Emperor Meiji and the Great Russo-Japanese War (1957)

Rashomon

Four people recount different versions of the story of a man's murder and the rape of his wife.

The Last Samurai

Nathan Algren is an American hired to instruct the Japanese army in the ways of modern warfare, which finds him learning to respect the samurai and the honorable principles that rule them. Pressed to destroy the samurai's way of life in the name of modernization and open trade, Algren decides to become an ultimate warrior himself and to fight for their right to exist.

7 Secretaries: The Movie

The seven secretaries who consist of the "Shadow Army" enjoy peaceful days. They receive a new request from Koichi Ogata, who runs a ramen restaurant in Nagano prefecture. He is furious at land development that is carried out by Alps Raicho Group. The Alps Raicho Group and their Alps Raicho Resort are run by the Tsukumo family. That family exerts tremendous influence around the region. The Tsukumo family seem like a well mannered family, but, in reality, they are a vicious family who will do anything for their own interests.

The Hidden Fortress

In feudal Japan, during a bloody war between clans, two cowardly and greedy peasants, soldiers of a defeated army, stumble upon a mysterious man who guides them to a fortress hidden in the mountains.

Letters from Iwo Jima

The story of the battle of Iwo Jima between the United States and Imperial Japan during World War II, as told from the perspective of the Japanese who fought it.

Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade

A member of an elite paramilitary counter-terrorism unit becomes traumatized after witnessing the suicide bombing of a young girl and is forced to undergo retraining. However, unbeknownst to him, he becomes a key player in a dispute between rival police divisions, as he finds himself increasingly involved with the sister of the girl he saw die.

The Bridge on the River Kwai

The classic story of English POWs in Burma forced to build a bridge to aid the war effort of their Japanese captors. British and American intelligence officers conspire to blow up the structure, but Col. Nicholson, the commander who supervised the bridge's construction, has acquired a sense of pride in his creation and tries to foil their plans.

Dolls

Dolls takes puppeteering as its overriding motif, which relates thematically to the action provided by the live characters. Chief among those tales is the story of Matsumoto and Sawako, a young couple whose relationship is about to be broken apart by the former's parents, who have insisted their son take part in an arranged marriage to his boss' daughter.

To End All Wars

Based on a real-life story, this drama focuses on a small group of Allied soldiers in Burma who are held captive by the Japanese. Capt. Ernest Gordon, Lt. Jim Reardon and Maj. Ian Campbell are among the military officers kept imprisoned and routinely beaten and deprived of food. While Campbell wants to rebel and attempt an escape, Gordon tries to take a more stoic approach, an attitude that proves to be surprisingly resonant.

Mothra vs. Godzilla

Journalists Ichiro Sakai and Junko cover the wreckage of a typhoon when an enormous egg is found and claimed by greedy entrepreneurs. Mothra's fairies arrive and are aided by the journalists in a plea for its return. As their requests are denied, Godzilla arises near Nagoya and the people of Infant Island must decide if they are willing to answer Japan's own pleas for help.

Hanzo the Razor: Sword of Justice

Fearless Edo-period police inspector Hanzo Itami, nicknamed The Razor, has developed his own unique way of extracting information for his inquiries. His first adventure sees him investigating his superior officer's mistress, whom he suspects of having ties with a reputed criminal on the loose.

Tokyo Decadence

A submissive hooker goes about her trade, suffering abuse at the hands of Japanese salarymen and Yakuza types. She's unhappy about her work, and is apparently trying to find some sort of appeasement for the fact that her lover has married.

Little Amélie or the Character of Rain

The world is a perplexing, peaceful mystery to Amélie until a miraculous encounter with chocolate ignites her wild sense of curiosity. As she develops a deep attachment to her family's housekeeper, Nishio-san, Amélie discovers the wonders of nature as well as the emotional truths hidden beneath the surface of her family's idyllic life as foreigners in post-war Japan.

Revenge of the Ninja

After his family is killed in Japan by ninjas, Cho and his son Kane come to America to start a new life. He opens a doll shop but is unwittingly importing heroin in the dolls. When he finds out that his friend has betrayed him, Cho must prepare for the greatest battle he has ever been involved in.

Assassins for sale

Nagasaki at the end of the Edo period had the taste of a criminal paradise, where, despite the exotic, dangerous work was always in demand. Here, three wandering samurai who earn their living by killing get to know each other. Soon they learn that government officials will be transporting a large cargo of gold and decide to steal it.

Japan Sinks

In the aftermath of a major earthquake, scientists predict that Japan will sink into the sea. As further disasters follow, politicians plead with other countries to take refugees, while scientists struggle to save Japan itself.

New Tale of Zatoichi

Wishing to find peace, Zatoichi travels to his old village but only finds trouble when he ends up in a love triangle and finds old scores have followed him home.

Zatoichi the Fugitive

After arriving in the town of Shimonita, Ichi finds that a price has been put on his head by a local yakuza boss. He's drawn into a trap, but after hearing of the slaying of a former love, Ichi furiously fights his way through the entire clan to face the killer, a hired ronin.

Rurouni Kenshin Part II: Kyoto Inferno

Kenshin has settled into his new life with Kaoru and his other friends when he is approached with a request from the Meiji government. Makoto Shishio, a former assassin like Kenshin, was betrayed, set on fire and left for dead. He survived, and is now in Kyoto, plotting with his gathered warriors to overthrow the new government. Against Kaoru's wishes, Kenshin reluctantly agrees to go to Kyoto and help keep his country from falling back into civil war.

One Step

When Tadashi sees a girl from his school stood alone on the beach, he becomes determined to find out why.

John Rabe

A true-story account of a German businessman who saved more than 200,000 Chinese during the Nanjing massacre in 1937-38.

Sweet Rain: Accuracy of Death

Chiba appears seven days before a person dies an unexpected death. His job is to observe the person for seven days then decide either to ‘execute’ or ‘pass over’. Today, again, in the rain, he waits. His subject, her death due in seven days, is Kazue Fujiki. She works for a manufacturing company in the complaints department. Exhausted after her day, she emerges from her office. It’s time for the Reaper to go to work.

Always - Sunset on Third Street

Teenage Mutsuko comes to Tokyo for work but ends up at a repair shop. She befriends the owner's family. Neighbors Hiromi, writer Chagawa with admirer Junnosuke strive alongside them in postwar Tokyo's evolution.

Lost in Translation

Two lost souls visiting Tokyo -- the young, neglected wife of a photographer and a washed-up movie star shooting a TV commercial -- find an odd solace and pensive freedom to be real in each other's company, away from their lives in America.

Bushido

Kakunoshin Yanagida was a samurai, forced to leave the Han due to a false accusation. He then lived in poverty with his daughter Kinu.

Zatoichi

Blind traveler Zatoichi is a master swordsman and a masseur with a fondness for gambling on dice games. When he arrives in a village torn apart by warring gangs, he sets out to protect the townspeople.

Battles Without Honor and Humanity: The Complete Saga

The 224-minute compilation edition of Battles Without Honor and Humanity compiles these four movies: Battles Without Honor and Humanity, Deadly Fight in Hiroshima, Proxy War, Police Tactics.

After the Rain

Akira Tachibana is a soft-spoken high school student who used to be a part of the track and field club. Working part-time at a restaurant, she finds herself inexplicably falling in love with her manager, a divorced 45-year-old man.

Kikujiro

Brash, loudmouthed and opportunistic, Kikujiro is the unlikely companion for Masao who is determined to see the mother he has never met. The two begin a series of adventures which soon turns out to be a whimsical journey of laughter and tears with a wide array of surprises and unique characters along the way.

Canopy

Wartime, 1942. Singapore. An Australian fighter pilot shot down in combat awakens suspended in the treetops. As night devours day, he must navigate through dangerous jungle in search of sanctuary.

Black Rain

Two New York cops get involved in a gang war between members of the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia. They arrest one of their killers and are ordered to escort him back to Japan. However, in Japan he manages to escape, and as they try to track him down, they get deeper and deeper into the Japanese Mafia scene and they have to learn that they can only win by playing the game—the Japanese way.

Mom's Celestial Robe of Feathers

"There are many things that I don't like. The traffic jam on the way to Naha, my debt-ridden father, my best friend's boyfriend, milk, and my hometown, Shioya-wan. Why did my beautiful mother marry my father?" Ruri tried to escape from these thoughts as she faced an uncertain future. Then, one day, she learns of her mother's past, but…

Drive Into Night

A surprising and humanistic drama that questions the meaning of happiness through the strange fate of one man who caused an accident. One night, a taciturn and clumsy man working at a scrap iron factory in the suburbs of Tokyo, causes an irreparable accident with his colleague. The two try to hide the incident but the man’s fate takes a turn for the worse and his colleague and family are faced with threats to their survival. A psychologial thriller that reveals the ills of Japanese society along with the darknesses of the human heart based on a script full of surprises written by the director Dai Sakō. Tomomitsu Adachi, who plays the lead role, exudes an eerie charm, and is flanked by many of Japan's best supporting actors such as Yutaka Matsushige and Shohei Uno.

Lady Snowblood

Yuki's family is nearly wiped out before she is born due to the machinations of a band of criminals. These criminals kidnap and brutalize her mother but leave her alive. Later her mother ends up in prison with only revenge to keep her alive. She creates an instrument for this revenge by purposefully getting pregnant. Yuki never knows the love of a family but only killing and revenge.

Nobody Knows

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.

Flags of Our Fathers

There were five Marines and one Navy Corpsman photographed raising the U.S. flag on Mt. Suribachi by Joe Rosenthal on February 23, 1945. This is the story of three of the six surviving servicemen - John 'Doc' Bradley, Pvt. Rene Gagnon and Pvt. Ira Hayes - who fought in the battle to take Iwo Jima from the Japanese.

The Naked Island

A family of four are the sole inhabitants of a small island, where they struggle each day to irrigate their crops.

Throne of Blood

Returning to their lord's castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the spirit's prophecy comes true, Washizu's scheming wife, Asaji, presses him to speed up the rest of the spirit's prophecy by murdering his lord and usurping his place. Director Akira Kurosawa's resetting of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" in feudal Japan is one of his most acclaimed films.

Red Beard

Aspiring to an easy job as personal physician to a wealthy family, Noboru Yasumoto is disappointed when his first post after medical school takes him to a small country clinic under the gruff doctor Red Beard. Yasumoto rebels in numerous ways, but Red Beard proves a wise and patient teacher. He gradually introduces his student to the unglamorous side of the profession, ultimately assigning him to care for a prostitute rescued from a local brothel.

Ikiru

Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.

Seven Samurai

A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food.

Battle Royale

In the future, the Japanese government captures a class of ninth-grade students and forces them to kill each other under the revolutionary "Battle Royale" act.

Milk White

Takayuki (Takao Osawa) is an elementary school teacher in Tokyo. He is seized with Behçet's syndrome, and will gradually lose his sight. He resigns from his job and leaves his girlfriend, Yoko (Yuriko Ishida) to return to his hometown, Nagasaki, where his mother lives. Takayuki spends his days strolling around Nagasaki, to imprint familiar scenes on his memory. Yoko visits him and insists on staying. Takayuki has major concerns for her future, and his own life. He drives her away, for her own good. After days of affliction, the two reunite. The story leads to an emotive conclusion, the end of his spiritual journey.

Kaiji: Final Game

Kaiji (played by Tatsuya Fujiwara) is about to have his life changed. The thrill is beyond anything he, or most people, have experienced. The adventure is not without risk and danger however. He is given four games, which are challenges, and include life and death situations. The film follows its prequels and things will get both mental and physical.

Make-Believers

Masa hires rental actress and aspiring dancer, Kanako, to pose as his fiancée to impress his estranged, terminally-ill father. But as his father's death delays, Masa is forced to confront the spiraling web of lies and to learn to follow his heart.

Sabakan

Nagasaki in 1986. Hisada, who lives with her affectionate parents and her younger brother, although there are many quarrels between couples, is a fifth grader who loves Yuki Saito and Exogini. Hisada decides to go to Boomerang Island to "see the dolphins" with Takemoto, whose house is poor and avoided by his classmates. Drowning in the sea, getting entangled in the Yankees, and having a lot of trouble, but as the friendship between the two deepens as a result of this adventure, a sad incident that presages farewell occurs.

Kurara: The Dazzling Life of Hokusai's Daughter

Oei, later known as Katsushika Oi, was born the third daughter of Edo’s talented painter Katsushika Hokusai and his second wife Koto. Although Oei became the wife of a town painter for a time, her love of the paintbrush more than her husband spelt disaster and she comes back home to Hokusai from the family she had married into. This is how Oei starts to help her father out in his painting of the “insurmountable high wall”. Meanwhile, Oei can only talk to the painter Ikeda Zenjiro, who is her father’s student, about her pain and worries. Zenjiro has taken Edo by storm as Keisai Eisen, the master of ukiyo-e portraying beautiful women. He visits regularly because he admires Hokusai and secretly likes Oei although their relationship is like childhood friends. Oei respects her father whose paintings fascinated her and continues to work as a painter who supports him behind the scenes. When Hokusai’s masterpiece Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji was completed, she was also by his side.

A Bride for Rip Van Winkle

A woman hires actors and strangers to pretend to be her friends and family at her wedding.

Herstory

A true story of a six-year-long legal conflict of 10 comfort women and 13 attorneys against 200 Fukuoka supporters association.

Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel II. Lost Butterfly

Shirou has lost his Servant, Saber, and is no longer a Master in the Holy Grail War. Despite this, he refuses to leave the battle, determined to protect Sakura. Meanwhile, a mysterious shadow engulfs the city, killing Masters and Servants one by one. As Shirou faces new dangers, Sakura is drawn deeper into her own destiny as a mage.

After the Storm

Ryota is an unpopular writer although he won a literary award 15 years ago. Now, Ryota works as a private detective. He is divorced from his ex-wife Kyoko and he has an 11-year-old son Shingo. His mother Yoshiko lives alone at her apartment. One day, Ryota, his ex-wife Kyoko, and son Shingo gather at Yoshiko's apartment. A typhoon passes and the family must stay there all night long.

Kagemusha

Akira Kurosawa's lauded feudal epic presents the tale of a petty thief who is recruited to impersonate Shingen, an aging warlord, in order to avoid attacks by competing clans. When Shingen dies, his generals reluctantly agree to have the impostor take over as the powerful ruler. He soon begins to appreciate life as Shingen, but his commitment to the role is tested when he must lead his troops into battle against the forces of a rival warlord.

Windtalkers

Joe Enders is a gung-ho Marine assigned to protect a "windtalker" - one of several Navajo Indians who were used to relay messages during World War II because their spoken language was indecipherable to Japanese code breakers.

Yojimbo

A nameless ronin, or samurai with no master, enters a small village in feudal Japan where two rival businessmen are struggling for control of the local gambling trade. Taking the name Sanjuro Kuwabatake, the ronin convinces both silk merchant Tazaemon and sake merchant Tokuemon to hire him as a personal bodyguard, then artfully sets in motion a full-scale gang war between the two ambitious and unscrupulous men.

Blindly in Love

Kentaro is an unsocial 35-year-old who lives with his parents and has never dated a woman. When Kentaro’s parents set up an arranged marriage interview with a girl named Nahoko and her parents, he falls in love for the first time in his life. However, the pair soon run into unexpected obstacles. Nahoko is vision impaired and can’t seem to break free of her doting parents. Meanwhile, Kentaro has no idea how to deal with the surge of new emotions he’s feeling.

Fishing Master

This film depicts the battle of a man with miraculous bass fishing skills. Rei Kurokami, also known as the "Bass Eraser", stands up to restore the lake, whose ecosystem has changed due to the construction of Leisure Land.

Bullet Train Explosion

When panic erupts on a Tokyo-bound bullet train that will explode if it slows below 100 kph, authorities race against time to save everyone on board.