three of world cinema's great visionaries: Michel Gondry, Leos Carax, and Bong Joon-ho. A uniquely entertaining modern-day triptych, "TOKYO!" explores Japan's multifaceted capital city through three indelible stories: a Kafkaesque fable about a young woman's bizarre physical transformation; an arch-punk mini-monster-movie in which a man rises from the sewers to wreak havoc on the city; and a beguiling tale about a hermit who ventures outside in search of love. (movieweb.com)

An ordinary Japanese family slowly disintegrates after its patriarch loses his job at a prominent company. (imdb)

A gangly, withdrawn youth is recovering from a lung ailment at his grandfather's house, while his classmates are working at a nearby war plant. When one of those classmates was fatally wounded in an air raid, Yasuo ran away instead of finding help -- and he has been wracked with guilt ever since. (japantimes.co.jp)

Edogawa Rampo is a writer whose latest work is censored by the government, deemed too disturbing and injurious to the public to be allowed to be published. However, after burning his drafts, his publisher shows him a newspaper with an account of events just like his forbidden story. As the film progresses, fantasy and reality intermingle in a tale that draws heavily on influences from Poe and Stoker's Dracula. (imdb)

Picking up the story 15 years after the events of the first film, Chapter 2 introduces viewers to a Japan that has completely fallen under the fascist spell of masked cult leader "Friend" after he stepped in to save the world from the virus he unleashed. Most of the resistance fighters including Kenji..have been missing or imprisoned since the bloody New Year's Eve showdown, and are now branded as terrorists (katzforums.com)

A true-story account of a German businessman who saved more than 200,000 Chinese during the Nanjing massacre in 1937-38. (imdb)

A collection of dark shorts from Japan.

A small town doctor disappears mysteriously after having earned the trust of the locals.

This is the third and final film in the 20th Century Boys Trilogy. A mysterious cult leader, simply named Friend (Tomodachi in Japanese), has gained control of the world. The plot follows the actions of Kenji and his childhood friends as the book of prophecies that Kenji wrote continues to influence the course of the world.

Kaiji Ito moves to Japan after graduating from high school. Unable to find a job and frustrated with society at large, Kaiji spends his days gambling, vandalizing cars and drinking booze. Two years later and his life no better, a debt collector named Endo arrives to collect money, offering two choices to Kaiji: spend 10 year paying off his loan or board a gambling boat for one night to repay his debt and possibly make a whole lot more. (film.com)

When easy-going Aoyagi meets an old friend for a fishing trip, he ends up drugged, framed for the Prime Minister's assassination, and on the run from corrupt cops. It's only the beginning of what quickly becomes the worst, weirdest day of his life. But he'll get by with a little help from his friends, who include a famous pop diva, a rockabilly deliveryman, a crippled old gangster, and the world's most cheerful serial killer. (Los Angeles Film Festival)

Set around the worst airplane crash in Japanese history in 1985, the story follows Hajime Onchi (Ken Watanabe) and airline worker and union head who just returned to Japan after being sent away to foreign branches for ten years because of his efforts.

Following in his father's footsteps, anime director Goro Miyazaki sets his story of young love and student protest against the period of Japanese modernization and revitalization ahead of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. With charm and tragedy, Miyazaki takes a nostalgic look back at a time when the preservation of the past clashed with progress for the future. (tiff.net)

Based on the novel by Natsuhiko Kyougoku, which gives a new interpretation to the kabuki classic 'Toukaidou Yotsuya Kaidan', one of the most famous ghost stories in Japan. (rottentomatoes.com)

In a strange alienated world there is a secret hotel in a shabby diner called the Venus Café, harboring some unusual people where compelling secrets lie in each resident's heart. Torturing secrets that have broken their emotional boundaries in the past. In this bittersweet, heart-wrenching story, there lives a man by the name of Chonan (Tsuyoshi Kusanagi) who lives in the attic and works as a waiter or handyman at the hotel... (imdb)

After losing their restaurant in a fire, a husband and wife come up with a strange plan to rebuild their shattered finances: marrying the husband off to a series of lonely women and defrauding them. (tiff.net)

Japan's master of screwball comedy Kenji Uchida returns with this cynical and hilarious tale about a failed actor who switches identities with a stranger at a bath house -- only to find himself filling the shoes of an elite assassin. (tiff.net)

Japan, 1941: With war raging in Europe, Japan's imperial command sees an opportunity to advance their nation's standing in the world. The plan to attack Pearl Harbor was drawn up, and one man was tasked with it's implementation: Admiral Yamamoto. Opposed to the plan, Yamamoto must nevertheless carry out his orders and commit one of the biggest military mistakes in history. The Admiral is a masterpiece that explores one man's, and by reflection one nation's, turmoil. (amazon.co.uk)

Friendships and choir singing in a Japanese Catholic boys orphanage, set during the political tumult of the 1970s

Tetsuya Nakajima directs this black comedy about Sunday, that day of rest. Constructed like Grand Hotel, the film interweaves the lives of an assorted collection of oddball Tokyoites living in the same apartment building. (KG)

The film focuses on fictional events that take place during the early Meiji period in Japan, telling the story of a wanderer named Himura Kenshin, formerly known as the assassin "Hitokiri Batt?sai". After participating in the Bakumatsu war, Kenshin wanders the countryside of Japan offering protection and aid to those in need as atonement for the murders he once committed as an assassin. (en.wikipedia.org)

Daigo is a young boy whose family is falling apart around him. He lives with his older sister Kiriko and his children's book author father Kohei. One day Daigo kills a rabbit at school. In an attempt to connect with her brother, Kiriko takes Daigo to see a 3D horror film involving a rabbit doll. Somehow Daigo manifests the same rabbit doll from the movie and develops a dark bond with it. Soon, he and his sister are pulled into a limbo in which the rabbit doll grows and begins to terrorize them. (LA Pacific Film Fest)

Masako, Yoshie, Kuniko and Yayoi, each with their own set of family problems, work the night shift together at a lunch box factory. One day, fighting back against her abusive husband, Yayoi ends up strangling him to death. Masako agrees to help her dispose of the corpse. She gets the idea to cut the body into small pieces, and enlists Yoshie and Kuniko to help out...

The movie centers on Shotaro, who is living in the modern age with his widowed mother. Tetsujin 28 is accidentally discovered, and Shotaro's mother explains that it was left for Shotaro. He, with the help of Chief Otsuka and an older female classmate, learns to control Tetsujin. In the meantime, a Dr. Reiji Takumi activates Black Ox and plans to attack Tetsujin. (Wikipedia)

Scene: Mashike, a city on the Japanese island of Hokkaido. Nobuo Honma is a 63-year-old sake producer. He has lived with Yasuo since his wife died two years ago. Yasuo is his youngest son to whom he has entrusted his trade. Every day Nobuo goes for a walk which leads him to a fish-breeding center, located in the mountains. (imdb)

Zephyr (referred to as Z), an ex-admiral of the marines and leader of the New Navy, gets a hold on Dyna Stones, that, when exposed to oxygen, explode. Using these rocks, he plans on destroying the 3 End Points and flood the new world with lava. When he runs into the Straw Hats and turns Nami and Chopper into kids, it's up to Luffy, his crew, and other unexpected allies to find and stop Z from finishing his evil plan while trying to avoid, not only the Neo Navy, but the Navy as well. (Wikipedia)

Young Atsuko Kagami comes into possession of a magical mirror that lets her transform into anything she wishes. Atsuko Kagami then attempts to save a company which is about to be sold by using her transformation abilities. She also falls in love as a 22-year-old college student. (imdb)

In late Meiji period Japan, a group of Army surveyors set out to map one of the last and most dangerous unexplored mountains in the country.

The 49th NHK Taiga drama is Ryoma den, set back in the Bakumatsu period. The story focuses on the life of Sakamoto Ryoma, who lived from 1835 to 1867. He was an important leader in the movement to overthrow the Tokugawa Bakufu, eventually bringing about the Meiji Restoration. He was also one of the founders of modern day Japanese navy through incorporation of western technology, which proved to be a force to be reckoned with during the revolution. (wiki.d-addicts.com)

Takakura is a former detective. He receives a request from his ex-colleague, Nogami, to examine a missing family case that occurred 6 years earlier. Takakura follows Saki's memory. She is the only surviving family member from the case. Meanwhile, Takakura and his wife Yasuko recently moved into a new home. Their neighbor, Nishino, has a sick wife and a young teen daughter. One day, the daughter, Mio, tells him that the man is not her father and she doesn't know him at all. (imdb)

Portrait of the Wind centers on Tamio, a world-traveling photographer who came home to take over the family business after his father's death. One day at the photo studio, he finds a kindred spirit in Ayako and the requisite sparks fly between them. The beginning of the film deal with their budding romance, and it isn't long before the two become a serious couple, and Ayako is pregnant. As compelling as all of this proves to be, the romance merely sets the viewer up for a tragic narrative turn. (lovehkfilm.com)

Lone wolf detective with an enormous personal grievance seeks to connect the mysterious death of his daughter to an urban legend of a villain who terrorizes Japan by insinuating himself into people's dreams and the collective psyche of the Japanese people. (imdb)

Based on the true story "Aka Medaka" (Red Medaka) by Danshun Tatekawa (published April, 2008 by Fusosha Publishing). (asianwiki)

What does a young orphan urchin do in the slums of Tokyo? He gets into trouble, into brawls, into fights and eventually he lands in jail. Except this one is not just beating, he has a raw talent and a force that gets noticed. Out of jail, it is time to take the boy and polish the raw talent into something that fits the boxing rink. (imdb)

Love's sweet sorrow forms the dramatic storyline for this mystery drama. A free-spirited young woman, Yukari, touches those around her with a zest for life, full of passion. Following her unexplained suicide, her envious younger sister, Reiko, and naive fiancé, Yoshio, form an unlikely alliance with the last person to see her alive, playboy- entertainer Hajime. The 3 unlikely comrades must join forces to discover the circumstances surrounding Yukari's sudden death. (mydramalist)

A bombing incident occurs in downtown Tokyo. Many people are caught in the explosion and Kuraki Naotake, a police superintendent in Public Security Bureau, loses his wife who, it appears, was involved in the explosion. Together with (detective) Osugi Ryota and (government agent) Akeboshi Misa, he starts to investigate the incident. (imdb)

After slipping in a bathhouse, Conan appears to have lost his memory. Worse yet, it looks like he will be used in a hit job.

Hosted by veteran comedian Tamori, "Bizarre Tales 2002 Spring Special" presents five tales. 1. Mushi Game (Ignore the Game) - starring Uchiyama Rina 2. Okashina Machi (Funny Town) - starring Yanagiba Toshiro 3. Tokage no Shippo (Lizard's Tail) - starring Kashiwabara Takashi 4. Yogisha no Otoko (Man's Night Train) - starring Osugi Ren 5. Manhole - starring Kagawa Teruyuki.

Kazuo Murata is a detective who has lost his wife and eventually the meaning of his existence.

A Japanese crime scene investigation team recruits a neuroscientist to aid them as they try to solve cases. With his intelligence, he uses logic to deduce who commits the crime and how. (imdb)

In 2023, with the Kanto region threatened by catastrophic sea level rise, bureaucrats and reporters are caught between corruption, panic and the truth. (imdb)

The 19th Century was a turbulent one for Japan. Enduring the throes of change brought about by the Meiji era, it still struggled to join the world and be considered a "civilized, modern nation." Saka no Ue no Kumo covers the later years of the Meiji, when Japan-still wrestling with its identity-fought the Russo-Japanese War. We join the story with brothers Akiyama Yoshifuru and Akiyama Saneyuki, and their friend, the poet Masaoka Shiki, as they face these travails with decided Japanese spirit.

The conviction rate for criminal offenses in Japan is 99.9%. This is a drama about a team of criminal lawyers trying to find the truth that may have been hidden in the other 0.1%. (imdb)