Japan

After his very touching Like Father, Like Son, Hirokazu Kore-eda tells once again the story of a complex family: The three sisters Sachi, Yoshino and Chika live together in Kamakura. They travel to the funeral of their father, who left the family 15 years ago, and meet their 13-year-old half-sister Suzu. With great sensitivity for each of the sisters, Kore-eda looks at family ties. More

In this film director Yoji Yamada bows down before his teacher and role model. Yamada was assistant director on Yazujiro Ozu’s «Tokyo monogatari», a moving family portrait set after the Second World War. In his remake, Yamada has made very few departures from Ozu’s masterpiece in order to update the story of ageing couple Shukichi and Tomiko to present day Japan. Once again, the pair decides to leave their quiet lives in the country to pay a visit to their children and grandchildren in Tokyo. More

Would you choose your natural son, or the son you believed was yours after spending 6 years together? Kore-eda Hirokazu, the globally acclaimed director of "Nobody Knows", "Still Walking" and "I Wish", returns to the big screen with another family - a family thrown into torment after a phone call from the hospital where the son was born... Ryota has earned everything he has by his hard work, and believes nothing can stop him from pursuing his perfect life as a winner. Then one day, he and his wife, Midori, get an unexpected phone call from the hospital. More

A man wanders through the 20-kilometre exclusion zone around the stricken nuclear reactors at Fukushima. The cherry trees are in bloom and the natural surroundings make an idyllic impression. Radiation is invisible, yet a gaping emptiness looms where the tsunami engulfed streets and houses. The man is wearing normal clothing, just like the people still toughing it out here, for the time being at least. He occa- sionally encounters white “ghosts” in protective clothing, performing strange tasks. More

The Asuka region is the birthplace of Japan. Here, in ancient times, there were those who fulfilled their lives in the midst of waiting. Modern people, apparently having lost this sense of waiting, seem unable to feel grateful for the present, and cling to the illusion that all things will move constantly forward according to one’s own plan. In ancient times, there were three small mountains that people believed were inhabited by gods. They were Mt. Unebi, Mt. Miminashi, and Mt. Kagu, and they still stand. More

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A story of love and frailty, Air Doll takes the essence of what it means to be human and distills it down to its purest form in this bittersweet love story that smoothly intertwines fantasy and reality. In a shabby, rundown apartment in an old part of Tokyo, a bright beacon of purity shines into being one day. Silent and motionless, the air doll that belongs to quiet and retiring middle-aged Hideo (Itsuji Itao) has never been anything out of the ordinary. More

TOKYO SONATA is a portrait of a seemingly ordinary Japanese family. The father who abruptly loses his job conceals the truth from his family; the eldest son in college hardly returns home; the youngest son furtively takes piano lessons without telling his parents; and the mother, who knows deep down that her role is to keep the family together, cannot find the will to do so. From the exterior, all is normal and the same. But somehow, a single, unforeseeable chasm has appeared within the family, only to spread ever so quietly and quickly to disintegrate them. More

Japanese film director Hirokazu Kore-eda will compete in San Sebastián for the third time, following Wandarfuru raifu (After Life, 1998) and Hana yori mo naho (Hana, 2006). A family drama about grown children visiting their elderly parents, which unfolds over one summer day. The aging parents have lived in the family home for decades. Their son and daughter return for a rare family reunion, bringing their own families with them. They have gathered to commemorate the tragic death of the eldest son, who drowned in an accident fifteen years ago. More

Shortly after assuming his post as food taster, Shinnojo loses his eyesight. The fish that was given to the head of the clan was poisoned. Prior to this, Shinnojo had held an inferior position in the ruler’s entourage. Realising that not only will he remain blind until the end of his days, but he must now relinquish his position and will need assistance for rest of his life, Shinnojo becomes dejected and melancholy. His wife, Kayo, is the only one able to prevent him from committing suicide: “I can’t imagine life without you. But, go ahead and kill yourself. More

The time is 1702. A young samurai, Aoki Sozaemon (Okada Junichi) has left his countryside hometown, and is now living in Edo (now Tokyo), in search of Kanazawa Jubei (Asano Tadanobu), the man who killed his father. He is living in a dilapidated tenement house, in the poor quarters of the city of Edo. His neighbors in the so-called "row houses" are all good, solid folk who can never even hope to rise out of the squalor of their surroundings. More

The action takes place in a small town near the mountains. The heroine, MACHI, is a high school student, who has yet to find her direction in life. One day, she and her friends start making up a story, which they decide to continue as a kind of relay. One after another, the girls continue the dreamlike tale, which unfolds like a “future history”, invisible to the protagonists. Meanwhile, for the adults of the town things are different. Their “story” is forged from the realities of life, and from their past. The two stories progress side by side, never seeming to cross. More

Four siblings live happily with their mother in a small apartment in Tokyo. The children all have different fathers and have never been to school. The very existence of three of them has been hidden from the landlord. One day, the mother leaves behind a little money and a note, charging her oldest boy to look after the others. And so begins the children's odyssey, a journey nobody knows. Though engulfed by the cruel fate of abandonment, the four children do their best to survive in their own little world, devising and following their own set of rules. More

Seibei Iguchi (Hiroyuki Sanada), a low-ranking samurai and family man, leads a life without glory as a bureaucrat in the mid-XIX century Japan. A widower, he has charge of two daughters (whom he adores) and a senile mother; he must therefore work in the fields and accept piecework to make both ends meet. New prospects seem to open up when Tomoe (Rie Miyazama), his long-time love, divorces a brutal husband. However, even as the Japanese feudal system is unraveling, Seibei remains bound by the code of honour of the samurai and by his own sense of social precedences. The consequences are cruel. More

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A massacre initiated by the followers of an apocalyptic religious sect, the Ark of Truth, leaves more than a hundred people dead ¿ including the self-appointed executioners, slain by fellow cult members. Three years pass. On the anniversary of the slaughter, four friends who lost loved ones in the tragedy seek solace by journeying to the secluded lake where it all began. They encounter a man who was with the executioners until the very moment the killing began, and their pilgrimage takes a strange, unexpected turn. More

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Yumiko is a young woman from Osako, whose life is defined by the death of her loved ones. She lost her grandmother at the age of twelve, and her husband Ikuo, who is the reincarnation of her grandmother to her, commits suicide some months after the birth of their child. Once more Yumiko loses a person she had really loved. Five years later she marries Tamio, a man who lives by the sea together with his eight-year-old daughter from his first marriage. Her pain has ceased until the day she returns to her place of birth and gets caught up by her memories. More

Yuriko works at home all day, transcribing tapes, feeling cut off from outside the world. Her husband, Takashi, works as a school teacher. In the evening he often goes to bars and comes home late, leaving his wife behind, waiting for him with the warm supper. He thinks she had accepted this reality, but one day she runs off, steals a car and starts turning into a woman he doesn't recognize. More

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Takuji’s been in a coma for quite some time after an accident in the mountains, where he often wandered wistfully. His family and friends have been coping rather well with his condition, and he lies in bed at home where everyone can visit him. More

Paul Schrader’s visually stunning, collage-like portrait of acclaimed Japanese author and playwright Yukio Mishima (played by Ken Ogata) investigates the inner turmoil and contradictions of a man who attempted an impossible harmony between self, art, and society. Taking place on Mishima’s last day, when he famously committed public seppuku, the film is punctuated by extended flashbacks to the writer’s life as well as by gloriously stylized evocations of his fictional works. More

Peaceful living and dying are a central theme in this masterpiece by the Japanese Shohei Imamura, a literary film adaptation in the mountain region of Narayama. In a small mountain village on the edge of a valley, all who have turned seventy must leave the community and climb a certain mountain to die. Anyone who defies tradition brings misfortune to his own family. Orin is 69 years old and is about to climb the mountain this winter. But first she has to make sure that her eldest son Tatsuhei finally finds a wife. More

Set in Edo-period Japan, the plot revolves around a young man, Toyoji, who has an affair with an older woman, Seki. Toyoji is very jealous of Seki's husband and decides that they should kill him. One night, after the husband has had plenty of shōchū to drink and is in bed, they strangle him and dump his body down a well. To avert any suspicions, Seki pretends her husband has gone off to Tokyo to work. For three years Seki and Toyoji secretly see each other. Their relationship has moments of intense passion, but the young man starts to distance himself from Seki. More

In 1936 Tokyo, Sada Abe (Eiko Matsuda) is a former prostitute who now works as a maid in a hotel. The hotel's owner, Kichizo Ishida (Tatsuya Fuji), molests her, and the two begin an intense affair that consists of sexual experiments and various self-indulgences. Ishida leaves his wife to pursue his affair with Sada. Sada becomes increasingly possessive and jealous of Ishida, and Ishida more eager to please her. Their mutual obsession escalates to the point where Ishida finds she is most excited by strangling him during lovemaking, and he is killed in this fashion. More

A military explorer meets and befriends a Goldi man in Russia’s unmapped forests. A deep and abiding bond evolves between the two men, one civilized in the usual sense, the other at home in the glacial Siberian woods. The film won the 1976 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, the Golden Prize and the Prix FIPRESCI at the 9th Moscow International Film Festival and a number of other awards. More

THE TOWN―its denizens like to call it that―is little more than an ugly array of sheet metal and tar paper shacks thrown together on ground closely resembling the city dump. Nevertheless, despite its appearance, the community would seem to be akind of dreamland for its inhabitants who, albeit their hand-to-mouth existence, seek happiness in their own strange and varied ways. First, there is the woman who feverishly prays that her feebleminded son will be cured: The boy, an adult, spends his waking hours either drawing pictures of or pretending he is operating streetcars. More

Young Dr. Yasumoto returns to Edo following three years of medical training in Nagasaki. Believing he will become a physician to Shogunate, he is badly disillusioned to learn he must work in the poorly-financed Koishikawa Clinic, which is headed by a Dr. Niide, known to most as Red Beard. Everything in the clinic is repulsive to Yasumoto, and he becomes determined to get himself discharged: He drinks, refuses to wear medical attire; breaks every rule he can think of, in fact, including venturing to a prison-like room, forbidden to all but Red Beard himself, to observe a lovely mental More

On nice summer day Jumpei Niki, a Tokyo based entomologist and educator, is in a 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 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. More

Kingo Gondo, executive director of the National Shoe Company, meets with three other executives from the same firm in his beautiful Yokohama mansion. Their purpose is to change the production policy of the company: Instead of making expensive footwear, long famous for good quality and durability, they would switch to a low-cost mass-produced line of shoes and thus increase sales and income. But to make this change, the president must be eased out of office. More

A few years before the War of the Meiji Restoration in Japan in 1868, a group of young progressives, weary of the corruption rampant in their clan, appear before the chief steward to ask for justice. But the steward, aware of the prevailing condition, is helpless to do anything, for he is merely being controlled. Disappointed, the group visit the chief inspector of their clan and present their case to him. After consideration, the inspector, who is in reality one of the most corrupt, agrees to their leader. More

Sanjuro, soldier of fortune―unemployed, unbathed, generally unprincipled, with only the threadbare clothes on his back and his razor-sharp swords. But vagrant as he sees, his faded garments bear the crests of a samurai, labeling him as a member of the superior, warrior class. His wandering takes him to a foreboding village, one under the yoke of two gangs―bitter rivals―who are constantly at war with each other. Decent citizens are too terrified to venture into the streets, and the police are helpless. More

Makoto Shinjo, a teenager who is a little lost in search of experiences, sometimes agrees to take "little tricks" with strangers in the car. One day, she meets Kiyoshi Fujii, half student, half offender, who saves her from an overly enterprising motorist and takes money from her at the same time. Having become friends during a walk, Kiyoshi, listening only to his desire, raped her. However, Makoto decided to leave his parents to live with him. To live, they will practice the scam and blackmail to which the indelicate motorists who have been enticed by Makoto will be subjected. More

An elaborate wedding reception for Yoshiko, daughter of President Iwabuchi of the Unutilized Land Development Corporation, and Koici Nishi, his private secretary, is about to commence when Assistant Chief Wada of the Corporation is arrested by police detectives. Later, the wedding cake is brought in, but, strangely, it is in the form of a mammoth building which had been the cause of a scandal five years ago in which President Iwabuchi, Administrative Officer Moriyama and Contract Officer Shirai had been involved. The case had been hushed up after the suicide of Assistant Chief Furuya. More

Seven years after the death of a close friend, three middle-aged men plan to arrange a marriage for the dead man’s daughter. But 24-year old Ayako doesn’t really want to marry; she would rather continue taking care of her widowed mother. So the three men decide that the best course is to marry off the rather comely mother, Akiko, before the daughter … preferably to one of them. More

Nagisa Oshima (In the Realm of the Senses) is probably the most famous figure in the Japanese cinema of the 60s. He made his debut in 1959, exactly the same year as his French colleagues in the Nouvelle Vague, with his feature film Ai to Kibo no Machi (The Street of Love and Hope), only to double with Seishun Zankoku Monogatari (Naked Youth) a year later. More

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It happened in the age of civil wars. Feudal Lord Yamana defeats his rival, Akizuki, holding the neighboring province. But Lady Yukihime, heiress to the Akizukis, survives and hides within her dead father’s fief and the whereabouts of Akizuki clan’s war funds consisting of some 170 pounds of gold bars are unknown. Feeling uneasy at the thought that Lady Yukihime may escape with the gold into the neighboring province held by Hayakawa who is friendly to Akizuki, Yamana orders a thorough search for Yukihime and the gold and places a strict guard along the border. More

This is a story which happened during the era of civil wars in Japan when there were constant feuds among the war lords. Taketoki Washizu is a captain under Kuniharu Tsuzuki, Lord of Kumonosu-Djo or Cobweb Castle. He is in command of Fort No. 1. When Fujimaki, in charge of the North Mansion, revolts unexpectedly, Taketoki and Yoshiaki Miki, who commands Fort No. 2, joins forces and distinguish themselves in battle by quelling the insurgents, thereby averting a crisis for their lord. More

Five fates of women from Tokyo's brothel district in the 1950s are the focus of Kenji Mizoguchi's last film, who devoted the majority of his works to the historical and social situation of Japanese women. The theme is shaped by socio-critical commitment, human sympathy and unspeculative openness. More

Emperor Huan Tsung is grieving over the death of his wife. The Yang family wants to provide him with a consort so that they may consolidate their influence over the court. General An Lushan finds a distant relative working in their kitchen whom they groom to present to the Emperor. And he falls in love with her and she becomes the Princess Yang Kwei-fei. More

Around the time of wheat harvesting, the wandering bandits come to raid the villages and the villagers tremble with fear and apprehension. The only way to defend the village is to hire the samurai mercenaries. With the cooperation of a veteran fighter Kambei, Korobei, Kyuzo, Heihachi, Shichiroji, Katsushiro and Kikuchiyo are chosen, the last being a wild youth of farmer descent. The defense of the village is built up with the help of the samurai and combat training is started. With the end of the harvesting of the corn, the raids by the bandits begin. The enemy number some 40 odd. More

In the post-war Gion district of Kyoto, the geisha Miyoharu agrees to apprentice the 16 year-old Eiko, whose mother was a former geisha who had just died. After a year of training they have to find a large sum of money before Eiko can debut. Miyoharu borrows the money from the tea-house owner, Okimi, who in turn obtains the money from the businessman Kusuda. Kusuda fancies Eiko himself and wants to give Miyoharu to Kanzaki in order to close a large business deal. However both geishas have minds of their own and, going against tradition, want to be able to say no to clients. More

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Sansho Dayu is a film about a couple of children from a rich house at the end of the 12th century who fall into the hands of the bailiff. He owes his reputation as an exemplary feudal lord to the merciless exploitation of his slave army. Mizoguchi fluently tells this old legend of need and revenge in beautiful pictures. More

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The Hirayamas travel from their hometown of Onomichi to Tokyo tovisit their adult children. But the younger generation make them feelmore in the way than welcome. It also emerges that their son’s career asa doctor and their daughter’s as a hairdresser are nowhere near as successfulas the couple were led to believe from afar. The only one whoreally makes an effort to spend time with them is their daughter-in-law,Noriko, the widow of the Hirayama’s son who went missing in the war. More

In his masterpiece Ugetsu monogatari the Japanese Kenji Mizoguchi tells the story of Genjuro, a potter, and his brother-in-law, the farmer Tobei. The two live with their wives in a small village in the middle of a war-torn area. And they have ambitions that take advantage of the turmoil of war. Genjuro wants to travel to the city with his pots and earn a lot of money as quickly as possible. Tobei wants to achieve fame and honor as a Samurai. Both risk everything - and lose. The pursuit of money and fame, Mizoguchi makes clear here, inevitably involves the loss of inner values. More

Kanji Watanabe was the Chief of the Citizens’ Section of the Municipal Office with a record of 30 years’ regular attendance without absence. Suddenly this man failed to show up at work and with no notice. He received a big shock when the doctor pronounced him as having ulcer of the stomach and gave him only a few months to live. Having lost his wife some time ago, his first impulse was to go to his son, whom he had brought up single-handed and to disclose to him his agony and ask for consolation. But he finds his son married and with his own troubles and hardships of life. More

Rashomon is widely considered one of the greatest films ever made: Three men take shelter at one of the gates leading to Kyoto, waiting for the rain to stop. We are under the Heian era (9th - 12th centuries). To pass the time, they discuss an event that took place recently: the discovery of the body of a samurai, probably killed by the bandit Tajomaru. The three men were in fact called to testify at the trial. They each report what they said at the trial, and what they saw. Four versions are opposed, the widow - who was allegedly raped by the bandit - also having her own. More

The Russian writer Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky wanted to show a really good person in his well-known novel "The Idiot". Ironically, he chose an idiot. The Japanese Akira Kurosawa realized his obsession with the film adaptation of the book: The depiction of the necessary failure in an unjust society. It is an adaptation in the best sense, as the filmmaker transfers the material to the cold Japanese island of Hokkaido. The eponymous hero returns home after an absence and fails because his naivety prevents him from defending himself against the intrigues. More

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The 1951 film, about a young woman named Noriko whose family is trying to marry her off, is one of Ozu’s later works. Noriko is played by Ozu’s favourite actress, Setsuko Hara, who died in September 2015 at the age of 95. The 4K digital restoration project by the well-known Japanese production company Shochiku was led by Ozu’s former assistant cameraman Takashi Kawamata and cinematographer Masashi Chikamori, known for his work as a DP on Yoji Yamada films. More

Kurosawa's favourite actor of the early years was Toshiro Mifune. Here he plays the famous painter Ichiro Aoye, who spends his holidays in the mountains and meets the young singer Miyako Saijo. They live in the same hotel and spend some time together. Two reporters photograph them together and publish the pictures in a tabloid magazine - in revenge for Saijo's refusal to give them an interview. The scandal was there, and the painter's lawyer is bribed by the editor-in-chief of the magazine to get money for his seriously ill daughter. More

At the end of the war, doctor Fujisaki is wounded during an emergency operation in the hospital. A little later he notices that the patient is suffering from syphilis and that he has infected himself. Fearing to pass on the disease, he breaks up with his fiancée after the war and silently fights his illness with the means available at the time. His former patient, however, lives carelessly and marries; his deformed child is born dead. The "Arztfilm" was a popular genre in the post-war years, especially in Germany. More

Twenty-seven-year-old Noriko lives with her widowed father, a university professor, in a small house in the tranquil surroundings of northern Kamakura. He is completing a scientific manuscript, aided by his assistant, Hattori. Professor Sonomiya is concerned for his daughter s welfare, and one day suggests she marry Hattori. Noriko only laughs at his suggestion because she is quite happy with her life and knows that Hattori is already engaged. Her aunt Masa, the professor s sister, is the next person to try out her matchmaking skills, and she talks Noriko into meeting Mr Satake. More

He is still young, the actor who should become known around the world with masterpieces like "Rashomon" or "The Seven Samurai". Here, Akira Kurosawa has created a thriller against the background of the recent and completely unprocessed Japanese war past, of which many of the characters, whether woman or man, talk. "Stray Dog" plays during the sultry hot summer in Tokyo in 1949. The young and completely inexperienced inspector Murakami (Toshiro Mifune) gets his loaded service weapon stolen from his jacket pocket in an overcrowded bus. Murakami is beside himself. More

A young man calls at Dr. Sanada’s clinic saying he has got his hand smashed by a closing door. This man, Matsunaga by name, is an outlaw of the locality looking after the affairs of his boss in this black market region. Though simple-hearted and naive by nature, he is one of the young men who have lost their aim in life in the post-war confusion of the world around him. Actually he has got wounded by a bullet in his fight with other ruffians. Dr. More

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Yoshii, his wife and their two sons, Ryoichi and Keiji, move into a Tokyo suburb. The head of Yoshii’s department lives nearby. When he invites Yoshii’s family and all the children in the neighbourhood to a film show at his house, Ryoichi and Keiji are thrilled to discover their father on the screen. But when he starts pulling all sorts of faces to please his boss and thereby – in the eyes of his sons – embarrasses himself in front of everyone, the two boys’ world is in tatters. Upon returning home, they demand an explanation for his undignified behaviour. More