Masahiro Kobayashi

An aimless and lonely call girl becomes involved with a detective who is looking for a underage runaway.

Because of the desolate landscape, Kobayashi chose snow-covered Hokkaido (the most northern island of Japan) as the setting for Amazing Story, a light-erotic drama about a lonely man, Kenji, who kidnaps the woman of his dreams. The woman is Harumi, a hairdresser in the deserted town where Kenji has just arrived. It's never really busy in her business. Harumi's husband is a gambling addict and spends all Harumi's money. Maybe that's why Harumi doesn't try very hard to escape when Kenji kidnaps her. His concern about her and his boundless worship probably help, too. Something strange and beautiful blossoms between the kidnapper and his victim, but can this be the basis of a long and happy encounter?

Yuji and Akiko are newlyweds. Yuji dreams of being a movie star. He lands the lead role in a Pink Eiga soft-core sex film. The director requires him to have sex with the actress. Akiko goes to her high school reunion and is raped by a drunken guy, and then hooks up with her ex-high school love. A dark and comedic look at contemporary relationships and the pitfalls of married life. The story was written by Locarno International Film Festival, Golden Leopard Prize Winner, Masahiro Kobayashi. (Pink Eiga)

The story of two men, one middle aged one mid twenties, who make friends and exchange cigarettes and stories of their sex lives, unaware they have unwittingly exchanged partners. The story, told in flashbacks, as the two men travel through the night on a motorcycle, is loaded with highly charged eroticism. Sex and violence are juxtaposed against the drabness of the men's everyday lives, effectively blurring the line between what is real and what is fantasy. Founded on the well-known myth of furtive sexual gropers on the rush-hour Tokyo commuter trains, Tandem is a low-key masterpiece of Japanese Pink Cinema.

A young office lady is lured to the countrside and sadistically tortured by her supposed fiancé and his girlfriend. Left for dead she is taken in by a groom from a nearby horse farm. The country life eases her trauma until she witnesses the erotically charged sight of horses being bred.

Stuck in a fishing village in Hokkaido, Tadao's grand-daughter Haru is desperate to visit Tokyo, a trip Tadao is reluctant to make.

Tatsuya Nakadai, the world’s greatest living actor, returns to the screen in a brilliant adaptation of a story by novelist Shuhei Fujisawa. A traveling gambler known as “Funeral Uno” he is now 86 years old and returning to his hometown for the first time in 30 years. Partly told in flashbacks, he is forced to face his lifelong nemesis, Boss Kyuzo, a vile yakuza portrayed by another superstar of samurai cinema, Atsuo Nakamura! Before the two old gamblers can settle a 30-year-old score they must put their lives on the line in a game of dice that can only lead to a bloody sword duel the likes of which has never before been seen! Superb performances all around in a film loaded with surprises and exciting swordplay!

Hosono, a film director who continues to make adult videos to make a living, spends his days desperately trying to realize his own project. However, one day, driven by anxiety and impatience, he steals a script from the screenwriter's home...

Tomoko and Naomi have had a lesbian relationship since their high school days. They meet again a few years later, and this film depicts the course of their love. Tomoko's strong obsession with Naomi and her intense sexual desire excite the audience. The beauty of the last scene is a must-see!

A melodrama that emotionally depicts a broken couple with sensual scenes. This is the first film by director Toshiki Sato and screenwriter Masahiro Kobayashi, who have produced a number of excellent works. The film painstakingly depicts the heartbreaking endings of a couple who are trapped in the past and gradually falling out of love, and includes a strong scene of sexual passion. Yuko (Satsuki Fuji), who is troubled by her marital relationship, is having an affair with Akiyama (Kikujiro Honda). Fumio (Toru Nakane), who is unable to handle his beloved wife, uses a duplicate key found in an old jacket to sneak into the room where Yuko used to live before their marriage.

Perfect Blue: Yume Nara Samete (パーfectブルー 夢なら醒めて, Pāfekuto Burū: Yume Nara Samete) is a 2002 Japanese psychological thriller film directed by Toshiki Satō and adapted from the novel of the same name by Yoshikazu Takeuchi. The story centers on Ai, a teen pop idol transitioning to a recording career, whose life unravels amid fixation from a obsessive convenience store clerk, leading to themes of distorted self-perception, narcissistic delusions, and violent events.

The story follows Muhan, the female assassin introduced in 1985's Dream Crimes, who was originally based on Takashi Ishii's manga character (unlike in the movies, she's primarily a mahjong expert in the manga). After Muhan fails to kill a young girl during a hitjob, she begins to question her existence.

Nakadai Tatsuya, Japan’s greatest living actor, gives the performance of a lifetime as Shoji Sanosuke, and elderly samurai forced to pick up his sword to protect those he loves in this adaptation of a Fujisawa Shuhei novel. As a ”Heya-zumi” (essentially a freeloader living off his family) Sanosuke has one last chance to help his grandniece escape from the cruel samurai of an arranged marriage. Nakadai proves he ”still has it,” when fate forces him into a deadly duel. This award winning samurai drama from the pen of noted author Fujisawa Shuhei is a tribute to one of the greatest actors to ever grace the silver screen!

Chokichi Kuwahata was once a leading actor, but he is ravaged by dementia and old age now. His daughter and the men in her life go against his wishes and place him in a retirement home. He slips away one day and meets another offspring from a different union.

Kiriko is a beautiful woman working in a quiet hot spring town. The owner of the inn, Goro, is attracted to her beauty and asks her out, but she refuses. Meanwhile, Imai, a detective staying at the inn, recognizes Kiriko's face and investigates her past on his own.

A down-and-out scriptwriter spends his days and nights in the bars of Tokyo. When he is thrown out of a joint because it is closing time, there is always a willing lady to spend the rest of the night with. In the street he has countless semi-philosophical discussions with fellow drinkers, male and female, (shot in black-and-white, as prologue to the different chapters) but in the end it often comes down to one thing: the bottle of whisky that has to be finished. An encounter with a homeless young man with AIDS marks a turning point in the life of the writer.

The sensual images depict the love and hatred between four men and women living together, creating a new kind of love story. One night, alcoholic writer Akimoto and live-in former actress Yumiko meet Koichi, a gay drug dealer pursued by the yakuza, and his younger brother Yuji, a castrated man. The four of them flee Tokyo and start living together in Koichi and Yuji's childhood hideout. In the midst of their peaceful life, Yumiko falls in love with Yuji, but he is unable to give her any physical satisfaction. In the meantime, Yuji asks Koichi to hold Yumiko instead of him, which leads to jealousy among the men.

Mixing interviews, rare archival footage and film extracts, the film shows how Melville's works were impacted by what he experienced in his youth during WWII, and how it structured his whole approach to cinema, not only in its thematic but also in its aesthetics.

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

As a newspaper reporter listens to the confession of a wife who murdered her husband, the film shockingly depicts the process by which she discovers why she killed her husband, why she started working on street corners, and how she became deeply immersed in an affair that began as prostitution to relieve boredom...