A cinematic triptych of three Tokyo-set stories.
Showing posts with label Japanese. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Japanese. Show all posts
The Land of Hope (Kibô no kuni) (2012)
An elderly couple, their only son, the son's wife, a young man and his lover live peacefully in a small residential area. Then, a terrifying earthquake strikes that causes a nearby nuclear station to explode. The residents learn they must evacuate, but the elderly couple owns a farm, with the evacuation line draped across their front yard. The father wants to stay, but the son wants him to go. Meanwhile, the son's wife Izumi (Megumi Kagurazaka) learns she is pregnant.
Nobody Knows (Dare Mo Shiranai) (2004)
In a small Tokyo apartment, twelve-year-old Akira must care for his younger siblings after their mother leaves them and shows no sign of returning.
Mind Game (2004)
The film follows Nishi, a loser who has a crush on his childhood girlfriend. After an encounter with the Japanese mafia, the film follows Nishi as he journeys to heaven and back, and ends up trapped in an even more unlikely place. Nishi (and some friends) attempt to break out of their trap, and discover what it truly means to be alive along the way. This is a mind-bending trip that uses some of the most innovative animation ever created.
Audition (1999)
A widower takes an offer to screen girls at a special audition, arranged for him by a friend to find him a new wife. The one he fancies is not who she appears to be after all.
Taiyo No Uta (Midnight Sun) (2006)
Kaoru dreamily gazes from her bedroom window each morning just before dawn. She can see a stretch of the beach in front of her parent's house on a hill in Kamakura, but focuses upon the activity at the bus stop where Koji and his two best friends meet before going surfing. The appearance of the sun causes her to lowers the blinds and go to sleep for she suffers from Xeroderma Pigmentosum (XP) and exposure to the sun's rays has had the potential to kill her. At night she walks to the train station, plays her guitar and sings songs she has written, commonly returning home just a few minutes before it starts getting light. One morning she is at the bus stop singing when Koji arrives. Liking the song she was singing, he promises to go and listen to her perform as a street musician the first day of summer vacation but finds a loud and off-key man has occupied her spot. Koji improvises and takes her to Yokahama on his motor bike where her singing immediately draws a crowd. Koji marvels at her extraordinary future, whereas he muses at his ordinary nature as he asks to be her boyfriend. But she breaks up almost immediately as the rising sun reminds her that she cannot live a normal life. Koji tries and make amends after being sought out by her father, and starts to earn the 200,000 yen needed to pay for a studio session and production of a CD of Kaoru's songs. As she practices on her guitar, she finds her fingers becoming immobilized, the first sign that neurological damage from the disease is progressing.
Versus (2000)
There are 666 portals that connect this world to the other side. These are concealed from all human beings. Somewhere in Japan exists the 444th portal.... The forest of resurrection.
The The Great Yokai War (2005)
A young boy is chosen as the defender of good and must team up with Japan's ancient spirits and creatures of lore to destroy the forces of evil.
Kikujiro (1999)
A young, naive boy sets out alone on the road to find his wayward mother. Soon he finds an unlikely protector in a crotchety man and the two have a series of unexpected adventures along the way.
Departures (2008)
A newly unemployed cellist takes a job preparing the dead for funerals.
The Human Condition I: No Greater Love (1959)
In the World War II, the pacifist and humanist Japanese Kaji accepts to travel with his wife Michiko to the tiny Manchurian village Loh Hu Liong to work as supervisor in an iron ore mine to avoid to be summoned to the military service. Kaji works with Okishima (Sô Yamamura) and he implements a better treatment to the laborers and improves the mine production. When the feared Kempetai (The "Military Police Corps", the military police arm of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1881 to 1945) brings six hundred Chinese POWs to the mine, Kaji negotiates with their leaders expecting them to control their comrades. However the methods of Kaji upset the corrupt system in the site, and the foreman Furuya (Kôji Mitsui) plots a scheme to use the naive Chen (Akira Ishihama) to turn off the electrical power of the barbwire fences to allow the prisoners to escape. When seven prisoners are falsely accused of an attempt of fleeing, a cruel Kempetai sergeant uses his sword to behead the prisoners.
Onibaba (1964)
After being forcefully inducted as a soldier into war in 14th century Japan, his wife and mother remain living in a swamp. They eke out their living by ambushing worn-out warriors, killing them and selling their belongings to a greedy merchant. The woman comes to mistrust her daughter-in-law who has coupled up with a deserter, and begins to wear a facial mask she has taken from a slain samurai. Soon the mask will not come off again. In this disguise she is at first taken for a demon by her daughter.
Sansho the Bailiff (1954)
In mediaeval Japan a compassionate governor is sent into exile. His wife and children try to join him, but are separated, and the children grow up amid suffering and oppression.
Harakiri (1962)
An elder ronin samurai arrives at a feudal lord's home and requests an honorable place to commit suicide. But when the ronin inquires about a younger samurai who arrived before him things take an unexpected turn.
The Burmese Harp (1956)
In the War's closing days, when a conscience-driven Japanese soldier fails to get his countrymen to surrender to overwhelming force, he adopts the lifestyle of a Buddhist monk.
Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
A tragic film covering a young boy and his little sister's struggle to survive in Japan during World War II.
Woman in the Dunes (1964)
Jumpei Niki, a Tokyo based entomologist and educator, is in a poor seaside village collecting specimens of sand insects. As it is late in the day and as he has missed the last bus back to the city, some of the local villagers suggest that he spend the night there, they offering to find him a place to stay. That place is the home of a young woman, whose house is located at the bottom of a sand pit accessible only by ladder. He later learns that the woman's husband and child died in a sandstorm, their undiscovered bodies buried somewhere near the house. The next morning as he tries to leave, he finds that the ladder is gone - he realizing that the ladder he climbed down was a rope ladder which is anchored above the pit - meaning that he is trapped with the young woman as the walls of the pit are sand with no grip. He also realizes that this entrapment was the villagers and the young woman's plan for him to stay there permanently to be her helper in the never-ending task of digging out ...
The Twilight Samurai (2002)
A 19th-century samurai tries to protect a battered wife.
Seaside Motel (2010)
"Seaside Motel" is a romantic-comedy that takes place over the course of one evening at the oddly named Seaside Motel. The motel is in fact surrounded by mountains with no water in sight. One evening smooth talking swindler Kamedara (Toma Ikuta) stops in for the night at the Seaside Motel. During the evening he comes across a call girl named Candy (Kumiko Aso) whom he falls in love with ...
Final Fantasy 7 Advent Children (2005)
An ex-mercenary is forced out of isolation when three mysterious men kidnap and brainwash the city's children afflicted with the Geostigma disease.
