Giants and Toys

In the backstreets of Ginza, the boss of a hairdressing salon is found dead, killed by strangulation. The detective on the case soon hears rumors about the murder.

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

A vacationing entomologist suffers extreme physical and psychological trauma after being taken captive by the residents of a poor seaside village and made to live with a woman whose life task is shoveling sand for them.

Experienced shipyard worker Shimazaki gets an offer of free lodging from his employer in the company seaside rest house if he agrees to see to its running. After moving in, Shimazaki finds out that this will also mean taking care of a flock of youngsters, and he soon becomes their none-too-successful warden. At work the boys are disciplined, as soon as they return to their dormitory however they turn into an unmanageable mob.

Subu makes pornographic films. He sees nothing wrong with it. They are an aid to a repressed society, and he uses the money to support his landlady, Haru, and her family. From time to time, Haru shares her bed with Subu, though she believes her dead husband, reincarnated as a carp, disapproves. Director Shohei Imamura has always delighted in the kinky exploits of lowlifes, and in this 1966 classic, he finds subversive humor in the bizarre dynamics of Haru, her Oedipal son, and her daughter, the true object of her pornographer-boyfriend’s obsession. Imamura’s comic treatment of such taboos as voyeurism and incest sparked controversy when the film was released, but The Pornographers has outlasted its critics, and now seems frankly ahead of its time.

Kiroku boards with a Roman Catholic family and falls for the daughter Michiko. He ignores his feelings, joins a gang, gets in fights and, eventually, becomes involved with the radical Kita Ikki group.

The neglected common-law wife of a Japanese librarian is repeatedly harassed by a young man with a heart condition who seduces her with the prospect of a better life.

A businessman with a disfigured face obtains a lifelike mask from his new doctor, but the mask starts altering his personality and causing him to question his identity.

In the city of Yokosuka, Kinta and his lover Haruko, both involved with yakuza, brave the post-occupation period with a goal to be together.

After the stillbirth of his child, a young photographer Hiroshi, begins to see spirits as he searches for new purpose.

In the shady black markets and bombed-out hovels of post–World War II Tokyo, a tough band of prostitutes eke out a dog-eat-dog existence, maintaining tenuous friendships and a semblance of order in a world of chaos. But when a renegade ex-soldier stumbles into their midst, lusts and loyalties clash, with tragic results. With Gate of Flesh, visionary director Seijun Suzuki delivers a whirlwind of social critique and pulp drama, shot through with brilliant colors and raw emotions.

In Tokugawa-era (1637) Shimabara, oppressed peasant Christians revolt against the shogunate with the aid of charismatic Christian rebel leader Shiro Amakusa.

An experimental, psychedelic odyssey through Japanese subculture experienced via the eyes of a disillusioned young man, who must contend with intense familial dysfunction, psychosexual alienation, and existentialist malaise.

Two brothers compete for the amorous favors of a young woman during a seaside summer of gambling, boating, and drinking.

In 1863, when American warships approach Japan, an enigmatic ronin becomes an important figure in a complex game of power between the Shogunate and the empire.

After his own gang sets him up to kill a rival mobster, a hit man is forced to flee with his younger brother.