Film Movement (Firm)
1) Oh Lucy!
Language
日本語
Appears on list
Description
Setsuko is a single, emotionally unfulfilled woman, seemingly stuck with a drab, meaningless life in Tokyo. At least until she's convinced by her niece, Mika to enroll in an unorthodox English class that requires her to wear a blonde wig and take on an American alter ego named "Lucy." This new identity awakens something dormant in Setsuko, and she quickly develops romantic feelings for her American instructor, John. When John suddenly disappears from...
Series
Language
日本語
Appears on list
Description
In this triptych, mundane encounters spin into a world of infinite possibilities. In Episode 1: Magic (or Something Less Assuring), a young woman is startled when she realizes that her best friend's new flame might just be her ex; in Episode 2: Door Wide Open, a disgruntled student plots to trick his college professor, using his friend-with-benefits as bait; and in Episode 3: Once Again, a girl's college reunion leads to an unanticipated run-in with...
3) Sexual drive
Language
日本語
Description
Equal parts thriller, sex comedy, and gastronomy - SEXUAL DRIVE is an unconventional triptych following the seemingly unconnected lives of three people around Japan and their appetites, both culinary and carnal. In the first story, designer Enatsu worries about his sexless marriage. Next, office worker Akane is recovering from driving-induced panic attacks. In the final third, elite advertising agent Ikeyama wants to end a relationship with his lover....
Language
日本語
Description
After a floundering toy salesman rescues a beguiling woman whose car was stuck on the train tracks, she inadvertently whisks him into an epic series of misadventures that turn his life upside down. While his once humdrum routine was already complicated by two female co-workers, he soon finds himself entrenched with gangsters, strange interlopers, kidnapping, and other sundry crimes and misdemeanors. Singular auteur Koji Fukada (A Girl Missing) marks...
5) Radiance
Language
日本語
Description
Misako is a passionate writer of film versions for the visually impaired. At a screening, she meets Nakamori, an older photographer who is slowly losing his eyesight. Misako soon discovers Nakamori’s photographs, which will strangely bring her back to her past. Together, they will learn to see the radiant world that was invisible to her eyes.
Series
Language
日本語
Description
For kids around the world, music is often the only salvation when the pain and anxiety of teenage life becomes too much to bear. Yuichi is in the 8th grade and he worships Lily Chou-Chou, a Bjork-like chanteuse whose epic music is lush and transcendent. Yuichi only lives for Lily Chou-Chou's big Tokyo concert, where the lies and violence can be washed away by the presence of his goddess and her powerful music. But fate has yet another obstacle in...
Series
Language
日本語
Appears on list
Description
In the debut directorial feature by actor Joe Odagiri, the film follows an old ferryman in a remote Meiji-era community. His life is a peaceful, cyclical existence, given meaning by the essential role he plays in transporting people, livestock and goods across the water, connecting villages and lives. When news arrives that a bridge is being built, it's clear that his services will no longer be needed. Meanwhile, his life will be equally transformed...
Language
日本語
Description
On the subtropical Japanese island of Amami, traditions about nature remain eternal. During the full-moon night of traditional dances in August, sixteen-year-old Kaito discovers a dead body floating in the sea. His girlfriend Kyoko will attempt to help him understand this mysterious discovery. Together, Kaito and Kyoko will learn to become adults by experiencing the interwoven cycles of life, death, and love.
Series
Film Movement volume year 4, film 8
Language
日本語
Description
The drama, unfolded around the filming activities on the campus of a university in Tokyo, presents the modern youth of Japan, their personal life and love.
10) Violent cop
Language
日本語
Description
Detective Azuma is a rogue cop who often uses violence and unethical methods to get results. While investigating a series of drug-related homicides, he discovers that his friend and colleague, Iwaki, is supplying drugs from within the police force. After Iwaki is murdered and Azuma's sister is kidnapped, Azuma breaks all the rules to get justice.
11) True mothers
Series
Language
日本語
Description
After a long and unsuccessful struggle to get pregnant, Satoko and her husband decide to adopt a child. Over the next six years, the middle-class couple and their young son Asato settle into a comfortable, albeit routine, life. The family's orderly existence is shattered by the arrival of Hikari, a young woman claiming to be Asato's biological mother, demanding his return. As tensions mount, Satoko grows more and more emboldened to defend her family....
12) Complicity
Language
日本語
Description
Cheng Liang is a young Chinese immigrant living illegally in Japan. Desperate for work, he feigns his identity to get a job in a traditional Japanese soba restaurant. He starts his new life living and working with the elderly soba master, but always fearing to have his real identity disclosed at any moment.
13) The third murder
Series
Language
日本語
Description
Leading attorney Shigemori takes on the defense of murder-robbery suspect Misumi who served jail time for another murder 30 years ago. Shigemori's chances of winning the case seem low; his client freely admits his guilt, despite facing the death penalty if he is convicted. As he digs deeper into the case, as he hears the testimonies of the victim's family and Misumi himself, the once confident Shigemori begins to doubt whether his client is the murderer...
14) Passion
Language
日本語
Formats
Description
When Kaho and Tomoya announce their engagement at a celebratory dinner with friends, they are unprepared for the emotional turmoil that is unleashed once a prior infidelity comes to light. Later that evening, Tomoya is invited to the apartment of his former classmate, Takako, leading to further revelations of passion and indiscretion. The debut theatrical feature from one of today's preeminent auteurs, PASSION displays Ryusuke Hamaguchi's rich and...
15) Harmonium
Series
Language
日本語
Description
With his highly perceptive attention to character, director Koji Fukada creates an explosive family drama. Intended as a companion piece to the black comedy Hospitalite, Harmonium returns to the domestic sphere as it captures the collapse of a seemingly ordinary Japanese family. Life for Toshio, his wife, and their younger daughter Hotaru carries on as usual until he hires the mysterious Mr. Yasaka, an old acquaintance dressed in white who has just...
16) Key of life
Series
Language
日本語
Description
Sakurai is a failed actor who switches identities with a stranger at a bath house. Only then to find out that he is suddenly filling the shoes of an elite assassin.
Series
Language
日本語
Description
Dwelling on his past glory as a prize-winning author, Ryota wastes the money he makes as a private detective on gambling and can barely pay child support. After the death of his father, his aging mother and beautiful ex-wife seem to be moving on with their lives. Renewing contact with his initially distrusting family, Ryota struggles to take back control of his existence and to find a lasting place in the life of his young son.
18) Boiling point
Series
Language
日本語
Description
Ono Masahiko is an unlucky gas station attendant who belongs to a losing junior baseball team. When the local yakuza threaten and capture his coach, he and a friend get more than they bargained for when they travel to Okinawa seeking revenge.
20) Violent streets
Language
日本語
Description
Egawa is a retired yakuza underboss, now nightclub owner, who gets pulled back into life when his old comrades demand control of his club. Meanwhile, a gang war quietly roiling behind the scenes erupts into open violence in response to a high-profile kidnapping, lending unimaginably high stakes to Egawa's reemergence onto the yakuza scene. The result is a kinetic and stylish explosion of deception, mayhem, and death that leaves no one save, and a...