Tokiko patiently awaits her husband's return from WWII when her four-year old son falls ill. She takes him to the doctor but has no means of paying, so she resorts to prostitution. A month later, her husband returns to find his desperate wife, who tells him the truth. Together, they must deal with the consequences.
Eddie Kenner is given a special assignment by the Army to get the inside story on Sandy Dawson, a former GI who has formed a gang of fellow servicemen and Japanese locals.
An elderly couple journey to Tokyo to visit their grown children, only to find them preoccupied and self-involved.
The neglected common-law wife of a Japanese librarian is repeatedly harassed by a young man with a heart condition who seduces her with the prospect of a better life.
In a distinctly contemporary Tokyo that looks backwards to the city’s disappearing past, Yoko is a writer investigating the life of a modernist composer of the 1930s. She is pregnant by a man she does not want to marry and has found a kindred spirit in a used bookstore owner who aids her research.
In 1923, teenager Kim Shun-Pei moves from Cheju Island, in South Korea, to Osaka, in Japan. Along the years, he becomes a cruel, greedy and violent man and builds a factory of kamaboko, processed seafood products, in his poor Korean-Japanese community exploiting his employees.
In post-WWII Osaka, a middle-aged woman is forced to examine her dreary life and marriage when her husband's young and flirtatious cousin arrives for a brief stay to escape an arranged marriage.
A rebellious ninja in 17th century Japan takes refuge with a fisherman and his family.
A former American G.I. joins a yakuza family after his release from prison in post-World War II Osaka.
Zatoichi makes friends with a dangerous chess player, while fending off angry yakuza and bloodthirsty relatives out for revenge, and trying to save a sick child. Meanwhile, his luck with dice is turning.
Back from a tour of duty, Kelli struggles to find her place in her family and the rust-belt town she no longer recognizes.
Zatoichi comes upon the town of Tonda, overrun by gangsters. Using one of his favorite techniques, Zatoichi proceeds to win 8 ryo in a rigged gambling game. Of course, the local gangsters attempt to kill him, and the adventure begins. It turns out a blacksmith named Senzo examines Zatoichi's cane sword, and discovers it to be forged by his old mentor. Senzo discovers the sword is at the end of its usefulness and will break when it is used next.
Follows five sex workers employed at a Japanese brothel while the nation debates the passage of an anti-prostitution law.
Prostitutes in burnt out Tokyo ghetto of post-WWII Japan peddle their flesh and save one-third of their money for a proposed dancehall to be named Paradise. The hookers live in a bombed-out building, but they accept the precarious situation with typical resolve.
The Aso family live in the old town of Nara. One Day, Kei, one of the Aso's twin boys suddenly disappears. Five years later seventeen-year old Shun, the remaining twin, is an art student. He now has to move forward with his life, together with his childhood friend, Yu.
It’s 1940, and the population of Japan is divided over its entry into World War II. Satoko, the wife of a fabric merchant, is devoted to her husband but is beginning to suspect he’s up to something. Soon she allows herself to be drawn into a game in which she enigmatically conceals her intentions.
In the teeming black markets of postwar Japan, Shozo Hirono and his buddies find themselves in a new war between factious and ambitious yakuza.
Depicts the life of a family in a remote Japanese timber village. Family head Tahara Kozo lives with his mother Sachiko, wife Yasuyo, nephew Eisuke and young daughter Michiru. Economic recession and failed development plans cause tragedy in the family.
Love is a business at Family Romance, a company that rents human stand-ins for any occasion. Founder Yuichi Ishii helps make his clients’ dreams come true. But when the mother of 12-year-old Mahiro hires Ishii to impersonate her missing father, the line between acting and reality threatens to blur.
In post-World War II America, a woman, rebuilding her life in the suburbs with her husband, kidnaps her neighbor and seeks vengeance for the heinous war crimes she believes he committed against her.
