Worst by Chance (2003)

Blood and Bones

In 1923, teenager Kim Shun-Pei moves from Cheju Island, in South Korea, to Osaka, in Japan. Along the years, he becomes a cruel, greedy and violent man and builds a factory of kamaboko, processed seafood products, in his poor Korean-Japanese community exploiting his employees.

Pacchigi! Love & Peace

In 1974, during the height of the recession, a Japanese Korean family relocates to Tokyo to raise money and seek better treatment for their ill son.

Rikidozan: A Hero Extraordinaire

Story of Rikidozan, a sumo wrestler who can only achieve limited success in Japan because he's half Korean. But when Rikidozan goes to the United States and discovers professional wrestling, he becomes a hero back home.

Fighter in the Wind

An account of karate competitor Choi Yeung-Eui who went to Japan after World War II to become a fighter pilot but found a very different path instead. He changed his name to Masutatsu Oyama and went across the country, defeating martial artists one after another. This film concentrates on the period when he is still young, and developing his famous karate style, Kyokushin.

GO

Sugihara, a Japanese-born, third-generation Korean teenager struggles to find a place in a society that will not accept him.

Deliver Us from Evil

A retired contract killer goes on a bloody rampage when a young girl finds herself at the mercy of gangland human traffickers and only one man can come to her rescue, with an arsenal of weapons and years of experience in the art of killing.

Chong

A spirited and brave fiction debut by Lee Sang-il, a Korean-Japanese filmmaker, that explores the taboo subject of the relations between Korean immigrants and Japanese in Japan.

Death by Hanging

A Korean man is sentenced to death in Japan but somehow survives his execution, sending the authorities into a panic about what to do next.

Empire of Kids

Following a stint in reform school, Ryu (Shinsuke Shimada) returns to his home, the Minami area of Osaka, accompanied by his new friend Ko (Takeshi Masu). He's greeted by his friends, Chabo (Ryusuke Matsumoto) and Ken (Bang-ho Cho). They seek to forge their own path through a multitude of rival gangs in Kita and Minami, including the Hokushin Alliance, backed by the yakuza, the Hope Association, and various other minor factions, including Zainichi Korean groups. What follows is a wild, fast-paced story of violence, revenge, betrayal, and discrimination, that never loses its sense of humor.

All Under the Moon

A Korean taxi-driver interacts both humorously and tragically with his customers and employers in '90s Tokyo.

Pacchigi!

Romeo, A.K.A. Kosuke Matsuyama, is a second-year high school student. A nice, normal, nonviolent type, he suddenly finds himself in the middle of a rampaging crowd of Korean boys, outraged by insults perpetrated by several of his idiotic class-mates on two Korean girls. He makes a narrow escape, but soon after, he and his best bud Yoshio are sent by their home-room teacher to invite the Korean students to a friendly soccer game as a way of restoring the peace.

Yakiniku Dragon

Set in the 1970's in the Kansai region of Japan.. Yong-Gil is Korean, but he moved to Japan and settled down. He runs a small restaurant named Yakiniku Dragon. He is married and has three daughters: oldest daughter Jung-Hwa, middle daughter Yi-Hwa and youngest daughter Mi-Hwa. Oldest daughter Jung-Hwa is dating Tetsuo, but they break up. Middle daughter Yi-Hwa loves Tetsuo and marries him, but Tetsuo still loves her older sister and they divorce. Youngest daughter Mi-Hwa wants to become a singer, but she is in love with a married man.

Our School

This documentary is about the 3rd and 4th generation Korean residents of Japan who are students of Chosen elementary, middle, and high school in Hokkaido. It follows the students through one year of the eventual 11 years` national education. Rather than focusing on special occasions or issues, it reveals what it is like to live in Japan as Korean-Japanese by describing their everyday lives.

Strangers on the Field

In April 2013, unfamiliar faces appear at the Jamsil Baseball Stadium during the opening matches between Doosan and SK. The nervous middle-aged men throwing and batting the first ball are, in fact, Korean-Japanese former team members that played on that same spot in the 1982 finals of the Bong-hwang-dae-ki games.

The Voices of the Silenced

Director Park Soo-nam, a second-generation Korean resident in Japan who is losing his eyesight, decides to digitally restore 16mm film she shot a long time ago, relying on her daughter Park Ma-eui's eyesight. The blood, tears, and numerous corpses of Koreans living in Japan are clearly engraved in the film filmed over 50 years.

Soup and Ideology

Confronting half of her mother’s life—her mother who had survived the Jeju April 3 Incident—the director tries to scoop out disappearing memories. A tale of family, which carries on from Dear Pyongyang, carving out the cruelty of history, and questioning the precarious existence of the nation-state.

Horoomon

One woman. One racist lie. One lawsuit that shook Japan. Korean Japanese entrepreneur Shin Sugok takes on major media in this electro-shock legal thriller about refusing to be silenced.

I Am From Chosun

After 15 years of knowing Chosun people in Japan I met on Mt. Geumgang in 2002, I face the history of colonization and division that I had not known before. They’ve been to North Korea many times, but never to South Korea. They tell us why they want to live as Chosun people despite the discrimination in Japanese society. 

Dear Pyongyang

Dear Pyongyang is a documentary film by Zainichi Korean director Yang Yong-hi (Korean: 양영희, Hanja: 梁英姬) about her own family. It was shot in Osaka Japan (Yang's hometown) and Pyongyang, North Korea, In the 1970s, Yang's father, an ardent communist and leader of the pro-North movement in Japan, sent his three sons from Japan to North Korea under a repatriation campaign sponsored by ethnic activist organisation and de facto North Korean embassy Chongryon; as the only daughter, Yang herself remained in Japan. However, as the economic situation in the North deteriorated, the brothers became increasingly dependent for survival on the care packages sent by their parents. The film shows Yang's visits to her brothers in Pyongyang, as well as conversations with her father about his ideological faith and his regrets over breaking up his family.

Ikaino

‘Ikaino’ refers to a neighborhood in Osaka, Japan, home to a large community of Zainichi Koreans. Though erased from official records over fifty years ago, its name still carries memories and stories.

Arirang Rhapsody

The protagonists of the film are the Zainichi Korean women living in Kawasaki. They were tossed about by the war, and after many trips to and fro across the sea in search of a place to live, they finally arrived in Kawasaki, where they have lived modestly and vigorously.

Memories Showers Seas

The late Kim Dong-il, a Jeju April 3 refugee in Japan, left behind over 2,000 crocheted items and pieces of clothing that preserved her memories, identity, and history. As the film traces the redistribution of her belongings, it illuminates the still-unhealed lives of various Zainichi Koreans who lived through the same era, sharing and connecting their intertwined memories.

The Hanbok on the Court

Plot unavailable

Shiso

A Japanese herb called 'shiso' looks like a perilla leaf but has a unique fragrance. It's like how I have a Korean name and nationality but still feel a sense of alienation in Korean society. The death of my grandmother, a first-generation Zainichi, raises a question for me: Does death also mark the end of the life of an outsider? In the end, where do we return to?

The Rules of the Game

A weekend at a marquis’ country château lays bare some ugly truths about a group of haut bourgeois acquaintances.

Grand Illusion

A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal, grapple with their own class differences after being captured and held in a World War I German prison camp. When the men are transferred to a high-security fortress, they must concoct a plan to escape beneath the watchful eye of aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein, who has formed an unexpected bond with de Boeldieu.

The Passion of Joan of Arc

A classic of the silent age, this film tells the story of the doomed but ultimately canonized 15th-century teenage warrior. On trial for claiming she'd spoken to God, Jeanne d'Arc is subjected to inhumane treatment and scare tactics at the hands of church court officials. Initially bullied into changing her story, Jeanne eventually opts for what she sees as the truth. Her punishment, a famously brutal execution, earns her perpetual martyrdom.

Gattaca

Vincent is an all-too-human man who dares to defy a system obsessed with genetic perfection. He is an "In-Valid" who assumes the identity of a member of the genetic elite to pursue his goal of traveling into space with the Gattaca Aerospace Corporation.

94 Feet

An industry that has sustained a town for over 100 years is closing it's doors. A family that has been the cornerstone of the community, has given up. The only thing that can save the dying little town - IS AN UNSPEAKABLE TRAGEDY.

Gold Digger

Marja (Minka Kuustonen) is a blogger. Olavi is one of the richest men in the country. She might be able to save her blog if she dates him, but what if she falls for him for real?

Wildflower

When a college student starts having a reoccurring nightmare, she begins to believe that it's a suppressed memory. Her search to find the answers forces her to confront her past traumas, while at the same time, helps her unlock a mystery that may bring a killer to justice.

Dendera

Fifty elderly women are abandoned to die on a snow covered mountain, but instead wor together to build their own village named "Dendera." Some of the women wants to live their remaining days in peace, but others seek revenge against the villagers and their own families who left them to die.

Šťastná

Victorie Stastná fulfills her dream of studying acting at the academy in Prague. But she soon discovers that her original ideals don't match with reality. She becomes a part of a group of students who understand acting career in a very different way than she does. In a world of parties, where "being successful" is to be seen in the tabloids, Victorie gets far beyond her personal moral principles. How far will she be willing to go to get the success?

Death by Death

A man's hypochondriacal relationship with his mother.

Final Cut

A glossy thriller about a show-business tycoon with a shady background, and a young documentary filmmaker and his girlfriend who are making a film about him. They believe the tycoon has been making "snuff" films, and try to get a confession on film. He invites them to his luxury penthouse for a weekend of partying and filming, and indulges in mind games until the party ends in disaster.

The Man with the Cannon

After Mato Gruda, a man living in a remote village in the mountains of Albania, steals a cannon abandoned by the German invaders he has to decide whether to use the weapon to support the Partisan resistance or to avenge his family.

Nikka Zaildar 4

A Punjabi man's problems begin when he marries a strange woman

Everyone Is Here

Inspired by a 1975 American touring production of Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town” he visited as a young man, Dmitry Krymov’s “Everyone is Here” is a memory piece, a starting point for a flight of imagination and immersion into his own past. Wilder’s “Our Town” is superimposed on the personal memories of Krymov, his biography and events from his family life. The structure of the play gives rise to an interweaving of events, memories, reminiscences, fantasies, associations, dreams - a carefully planned, as if random confusion, which in the finale leads the viewer to a keen awareness of their own life.

Welcome Home Freckles

After four years away, Huiju returns home to South Korea. Exchanges with her loved ones are awkward and clumsy. Huiju turns once again to her familiar rituals: pruning the trees, preparing a sauce, tying a braid.

I'm the Most Racist Person I Know

When a romantic gesture towards a bartender backfires, Lali unexpectedly finds herself offered a pity date by another bartender, Ana. What starts as an awkward encounter turns into a genuine connection as they bond over shared experiences as women of color. As they grow closer, Lali finds herself falling for Ana. But when the conversation takes an unexpected turn, Lali must confront her prejudices towards Ana and... herself.

In the Summers

On a journey that spans the formative years of their lives, two sisters navigate their loving but volatile father during their yearly summer visits to his home in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Vrusshabha

What happens if two sworn enemies from a previous life are reborn as father-son in a new birth?

Barlebas

An experimental musical period drama about the witchhunts in 1595 in the south of the Netherlands. The film depicts the last days of the life of the young woman Heylken.

Wasted Talent

Four high school teens are thrown into detention after a fight come together of their love for music and songwriting. However, their newfound bond is brought to a halt by the harsh reality of the world they come from.