Acting
This anthology-style mystery series is part of the D‑5 PROJECT, centered around Detective Office 5 - a long-running private detective agency in Kawasaki. Each detective is known only by a number rather than a name (e.g., Detective 596, 532), with standalone stories featuring different characters and surreal, quirky cases.
Eight visually rich vignettes drawn from Kurosawa’s own dreams—fox weddings and vanished orchards, a soldier’s ghosts, a walk through Van Gogh’s canvases, nuclear nightmares, and a water-mill utopia—meditate on childhood, art, mortality, and humanity’s uneasy bond with nature.
In a dysfunctional family where the mother is a heroin addict and prostitute, beaten by her son, and the father is an ex-TV reporter, sleeping with his daughter and filming his son being beaten up, ‘Q’, a complete stranger enters the bizarre family, changing their lives for the better, finding a balance in their disturbing natures.
Young film star Ken Mihara is about to fall from stardom. His rise as a celebrity is solely credited to his onscreen counterpart, Keiko, who recently announced her retirement from acting in order to get married. Feeling frustrated and helpless, Ken turns to alcohol as he begins to provoke fights, attempts to lure a girl into bed, and argues with his wife, who came to visit him at the studio. Although he's past his prime, he still manages to infuse a young filmmaker with the motivation to pursue her dreams as a director.
Yuichiro wants to be an film director but his widowed mother wants him to become a doctor. As radiation leaks permeate the city, he tries to clear his debts by signing up for a dangerous medical experiment...
In the year 20XX, anarchy reigns over Tokyo after a devastating earthquake destroyed the city. Isolated from the rest of the country, the chaos-ridden city is ruled over by an autocratic governor (Izumiya Shigeru) who has forbidden all forms of entertainment including cinema. Timid movie lover Furuta (Wentz Eiji) and mischievous rocker Nitta (Nakao Akiyoshi), two peddling high school boys lost in the city's wasteland, gather forces and lead a youth rebellion against the governor.
In a small nook of Kawasaki Private investigator 591 and adultry specialist investigator 522 embark on separate investigations that leads them both to the same beautifician.
On a journey to witness the final performance of a mythical musician thought long dead, a group of misfits navigate the barren terrain of a dystopian future, while constantly connected to the nihilistic DJ of radio station FNTN / Fonotune. Influenced by Japanese cinema, graphic design and Manga Comics, Fonotune: An Electric Fairytale is a film about strange encounters, lost connections and, maybe, the end of the world!
Hanpeita Takeichi, a samurai, finds that he has travelled through time to modern-day Japan. He's taken in by an old man who runs a cram school, and begins to work as a teacher there.
The silent scandal of a utility pole, secretly lighting the outskirts of the city. The story is set during the nostalgic time before cellular phones in Japan, and tells the love story of a human and a utility pole. Elemi the power pole becomes infatuated with electrician Mr.Takahashi. Pretending she is human, she decides to ring him. But this contact is forbidden in the law of power poles. Eventually, rumors spread all over town and Elemi is summoned to court.
For 60 years, the group of detectives known as "Detective Office 5" has raised the bar for detective work. The agents of Detective Office 5 are a group of stellar detectives lead by the genius code breaker Detective 507. When an unknown client enlists 507 to crack his most difficult programming code yet, the detective embarks for Shanghai where he crosses paths with a sniper, an informant, the head of the Blue-Dragon Mafia, and beautiful singer on the run, Meilan. As 507 stumbles deeper into a twisted quagmire of intrigue he discovers the sad truth behind the mystery.
A university student is kidnapped by young men in a car. No ransom is asked as the men are just bored roving thugs who have nothing better to do nor do they have any specific mission or purpose. Fascinated by the men's close bonds, the abused student slowly turns from victim to accomplice.
As the end approaches for Japan’s age of military rule, the Tokugawa shogunate brings together a squad of ruthless assassins to defend its representatives in Kyoto. These men were known as the Shinsengumi. Formidable swordsmen with unswerving dedication to their cause, the Shinsengumi think nothing of slashing down their enemies…but what happens when the enemy is the undead?
Japanese film directed by Masato Tanno.
The story takes place when the Shin-Okubo district of Tokyo was still known as Okubomura, where the yakuza are running a real estate business called Misato Kogyo. Starting with the mule AF, who carries 'cargo' inside his own butt hole, the gang members, each of whom has their own complex personality, greatly admire the gang leader Joaquin. But after he is hospitalized after his car accident scam goes wrong, they plan to rebuild the organization together with the new gang leader, a dope fiend.
Munakata has an unrelenting guilt from killing his mother when he was 15 years old. After being imprisoned for 10 years, he is released and heads to Yako, a small industrial town, to work as a machinist. Living in a tiny apartment, he is tasked with secretly creating a gun out of an old TV remote control and unknowingly destroys the fragile balance of the town.
A short film made before the feature adaptation four years later. A group of men are travelling aimlessly, repeating the chaotic behaviour of "stealing what they want and throwing it away when they don't need it". They kidnap a university student in broad daylight on the streets. The university student is taken in without knowing why, and although he is frightened at first, he gradually becomes fascinated by the pace of the three men, who are somewhat unlikeable. Then, one of the university students accidentally shoots and kills someone. The four set off to dump the body, but their car gets caught at a checkpoint...
Probably the film in which more people are kidnapped in the shortest amount of time than any other film in cinema history. The antics and light-heartedness that run throughout the film, including the storyline, make it worthy of being called a 'violent film', despite the fact that there are no violent scenes at all. It is also a 'hero film' in that the protagonist has style and sticks to it whether he is hurt or not.
