A vacationing entomologist suffers extreme physical and psychological trauma after being taken captive by the residents of a poor seaside village and made to live with a woman whose life task is shoveling sand for them.
A businessman with a disfigured face obtains a lifelike mask from his doctor, but the mask starts altering his personality.
A family of four are the sole inhabitants of a small island, where they struggle each day to irrigate their crops.
A man wanders into a seemingly deserted town with his young son in search of work. But after a bit of bad luck, he joins the town's population of lost souls.
In the shady black markets and bombed-out hovels of post–World War II Tokyo, a tough band of prostitutes eke out a dog-eat-dog existence, maintaining tenuous friendships and a semblance of order in a world of chaos. But when a renegade ex-soldier stumbles into their midst, lusts and loyalties clash, with tragic results. With Gate of Flesh, visionary director Seijun Suzuki delivers a whirlwind of social critique and pulp drama, shot through with brilliant colors and raw emotions.
Subu makes pornographic films. He sees nothing wrong with it. They are an aid to a repressed society, and he uses the money to support his landlady, Haru, and her family. From time to time, Haru shares her bed with Subu, though she believes her dead husband, reincarnated as a carp, disapproves. Director Shohei Imamura has always delighted in the kinky exploits of lowlifes, and in this 1966 classic, he finds subversive humor in the bizarre dynamics of Haru, her Oedipal son, and her daughter, the true object of her pornographer-boyfriend’s obsession. Imamura’s comic treatment of such taboos as voyeurism and incest sparked controversy when the film was released, but The Pornographers has outlasted its critics, and now seems frankly ahead of its time.
A gangster gets released from prison and has to cope with the recent shifts of power between the gangs, while taking care of a thrill-seeking young woman, who got in bad company while gambling.
In the city of Yokosuka, Kinta and his lover Haruko, both involved with yakuza, brave the post-occupation period with a goal to be together.
A budding gangster enthralls a freeloading young woman, soon taking advantage of her knack for hitch-hiking to rob middle-class, middle-aged men.
After yakuza boss Kurata dissolves his own criminal empire, a rival kingpin offers a position to Kurata's top operative, Tetsuya "Phoenix Tetsu" Hondo. When the fiercely loyal Tetsu declines, Otsuka taps unstoppable Tatsuzo the "Viper", a ruthless gun-for-hire, to assassinate him. As the Viper trails his target through the countryside, the agile Phoenix Tetsu grows concerned that one of his former associates has betrayed him.
Assassination begins with the events of 1853 when "four black ships" anchored at Edo Bay, sparking civil unrest and the major political manoeuvring that saw the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate. At a time when assassination had become a disturbing political tool, Shinoda's film follows Hachiro Kiyokawa, an ambitious, masterless samurai whose allegiances drift dangerously between the Shogunate and the Emperor.
The backstage romances of an egotistical singer and his under-valued manager, a lovelorn bandman and a nude dancer.
In Osaka's slum, youths without futures engage in pilfering, assault and robbery, prostitution, and the buying and selling of identity cards and of blood. Alliances constantly shift. Tatsu and Takeshi, friends since boyhood, reluctantly join Shin's gang. Shin's an upstart and moves his gang often to avoid the local kingpin. Hanoko is a young woman with ambitions: first she's in the blood business with her father, then she joins forces with Shin. She soon breaks off that partnership, even though she's taken the sensitive Takeshi under her wing. Double crosses multiply. Those with the closest bonds become each others' murderers.
A middle-aged factory engineer trains, marries, and ultimately loses a teenage bride after she enslaves him to her whims.
Struggling with his true emotions, dreams, memories of the past and the reality Shizuo is about to marry, but is torn between his wife-to-be and the love to his mother.
Conditions have been better for the nameless protagonist: his grandmother is a shoplifter and his war criminal father and sister have an unhealthy, intimate relationship with the family rabbit.
Kiroku boards with a Roman Catholic family and falls for the daughter Michiko. He ignores his feelings, joins a gang, gets in fights and, eventually, becomes involved with the radical Kita Ikki group.
The neglected common-law wife of a Japanese librarian is repeatedly harassed by a young man with a heart condition who seduces her with the prospect of a better life.
As a young woman, Oriko condemned her widowed mother for openly pursuing relationships with younger men. After her mother passes away, she finds herself in an unhappy, loveless marriage and begins to understand her mother’s actions.
Two brothers compete for the amorous favors of a young woman during a seaside summer of gambling, boating, and drinking.