Kazuyoshi Okuyama

Years after she related to him the story of her parents’ death in a fire, for which – rightly or wrongly – she feels responsible, Japanese psychiatrist Dr. Sanada meets his former patient Azusa once again. Back then, she lambasted him for being wrong for the job. Back then, he let slip that she isn’t actually crazy. Now she’s a prostitute living in precarious circumstances in Los Angeles and is accused of murder, with her memories once again moving inexorably towards a fire. Sanada assesses her in the presence of an investigator who appears not to understand Japanese. Is Azusa now mentally ill for real? Was she back then? And why does the description of her tormentors upset him so?

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The world's first human-android acting duo, called Android Theater Project, is the collaborative brainchild of noted Japanese playwright Oriza Hirata and the leading robotics scientist Hiroshi Ishiguro. "Sayonara" is a remakable android play and has been adapted to feature film by the acclaimed filmmaker Koji Fukada (Hospitalité, Au revoir l’été). In this film project the setting of the story is largely expanded, depicting time and space in a way which can only be achieved in film, examining life and death though the communication between dying human and immortal android.

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Yukio is a typical high school student in every way except that he's an only child in a family of five. This is because he has four fathers, each with their own unique personalities and interests. The only thing they share in common is their love of their son. When Yukio witnesses a robbery, he becomes involved in a bizarre string of incidents involving his fathers.

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Based on 16-year-old writer Sarie Hinakura’s award winning story Jellyfish is centered around two adolescent girls disconnected from their immediate environment of school and mates. They first get together while staring into a jellyfish tank at a local aquarium. The relationship that ensues eventually faces tension from the divergent personalities of the two protagonists, one of whom explores a heterosexual relationship with a fellow student. Jealousy and the wrath of a lover spurned are inevitable spillovers.

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10 years ago Hide, a college student, meets Yuki Gakuko, an older woman, through work. They become lovers with Hide falling hard for Yuki Gakuko. The following year, Yuki abruptly announces one day that she is going to marry another man. This devastates Hide. Hide eventually finishes college and finds a job, but his yearning for Yuki leads him into depression and alcoholism. Meanwhile, Yuki is involved in a car accident and suffers a life altering injury. Now, 10 years later the two former lovers come across each other once again. They are both shells of their former selves ...

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In many parts of Tokyo redevelopment is afoot, and the cityscape continues to change at a rapid pace. While on the surface Japan is easy to live in, many Japanese still feel a sense of emptiness in the aftermath of the shattered economic bubble, a condition that prevents them from making a change. Autumn 2006. Eight "normal" young women living in Tokyo--eight women now in the middle of change.

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Elmer is told by a traveling cat about a baby dragon who is being held captive and mistreated on the scary Wild Island. Elmer decides to investigate and battles tigers, crocodiles and gorillas in order to rescue the little dragon.

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A journalist reporting on the 1997 Kobe earthquake recalls a boat trip he took as a boy after WWII to bury his brother's ashes, during which his family grapples with life in occupied Japan.

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Five women snatch one billion yen in jewellery from the yakuza, while construction manager Toyama burns for revenge against the mobsters who raped and caused the death of his wife. Before long, the yakuza and Toyama arrive at the women's hideout.

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An entertainment drama depicting the conflict of yakuza, centering on the female torso and her sister's feud.

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A small time Yakuza thug is thrown into a bloody battle after a bank robbery he was forced into goes wrong when all the men begin to turn on each other a hitch-hiking serial killing couple decide to steal their loot.

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Five men plot to steal a large sum of money from the local yakuza, but everything does not go as planned and the men find themselves hunted down by contract killers.

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A disgraced warrior planning the murder of a Japanese diplomat, and a ninja in the employ of a navy official are about to land in San Francisco when a band of thieves steal the money the diplomats are carrying. The two set off on a chase across the American west to catch the robbers.

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An actress preparing to play in a historical epic is terrorized by someone faxing her pages from her stolen diary; has colorful flashbacks of her affair with a now-deceased man; and imagines black-and-white film-within-a-film scenes of the movie she is about to appear in.

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Edogawa Rampo is a writer whose latest work is censored by the government, deemed too disturbing and injurious to the public to be allowed to be published. However, after burning his drafts, his publisher shows him a newspaper with an account of events just like his forbidden story. As the film progresses, fantasy and reality intermingle in a tale that draws heavily on influences from Poe and Stoker's Dracula. The film's strongly Expressionistic direction skillfully combines a variety of media (animation, computer-generated imagery, grainy black-and-white fast film stock, color negatives) for artistic effect.

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In the middle of the desert, a solipsistic Japanese-American woman, along with her elderly and paralysed friend Barbara, runs the Desert Rose Cafe. Things liven up with the arrival of a mafia henchman (whose boss is hiding out at a nearby ranch), a battered Japanse man (who turns out to be a terrific chef, but who also triggers Barbara's memories of internment during WWII), and an attack on the mob boss' camp.

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Murakawa, an aging Tokyo yakuza tiring of gangster life, is sent by his boss to Okinawa along with a few of his henchmen to help end a gang war, supposedly as mediators between two warring clans. He finds that the dispute between the clans is insignificant and whilst wondering why he was sent to Okinawa at all, his group is attacked in an ambush. The survivors flee and make a decision to lay low at the beach while they await further instructions.

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A young girl befriends an infant T-rex after her paleontologist father nurtures a lair of lost dinosaur eggs.

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Set during the Meiji period (1868-1912), Kaede is the former mistress of a wealthy merchant. When he dies, she is forced out on the street and forced to give up her young daughter to the merchant’s family.

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A low-key private detective agency in Paris is run by Rie and her partner Kishin, two ex-pats who tick along between cases by giving guided tours of the city to busloads of Japanese tourists.

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Koji Wakamatsu adapted Kouhei Tsuka's play of the same name into a human comedy about the members of a traveling acting troupe.

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Faraway Sunset tells the story of the famed bacteriologist who is known to have discovered the agent that cause syphilis, and for his relentless search for a cure to yellow fever. As a toddler, his mother's neglect had caused an accident to his left hand, fusing together all the fingers in a bizarre twist of fate. Naturally extremely remorseful for being the cause of her son's handicap, she does everything she could to ensure that he gets to lead a normal life, despite having to fend off bullies and unfair prejudices.

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The indolent son of an oil vendor becomes a regular customer of a prostitute, racks up a mountain of debt, and is disowned by his parents.

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Furuta Oribe is ordered to become tea master under Toyotomi Hideyoshi after his teacher Sen no Rikyū, the former tea master, was ordered to commit suicide. Princess Goh, daughter of the lord but adopted by Hideyoshi, is outraged when Rikyū's severed head is thrown in the Nijo River. She sends Usu, Oribe's servant, to retrieve the head and deliver it to Rikyū's adopted daughter.

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In the Meiji era, Countess Kibune must undergo surgery to save her life, but she refuses to receive anesthesia because she is afraid to reveal a secret. She asks a young doctor, Takamine, to operate on her without anesthesia.

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Time Traveling Samurai

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In the last days of the Tokugawa shogunate, there was a cute warrior, Souji Okita, who belonged to the armed police of the shogunate in Kyoto. Very few knew that Souji was not a boy, but a woman. Souji loved the vice-leader of the armed police, Toshizou Hijikata. Souji suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis and coughed up blood during a battle. Toshizou helped her but said that he did not care for the girl with a smell of blood. Souji had a real talent for swordsmanship and no one but Ryouma Sakamoto could compete with her. Ryouma was a liberal intellectual and tried to carry out a revolution without blood. However, the bloody Meiji Restoration broke out and Souji killed Ryouma who lost his dream. Because a friendship had sprung up between Toshizou and Ryouma, Toshizou got angry and slashed at Souji with a sword. Unwillingly, she unsheathed her sword and thought that she might get love if she was killed by the man she loved.

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A successful office lady, who has made herself sexually available to a doctor, has her routine disrupted when her former boyfriend's son appears in her life. She is not connected to the boy, but his father has been in an accident.

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Rin Jyoshima lost her father to death-by-gambling; years later, she's grown up in the Kosugi household and has fallen victim to gambling herself.

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