The Hidden Fortress (1958), Kuroneko (1968), Stray Dog (1949), Godzilla (1954), Cure (1997), The Burmese Harp (1956), Harakiri (1962), Seven Samurai (1954) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Japanese Cinema movies.
Storyline: Three emotionally abused people from the fringes of society get locked in a convoluted love triangle. Yuu, a Catholic boy searching for true love ends up taking erotic photographs of women in public until he discovers Yoko, whom he sees as his Virgin Mary. Yoko, an antifamily, misandristic girl finds that her foster mother will be marrying Yuu's father. Koike, an "original sinner", coordinates a plan to convert Yuu's family to her cult. Under her careful direction, their lives come crashing together in one fateful street fight.—Anonymous
Plot Keywords: cult film, romance, religion, family drama, coming of age, dark comedy, erotic ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In Tokyo, the reckless single mother Keiko moves to a small apartment with her twelve years old son Akira Fukushima and his siblings Shigeru and Yuki. Kyoko, another sibling arrives later by train. The children have different fathers and do not have schooling, but they have a happy life with their mother. When Keiko finds a new boyfriend, she leaves the children alone, giving some money to Akira and assigning him to take care of his siblings. When the money runs out, Akira manages to find means to survive with the youngsters without power supply, gas or water at home, and with the landlord asking for the rent.
Plot Keywords: drama, family, children, social issues, loneliness, survival, tokyo ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A wandering samurai, Sanjuro, is drawn into local politics. The Superintendent of a clan is plotting to take over the clan by implicating the Chamberlain in corrupt activities (activities the Superintendent is actually responsible for). Part of the plan involves killing off the Chamberlain's staff and, in protecting them, Sanjuro sides with them. The supporters are massively outnumbered so it will require all of Sanjuro's cunning and swordcraft to ensure the Superintendent does not succeed in his evil plan.
Plot Keywords: period drama, sequel, humor, action, mystery, loyalty, betrayal ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: It is the Philipines, 1945. The Japanese Imperial Army has been reduced to a ragtag mob hiding in the jungles. Among them is Pvt. Tamura. The situation goes from bad to worse and in the face of the brutal conditions facing the men, some go insane and resort to murder and cannibalism. In the midst of this, Pvt. Tamura tries to survive without giving up his principles.—Eugene Ly <euge.ly@utoronto.ca>
Plot Keywords: war, world war ii, humanity, survival, moral dilemma, soldiers, philippines ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Ryunosuke is a sociopathic samurai without compassion or scruples. When he is scheduled for an exhibition match at his fencing school, the wife of his opponent begs Ryunosuke to throw the match, offering her own virtue in trade. Ryunosuke accepts her offer, but kills her husband in the match. Over time, Ryunosuke is pursued by the brother of the man he killed. The brother trains with the master fencer Shimada. In the meantime, however, Ryunosuke earns the enmity of the band of assassins he runs with, and it becomes a question of who shall face him in final conflict.—Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>
Plot Keywords: revenge, violence, moral decay, assassin, psychological conflict, film noir, fate ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Still Walking is a family drama about grown children visiting their elderly parents, which unfolds over one summer day. The aging parents have lived in the family home for decades. Their son and daughter return for a rare family reunion, bringing their own families with them. They have gathered to commemorate the tragic death of the eldest son, who drowned in an accident fifteen years ago. Although the roomy house is as comforting and unchanging as the mother's homemade feast, everyone in the family has subtly changed.
Plot Keywords: family, daily life, memory, death, reunion, generation gap, silence ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In the Fourteenth Century, during a civil war in Japan, a middle-aged woman and her daughter-in-law survive in a hut in a field of reed killing warriors and soldiers to trade their possessions for food. When their neighbor Hachi defects from the war and returns home, they learn that their son and husband Kichi died while stealing supplies from farmers. Soon Hachi seduces the young widow and she sneaks out of her hut every night to have sex with him. When the older woman finds the affair of her daughter-in-law, she pleads with Hachi to leave the young woman with her since she would not be able to kill the warriors without her help. However, Hachi ignores her request and continues to meet the young woman. When a samurai wearing a demon mask stumbles upon the older woman at her hut asking her to guide him out of the field, she lures him and he falls in the pit where she drops the bodies of her victims. She climbs down the hole to take his possessions and his mask, and she finds he is a ...
Plot Keywords: horror, drama, erotic, mystery, psychological thriller, historical, war ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Murukami, a young homicide detective, has his pocket picked on a bus and loses his pistol. Frantic and ashamed, he dashes about trying to recover the weapon without success until taken under the wing of an older and wiser detective, Sato. Together they track the culprit.
Plot Keywords: crime, drama, detective, post-war, japan, 1940s, police ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In this humorous paean to the joys of food, the main story is about trucker Goro, who rides into town like a modern Shane to help Tampopo set up the perfect noodle soup restaurant. Woven into this main story are a number of smaller stories about the importance of food, ranging from a gangster who mixes hot sex with food, to an old woman who terrorizes a shopkeeper by compulsively squeezing his wares.
Plot Keywords: comedy, food, culture, humor, romance, drama, social satire ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Nishi, a police detective, has had to deal with a series of emotionally devastating events over the recent past. His only child, then preschool age, died two years ago. His wife, currently in the hospital, has been diagnosed with a terminal case of leukemia. And he develops a case of guilt when his colleague Horibe, during a stakeout which Nishi himself was supposed to be on but who, on Horibe's suggestion, was visiting his wife in the hospital instead at the time, gets shot point blank. That guilt is only exacerbated when Horibe, who as a result becomes paraplegic, is abandoned by his wife and child, with Horibe himself at a loss with what to do with his life as being a police was his sole identity. As a means to cope, Nishi becomes increasingly reckless, which affects the way he does his police work. That recklessness extends to his personal life when his wife's doctor recommends that she go home, Nishi, in the process, borrowing money from the yakuza to make ends meet. That recklessness also leads to him taking matters into his own hands as he tries to make his and his wife's life together, for however long it will last, a series of small yet special moments.—Huggo
Plot Keywords: action, crime, drama, violence, police, revenge, gunfight ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Would you choose your natural son, or the son you believed was yours after spending 6 years together? Kore-eda Hirokazu, the globally acclaimed director of "Nobody Knows", "Still Walking" and "I Wish", returns to the big screen with another family - a family thrown into torment after a phone call from the hospital where the son was born... Ryota has earned everything he has by his hard work, and believes nothing can stop him from pursuing his perfect life as a winner. Then one day, he and his wife, Midori, get an unexpected phone call from the hospital. Their 6-year-old son, Keita, is not 'their' son - the hospital gave them the wrong baby. Ryota is forced to make a life-changing decision, to choose between 'nature' and 'nurture.' Seeing Midori's devotion to Keita even after learning his origin, and communicating with the rough yet caring family that has raised his natural son for the last six years, Ryota also starts to question himself: has he really been a 'father' all these years....
Plot Keywords: family, father-son relationship, moral dilemma, identity, social class, growing up, sacrifice ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: 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. Though she dies in childbirth, she makes sure that the child will be raised as an assassin to kill the criminals who destroyed her family. Young Yuki never knows the love of a family but only killing and revenge.
Plot Keywords: action, revenge, violence, gore, swordplay, period drama, female protagonist ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A small mid-20th century social-service-style office is a waystation for the souls of the recently deceased, where they are processed before entering their personal heaven - a single happy memory re-experienced for eternity. Every Monday, a new group of recently deceased people check in, and the "social workers" in the lodge explain their situation. Once the newly-dead have identified their happiest memories, workers design and replicate each person's chosen memory, which is staged and filmed. At the end of the week, the recently deceased watch the films of their recreated happiest memories in a screening room. As soon as each person sees his or her own memory, he or she vanishes to whatever state of existence lies beyond and takes only that single memory with them. The story pays most attention to two of the "counselors," Takashi (Arata) and Shiori (Oda). Takashi has been assigned to help an old man, Ichiro (played by Naito Taketoshi), select his memory. Reviewing videotape of Ichiro's life, Takashi learns that Ichiro had married Takashi's former fiancée after Takashi had been killed during World War II. Takashi has Ichiro assigned to another counselor, but is still troubled by his memories, causing both him and his quasi-romantic interest Shiori to re-examine their (after-) lives.—Gaafar
Plot Keywords: life reflection, memory, death, afterlife, soul, choice, emotion ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Adopted from a prize-winning school essay on the subject of 'My Mother,' upon being widowed a mother with a little help from her elder daughter has to run the family laundry on her own. The second daughter, however, has to be sent to live with relatives as the mother cannot afford her.—aghaemi
Plot Keywords: drama, family, motherhood, classic, black and white, family bonds, social issues ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: During the violent chaos of post-War Japanese black market, a young gangster called Shozo Hirono has to keep up with the rapid shifts of power between unscrupulous bosses.
Plot Keywords: violence, revenge, crime, action, gore, underworld, power struggle ...
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