Asian Drama

Shinichi Tsuda, a Naoki Prize winning author, is working to publish his newest story. It revolves around Tsuyama, a driver for a call girl business in Toyama Prefecture, who comes across a mysterious counterfeit bill and has his life targeted by underworld kingpin Kurata. Is his story fact or fiction? His editor, Nahomi Torikai, decides to verify whether his latest work is mere fiction based on real-life experiences. She looks into a family that vanished, a post office worker who went missing, a shady load of cash, the whereabouts of the doves, and the fateful encounter from that night... A series of shocking facts are revealed from Tsuda’s stories. Why did the counterfeit money end up in Tsuda’s hands? What is the “ending” that Tsuda wished to portray?

Adapted from a novel of the same name.

Suda Tamio is an ordinary salaryman. He experiences various stress throughout his daily life. His only pleasure is to set out on trips to find "Zetsumeshi." Zetsumeshi refers to endangered meals, that may no longer exist in the future. While his wife Kanae and child go attend concerts by their favourite idol groups, he leaves home on Friday after work and returns home Saturday night.

Shiori Kitamura just moved to a new apartment. She works at a company. Susumu Hirano lives next door to her. He aspires to become a novelist. One evening, Shiori Kitamura hears a man’s voice coming through her wall saying "I am in the future 1 year later." The voices asks to trail Susumu Hirano. She is unable to hear the man's voice anymore. To solve the mystery, Shiori Kitamura begins to follow Susumu Hirano and she gets attracted to him.

Working at a bank, Tetsuo Kashimura (Toru Nakamura) enjoys a smooth life. Things change when the bank he works for merges with another bank. His life becomes more difficult. His colleagues resign from work and Tetsuo Kashimura also quits his job. While looking for a new job, he meets Tomoya Yamamoto (Ryohei Otani) the CEO of an investment company. Tomoya Yamamoto talks to him about restoring a restaurant franchise company.

A story-a-week episodic medical mystery that treats the theme of reality changing when faced with imminent death. Mystery and exhilarating human drama unfold against the backdrop of the “unnatural death institute”, or “UDI”. For example, the body of a young man is brought into the UDI lab one day; his cause of death attributed to ischemic heart disease in which blood fails to be conveyed to the heart. But the victim’s parents are puzzled by the freak nature of their son’s death and turn to medical coroner Mikoto, to find out why. Together with her lab technician partner, Yuko Shoji, and rookie medical recorder, Rokuro, they examine the body for a possible drug poisoning and then learn that another female colleague of the deceased man has just died suddenly.

When a worldwide electrical outage occurs, everything that requires electricity comes to a stop. Yoshiyuki Suzuki decides to escape with his family from Tokyo, that is nearly ruined.

Maki Maki, Sebuki Suzume, Beppu Tsukasa and Iemori Yutaka happen to meet and form a quartet. They even begin to live together in Karuizawa during the winter, but there is a big hidden secret.

Maki, who has a negative personality and barely gives her opinions, plays the lead violin in the quartet. She has family and only goes to Karuizawa on the weekends for performances. Suzume, who is unemployed, plays the cello, while Yutaka plays the viola in the quartet. The leader of the quartet and the one providing his grandfather's villa as a base for them is Tsukasa. He plays the second violin in the quartet and comes from a musical family. A man of many secrets, he also works at a donut company.

Natsume Mochizuki was a magazine model in Tokyo but moves to the rural town of Ukigumocho. Mochizuki, feeling depressed about living in the boring countryside, meets Koichiro Hasegawa, a member of a locally prominent family of Shinto priests, and gets caught in an intense attraction… It’s an epic love story that intensely and beautifully depicts the feelings of omnipotence and frustration that comes with being a teenager.

Ryota (Hiroshi Abe) 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 (Yoko Maki) and he has an 11-years-old son Shingo (Taiyo Yoshizawa). His mother Yoshiko (Kirin Kiki) 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.

Takashi Hayama (Nijiro Murakami) is a third year high school student. He falls in love with Azusa Oribe (Akari Hayami) at first sight and they begin to date.

One day, Azusa tells Takashi "people who meet me, forget about me several hours later."

Takashi doesn't believe Azusa, but by chance he realizes that he forgot about Azusa. So he won't forget Azusa, Takashi begins to leave a note for himself and Azusa.

dapted from a novel, with the same title, by Hirayama Mizuho (平山瑞穂).

Iwata Koichi and Kagawa Midori are second-year students at Tozaiyama High School. One day, while coming home from school, they discover a shooting star rising up in the sky. The next day, Midori sees a shining figure in school and everyone on the school grounds starts talking about a ghost. At that point, a mysterious transfer student called Yamazawa Norio suddenly arrives at the school and moves in to live next door to Koichi. Strange things begin to happen frequently around Koichi whenever Norio appears. The reason and objective of Norio’s arrival in this world is gradually revealed.

Hakamada Yukio is a competent, mysterious lawyer who only handles settlement cases because of past experiences. Although his scathing words get on clients’ nerves, his primary consideration is their welfare. His philosophy that “love is something that can never be bought with money. But if a client is able to have genuine resolve, I’ll certainly get the compensation and give the push for a fresh start” is the basis for the problems that he solves one after another.

Rinka Umezawa is a housewife who pursues things that will bring her small happiness in life. Her husband Masabumi holds a stern belief that he will support his wife Rinka. The couple do not have children.

Rinka begins to work part-time at a bank. She visits her clients' homes. Sometimes, she even helps her elderly clients' with their house chores. This builds a strong level of trust with her clients.

One day, she visits client Kojo Hirabayashi's. At his home, she meets his grandchil Kota who came to ask for money. Her encounter with Kota changes her. Soon, Rinka embezzles one hundred million yen from her bank and runs away.

Two years later, Rinka's former high school friends Yuko Okazaki and Aki Nakaji trace her embezzlement case and face their own darkness.

Rinka Umezawa is a housewife who pursues things that will bring her small happiness in life. Her husband Masabumi holds a stern belief that he will support his wife Rinka. The couple do not have children.

Rinka begins to work part-time at a bank. She visits her clients' homes. Sometimes, she even helps her elderly clients' with their house chores. This builds a strong level of trust with her clients.

One day, she visits client Kojo Hirabayashi's. At his home, she meets his grandchil Kota who came to ask for money. Her encounter with Kota changes her. Soon, Rinka embezzles one hundred million yen from her bank and runs away.

Two years later, Rinka's former high school friends Yuko Okazaki and Aki Nakaji trace her embezzlement case and face their own darkness.

Muto (Jun Kunimura) and Ikegami (Shinichi Tsutsumi) are two gangsters who hate each other, but Ikegami is in love with Muto's actress daughter Michiko (Fumi Nikaido). Meanwhile, Muto attempts to make his wife Shizue's (Tomochika) dream come true which is to have their daughter appear in a movie.

Koji (Gen Hoshino), who is just a passerby, is mistaken for a movie director. Koji then requests to independent film director Hirata (Hiroki Hasegawa) to cast Michiko as the leading actress in his film. Their situation soon goes completely wrong.

1. Screenplay for "Why Don't You Play in Hell?" was first written by Sion Sono 15 years ago as an action film.

The film revolves around two men, Mutoh and Ikegami, who are fierce enemies who feel nothing but hatred for one another. However, Ikegami unexpectedly falls in love with Mutoh’s daughter, aspiring actress Mitsuko.

Mutoh wants to celebrate the release of his wife Shizue from prison by giving their daughter her debut, so he decides to produce his own movie specifically to that end.

Soon, a movie buff named Koji is hired to direct after being mistaken for a filmmaker and an actual indie film director named Hirata is recruited to help.

Complicating matters even further, Ikegami soon injects himself into the chaos of his hated rival’s production.

16-year-old Haruka (Ai Hashimoto) lost the people she loved the most in a fire. Haruka is also physically and emotionally wounded from the fire, but she still dreams of becoming a pianist. She takes part in an upcoming competition. Inauspicious incidents then occur around her. Musical student Yosuke (Shinya Kiyozuka), who teaches piano to Haruka, tries to solve the case.

Based on a 1993 novel by Naoki Award-winner Sato Jiro, the film revolves around a top secret mission to hide Japanese treasures near the conclusion of World War II which would currently be valued at around 200 trillion yen.

Sakai Masato stars as Major Mashiba, an intelligence officer with Japan's Imperial Guard. Together with First Lieutenant Koizumi (Fukushi Seiji) and Master Sergeant Mochizuki (Nakamura Shido), Mashiba attempts to execute secret orders to hide the treasures from the occupying forces of Douglas MacArthur in the hopes of funding the nation's reconstruction at some point in the future.

Out of necessity, 20 young schoolgirls are enlisted to help with the mission without being informed of the details. Santamaria Yusuke plays the girls' teacher and Yachigusa Kaoru plays one of the girls in the present day.

young man, Jubeh Yakyu, swears off baseball after his literally blazing fastball offs his old man. Later, as a young adult with the fashion sense of a biker and a Sergio Leone western, he is arrested for a 2 week spree of 54 crimes ("inluding dropping televisions on people"wink.gif. With a promise of freedom, the governor sends him to "Pteradactyl Hall", a juvenile detention center run by a headmistress called Ishihara who has a thing for the Nazi period in her dress and manner. She is also the chairperson for a baseball tournament called "Juvie League". The governor suspects she's up to something and he wants Jubeh to find out what.

Domoto Akari is a rookie attorney, so-called "Hokaben," a hot lawyer just out of the oven. Sugisaki Tadashi is her boss at the big law firm, but he has lost his passion for work, and is as cool as ice. These two meet as the only two attorneys at the Pro Bono (For Public Good) section, which the firm created to fulfill their social service obligation.

The law will protect the weak-rookie attorney Akari still believes in the idealistic dream.

The law will not protect the weak, and it can even be a weapon to kill people-experienced Sugisaki has seen the limit of the law. Clients after clients looking for saviors come to them for help, but the realities in front of them are too harsh to face. Will they give up or will they face the reality and fight?

Akihabara is a Tokyo district full of mangas, anime, electronics, video games, figurines, etc. It is a place that gathers fanatics of such themes, people who are commonly referred to as otaku. Page, Box, Akira, Taiko, Daruma, and Izumu are six otakus, each with his/her own troubles who sought relief through a website called "Yui's Lifeguard". When the site owner, Yui, died of a mysterious death, the six, who are each expert in their own fields, gathered to form "Akihabara@DEEP", a "troubleshooter" group that vows to protect Akihabara and solve the problems of its inhabitants.

Almost defying description, Miike's film opens with found documentary footage about sperm-production in young males and then turns to a graphically violent recreation of the execution in 1865 of the 28-year-old Okada Izo, a low-born samurai who killed in the service of the anti-shogun rebel Hanpeita Takechi. Fast-forward through 15 decades of Japanese history: suddenly Izo's spirit possesses the body of a street-sleeper in an alley of Tokyo's financial district.

The reincarnated assassin goes on a killing rampage through time and space, from the Warring States period to the day after tomorrow, slaughtering everyone from a Buddhist elder to the prime minister ("Beat" Takeshi in one of dozens of star cameos), not forgetting his own mother. Nothing can stop him, because Izo is negation itself: the contradiction spewed up by the "perfect system" that is Japan. Nothing is immune to his attack, except perhaps the godlike emperor (Matsuda Ryuhei) and the maternal goddess of mercy (Momoi Kaori). Standing to one side, watching and commenting in song, is Tomokawa Kazuki, a radical folkie from the 1960s.

Hiroki Sakai adjusts pins in pachinko machines for a living. It's a dull existence, but Sakai seems to have made his peace with it. One day he runs into his former co-worker, Mizuguchi, a twitchy sort who managed a parlor before yakuza goons beat him up and robbed the place. Now he is obsessed with the thought of vengeance against his assailants. Soon afterward, he runs into Rie -- the daughter of his boss - who has suddenly blossomed into voluptuous womanhood and who is eagerly hoping to improve her relationship with Sakai. Later, he finds himself the target of yakuza aggression when the gang's boss comes to believe that Sakai is the bearer of a coveted envelope. Though a sensible and retiring sort by nature, he realizes that the only way to end this unwanted adventure is to rescue his boss, Tsumura, from the clutches of the yakuza.