Production
While police investigate a woman found dead in a derelict love hotel, a romance novelist's wife lives a life that seems simply a daily repetition without romance. To escape the loveless monotony, she follows her desires and becomes a nude model. Soon, she meets a mentor and begins selling her body to strangers, while at home, she hides behind the façade of the doting wife.
In a Japan of the near future, the government program Plan 75 encourages senior citizens to be voluntarily euthanized to remedy a super-aged society. An elderly woman whose means of survival are vanishing, a pragmatic Plan 75 salesman, and a young Filipino laborer face choices of life and death.
In 1987 Tokyo, a quirky and sensitive 11-year-old girl copes with a terminally ill father and stressed-out working mother while encountering various adults dealing with their own struggles.
The erotic novelist Taeko is writing a morbid story of a family destroyed by incest, murder and abuse. Her assistant, Yuji, sets on a mission to uncover the reality of this story, but the reality might be too much to bear.
A thug offers to pay a law student's gambling debt if the student will accompany him on a trip across Tokyo.
A drug-addicted girl from an abusive family finds hope through kind people but her grim reality strikes back just as she sees a glimmer of light.
A humorous wedding story fueled by a rather no-good father and son, disguised as the old and new “good guys.” The father Nobuo, and his son Tamio, are unable to mature, unable to break the parent-child roles, have no sense of responsibility, and keep holding on to the past. The pair is overwhelmed by all the colorful characters around them telling them what to do. They go to strenuous and humorous efforts to make Tamio’s wedding an event to remember.
Intimately following 1st and 6th graders at a public elementary school in Tokyo, we observe kids learning the traits necessary to become part of Japanese society.
An old couple, their only son, the son's wife, a young man and his lover live peacefully in a village. Then, a terrifying earthquake strikes that causes a nearby nuclear station to explode. The residents must evacuate, but the family lives on a farm, with only half of the area designated as an evacuation area.
Saike, Kazuki, and Takeo were abused by their respective parents and did not go to school. They stayed together at a youth detention center. To survive, these three young men commit robbery and burglary against criminal groups.
Facing an unacceptable reality, a teacher is trying to reclaim relationships with his family, students and former friends. Reassessing his past, he contemplates how to go on with his life.
First graders in a Tokyo public elementary school are presented with a challenge for the final semester: performing "Ode to Joy" at the ceremony for the new incoming first graders. Ayame, who often struggles to keep up with the group, is determined to play a major part — the big drum.
The movie is absurd, and a thoroughly original take on the morale in Japanese society. The images are beautiful, and the people are as cold as the snow that surrounds them. The take on Melville's "Samoraï" from -67 is obvious, but Kobayashi turns the image around and portrays the killer as the weakest person in the movie - haunted by his demanding wife and the moaning contractor, who is one of the most mysterious characters ever portrayed in a movie.
