Masayuki Shionoya

Saigo Takamori, the hero of the Meiji Restoration, was born to a poor, low-ranking samurai family in the Satsuma domain (present day Kagoshima Prefecture). His simple honesty caught the attention of its charismatic feudal lord of Satsuma, Shimazu Nariakira. Nariakira’s assertion that the love of people is what will enrich and strengthen the nation captivated Saigo who took on Nariakira’s secret mission and eventually became a key person for Satsuma. Not a portrait of him survives today and much of his life is a mystery. He is a man who was twice exiled and thrice married. He overthrew the Tokugawa Shogunate with exceptional bravery and action. Although he accomplished the restoration, he lost his life in a fight with the new Meiji government.

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Sakura is a moody teenage girl who lives close to the US military base in the city of Yamato, Japan. She is struggling everyday to become a rapper like the American rappers she admires, but always gets stage fright when she sings in front of an audience. One day, her mother's American soldier boyfriend's daughter REI comes from California to visit her family.

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The Eternal Founntain was broadcast as the Saturday Drama Special on NHK. Laywer Akio Yamauchi takes over the court-appointed attorney for Yoji Kuramoto who confesses to murdering his wife. While following Kuramoto's action in Yamanaka and being sure of his innocence, Yamauchi remembers his wife who passed away 12 years earlier.

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Akira was raised in an assassin family. Everything seemed fine until he met a girl he once saw killed 10 years ago.

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Based on a short story by Seichi Matsumoto from 1956 and remake from the 1957 movie of the same name, the story is about an actor who has the opportunity to become a success but 9 years earlier, he had killed a woman with whom he was involved and there was an eyewitness to the murder.

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The piano tuner Ota is still in mourning for the loss of his beloved wife. He would like to go on, but he can’t find the beach where his wife wanted her ashes to be scattered. While helping his friend Kojima with his antique shop, Ota meets the old Kuzo, a ventriloquist with a mysterious and fascinating female puppet, Aria, and his disciple, Senju. But during a show, the old man collapses. At the hospital, he asks Ota to find a piano he sold a long time ago to a pawn shop, and dies. Ota and Senju decide to look for the piano, even if Kuzo will not be able to enjoy it anymore, as a way to carry on the master’s memory. Just before the departure, a mysterious and beautiful woman enters the antique shop, claiming to be Kuzo’s daughter. She wants to join them in the quest for the piano. The three leave in search of the long forgotten piano: they will meet a number of uncommon characters, who will guide them in a journey through the master’s past, and their memories, towards the future.

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#46 in the series

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In the year 2060, KEN, a 25-year-old young man raised by aliens living illegally on Earth, makes a living by selling dubious drugs, idolizing Carl Gotch as a god. One day, he is caught cheating on his drug sales and becomes the target of a gang. However, it turns out that KEN's ID is forged and alien, and he is deported back to the planet where he was raised. There, KEN encounters many unusual phenomena.

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In the immense city of Tokyo, the darkness of the afterlife lures some of its inhabitants desperately trying to escape the sadness and isolation of the modern world.

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The film is a series of vignettes from Taiji Tonoyama's life and film clips, interspersed with a dialogue to camera by Nobuko Otowa, addressing the camera as if she is addressing Tonoyama himself, recollecting events in his life. The film focuses on Tonoyama's alcohol dependence and his various sexual relationships, as well as his film work with Shindo.

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A seasoned detective is called in to rescue a politician held hostage by a lunatic. In a brief moment of uncertainty, he misses the chance for action. Leaving his job and family without explanation, he makes his way to a mountain forest, encountering a peculiar tree called Charisma.

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It is based on the story of The Ballad of Narayama updated to the present day, with the substitution of putting a parent into an old people's home for the abandonment of the original. The film won the Golden St. George and the FIPRESCI Prize at the 21st Moscow International Film Festival.

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A duo get mixed up with a girl who finds a trunk load full of heroin.

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narrow attic room. Student Yamamoto was breathless at the sight he saw peeking through the gap. His mentor, Takabayashi's second daughter, Masako, and Takabayashi's right-hand man, Tanizawa, were intertwined like beasts. If you think about it, ever since Yamamoto came to stay at Takabayashi's residence as a part-time worker, the eldest daughter Reiko and Masako's mysterious gazes were intertwined in the residence. Meanwhile, Yamamoto finally cannot control his desire and turns Reiko into his object...

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Every Monday, a young woman is murdered in the subway, leading psychiatrist Setsuko Suma to investigate Dr. Rei Aku's deprogramming of former sect members.

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Filmed in a documentary style, six patients in six wards of different ages and circumstances await death at a hospital in Japan. The sterile and dismal environment is contrasted against the emotional being of the patients, their visitors and relatives and the outside world, which they will never again survey.

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Yuko dreams of a woman in a straw hat, an alternate herself who chose another path in her life

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A straight young woman living in Tokyo becomes involved in the lives of a gay man and his married lover.

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A man tries to mend his past by helping his best friend’s sister.

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In a small town, high school students in their final year try to balance their studies while also playing together in a rock band.

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A continuation of the story of the postwar years in the Japanese Inland Sea. Now a decade has passed. Two friends meet and decide to look for the beautiful girl with whom they went to school as children.

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All the protagonists move about in a Tokyo Bar that has an entire wall taken up with a black-and-white reproduction of a photo of Monument Valley. The action starts as Billy the Kid, in full living color, walks out of the photo and gets a job as a waiter. Along with him on the working staff are a samurai straight out of the history books, a G.I. from World War II, and several other anachronistic characters. The plot (as such) revolves around keeping away the brutal mobsters and thugs who dominate the city streets outside of the bar, making the tavern safe for its easily recognized facsimiles of well-known characters.

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A fictional account of the life of Japanese author Yukio Mishima, combining dramatizations of three of his novels and a depiction of the events of November 25th, 1970.

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Anarchic parody of the crime genre set around a bank robbery.

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Bored with her ordinary life, Maki, a former office worker, now works in the extreme sex industry that colors Yokohama's nightlife. She lives with a male prostitute who has homosexual tendencies. One day, Maki is tricked by a customer and has her money stolen. Around this time, Maki meets a woman named Shizuka.

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Two couples stay at a villa, but the next morning one of them is found dead. The remaining three tell what happened to a police officer who happens to be passing by...

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Gruesome! Terrifying! Exposing the grim reality of torture driven by twisted desires!

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