Asian Drama

Eiichi Nishio is a young actor. He is not very popular and only receives offers to play dead bodies. One day, he wanders around Nakameguro, Tokyo and recognizes the restaurant/bar Izakaya Fuji. He saw pictures of Izakaya Fuji on a woman's Instagram account and decides to go in. There, he meets Nao Omori and other actors who are all regulars at Izakaya Fuji.

Adapted from the 2015 novel "Izakaya Fuji" by Kuriyama Keisuke.

The original material for this drama comes from a blog titled "Gekikakusatsu SS Nikki" by a person named Mighty. In the drama, Inaba Hirotaro, who has only been devoted to working so far, is hooked on online games now that he is over 60. His son Mitsuo, a salaryman, is trying to reach out to his father as a game player in the same world of online games without disclosing his true identity. Despite the secrets that each of them have, father and son, start to understand each other and become them closer through the online games.

Kenichi Endo, Ren Osugi, Tomorowo Taguchi, Susumu Terajima, Yutaka Matsushige and Ken Mitsuishi all receive offers to take part in a big budget drama series with a famous lead actor and world famous director. To study their roles and relationships, the director asks the six supporting actors to live together for 3 months at a share house. The actors begin their temporary living arrangement. An incident from 10 years ago though causes the actors to hold resentment.

When Koichi was nine years old, his father was accused of killing his mother and younger sibling, before committing suicide. In reality, Koichi's father was framed, and Koichi saw the person who killed his family. However, the police didn't believe his testimony, and his relatives called him a liar. He never gave up his story, though, and so grew up with the nickname "Usotsuki" (Liar).

Eventually, Koichi moved overseas and changed his name, becoming a professional swindler. One day, Koichi finally meets his family's killer again. He then returns to Japan to take his revenge.

“If you want help, but have no one to consult … At such times, make a phone call first!” Akenabe Yugo’s occupation is a “rental saviour”. He is a “saviour” who shows up to handle any kind of impossible demand for a limited time only. This is a peculiar, innovative rental service which has appeared as a result of a movement in the rental industry. But Akenabe is certainly not a fellow to be worshiped as a saviour. He is just a very good-natured middle-aged man who is forced to be one as a way to make supplementary income through this commission-based, for-profit, confidential service because he has a huge debt and a wife and child. On the other hand Aoi Denjiro, who is a “rental saviour” together with Akenabe, is a big show-off who loves attention.

Seibei Iguchi leads a difficult life as a low ranking samurai at the turn of the nineteenth century. A widower with a meager income, Seibei struggles to take care of his two daughters and senile mother. New prospects seem to...

Mr. Takano, a company employee, announces plans to take an early retirement so he can return to his home town and spend his days fishing. Su-san and Hama-chan envy his decision, and Hama-chan conspires to visit Takano, even though he...

Makabe Yukiko worked her way up from a rookie officer to her current investigator level. Recently, she had just been transferred to the "Emergency Interrogation Department", nicknamed as Kintori. Her colleagues are all men, and each of them have their own idiosyncrasies. Their job is to get the information from the suspects, and try to psycho-analyse them at the same time. Yukiko herself has an unsolved cold case that she is secretly investigating still... - TV Asahi

After being brutally murdered in a gangster-style execution, Kensuke Hagane (Tsuyoshi Ujiki) finds himself brought back to life by a mad scientist and rebuilt as a robot-human hybrid with a serious thirst for vengeance and the tools to carry it...

A fantasy love story that drifts between this world and heaven. Chasuke is in charge of making tea in heaven. He has feelings for a human woman named Yuri whom he has seen from a writer who is scripting her life from heaven. He knows that Yuri is condemned to die in a car accident. To save the woman, Chasuke goes down to this world.

Sokoi Takehachi and Tsumura Aki are journalists working for the "Weekly Dodongo". Their editor, Yamazaki Jiro, had assigned them to stake out former state assemblyman Okase Shohei, who is about to be released from prison. 7 years ago, Okase was found guilty of misappropriating state funds amounting to 100 mil yen. However, only 70 mil yen were accounted for during the trial. Yamazaki has a hunch that upon his release, Okase will be retrieving that money from wherever he had hidden it. Both Takehachi and Aki had tailed Okase to the racecourse, and from there to a street near Kagurazaka, Tokyo, where they lost him. Next thing they know, the news world is abuzz with the rumor that Okase had found the body of a strangled man at a cemetery in Katsuura, Chiba. Yamazaki's instinct tells him that the murder has something to do with the unaccounted for money, and so he decides to bring Takehachi along with him to call on Okase. They pay a visit to the Nishida Stables, where they are introduced to the stable hand, Suekichi Hideo, the stable owner, Nishida Ryuzo and one of the racehorse's owner, state assemblyman Tateyama Torahei. Yamazaki decides against bringing up the matter of Okase, which puzzles Takehachi, but yet Yamazaki does not share his reason for doing so with him. Not long after, a trunk is found in the forests of Mizusawa, Iwate. In it is a corpse of a man. How is the corpse related to Okase? Why was it stuffed inside the trunk?

A strict personnel manager at an IT company named Onizuka (Ren Osugi) finds a helpless stray kitten and caring for it changes his outlook on life.

A salaryman, a drug addict and a yakuza go on a breathless three man chase through the streets of Tokyo, each for a different reason and fighting demons.

Sawaki is a postman who's not quite thrilled about his boring way of life. But his life is about to change when he delivers mail to his old schoolmate Noguchi, who's now a member of the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia, and just finished cutting his little finger off.

Up-tight salaryman Asakura (Shinichi Tsutsumi) goes to the doctor about his severe tension headaches, but gets car-jacked by bank robbers, who order him to pursue one of the gang that has betrayed them. Unfortunately, Asakura never breaks the rules, won't drive over the speed limit, or run a red light, even if threatened. The frustrated gang stops at a café to make plans, but word is out about their "successful" robbery, and "karmic fate" begins to unfold.

Ekusute begins in bloody, unsettling fashion with the discovery of the body of a young girl, whose organs have been harvested and hair shaven to make extensions. The corpse ends up in the hands of morgue watchman and hair fetishist Yamazaki (Osugi Ren), who excitedly discovers that the girl's hair is still growing. He uses her long and silky hair to make extensions, which he sells to customers who invariably turn up dead, strangled by their own hair. When Yamazaki meets flighty aspiring hairstylist Yuko (Kuriyama Chiaki), he immediately becomes mesmerized by her beautiful hair, and presents her with a gift of hair extensions.

A 19th-century samurai tries to protect a battered wife. Seibei Iguchi, a low-ranking samurai, leads a life without glory as a bureaucrat in the mid-XIX century Japan. A widower, he has charge of two daughters (whom he adores) and a senile mother; he must therefore work in the fields and accept piecework to make ends meet. New prospects seem to open up when Tomoe, his long-time love, divorces a brutal husband. However, even as the Japanese feudal system is unraveling, Seibei remains bound by the code of honour of the samurai and by his own sense of social precedences. The consequences are cruel. Written by Eduardo Casais . In the Nineteenth Century, in Unasaka, Province of Yamagata, in the Feudal Japan, the widow samurai Seibei Iguchi works in the warehouse of the local Commissioner during the day and handicraftsman building cages in the night to have an income of 50 koku (meaning "a quantity of rice, historically defined as enough rice to feed one person for one year"wink.gif. Seibei raises alone his two daughters, the five year-old Ito and the ten year-old Kayano and his senile mother in a simple property, and has a debt of 20 koku due to the expensive funeral of his wife, who died of tuberculosis, imposed by her family and can not afford to have another wife. His colleagues in the warehouse pejoratively call him "The Twilight Samurai" to express his life without glory. When Seibei meets Michinojo Iinuma, his childhood friend tells him that his sister Tomoe Iinuma has just divorced from he brutal husband Toyotarou Kouda. Seibei reencounters Tomoe, for whom he has been in love since he was a child, but Tamoe is member of a family of 400 koku and Seibei believes their difference of classes makes their marriage impossible. When Kouda challenges Iinuma to a duel, Seibei accepts to replace his old friend and needs to use his skills of swordsman again.

35-year-old Kentaro (Gen Hoshino) is a social misfit and has never dated a woman in his life. He lives with his parents and holds a modest job in city hall. Kentaro doesn't have any friends, nor received a promotion in 13 years at his place of work. His parents worry about Kentaro being single for the rest of his life. They then go to a parental matchmaking event, hoping to find a woman to introduce to their son. During the meeting, Kentaro's parents has only one other couple approach. The father is Akita Imai (Ren Osugi) and his wife (Hitomi Kuroki). They exchange profiles of their children. Kentaro's parents are impressed with the Imai's beautiful daughter Naoko (Kaho). Meanwhile, Akita Imai is the president of a successful company and, after reading Kentaro's bio, believes he is beneath their daughter. The Imais leave, only saying thank you. They also don't reveal to Kentaro's parents that Naoko is blind. Kentaro and Naoko will soon experience love for the first time, but will it be fleeting?

"Gakeppuchi no Eri" describes the turbulent life of Eriko (Yamada), who has been extremely poor since childhood, due to the debt left by her parents. Despite constant misfortune, she aims to achieve happiness and money by moving to Tokyo to pursue life as a manga artist. --Tokyograph

Ichinose Ryo works as a salesperson for Hashiba Sales Service, a subsidiary of the mid-sized electronics manufacturer, Hashiba Electronics, which prides itself on its long history. One day, he is ordered to transfer to the company’s headquarters. Why him when he has no strong points? Hashiba Electronics designs products which its subsidiary is responsible for manufacturing. The group’s share of the market is now being lost to emerging foreign companies and it is in financial difficulty. The new company president, Matsumoto Kiyoomi, who has come from America, has his eye on Ichinose’s perseverance as a salesperson and intends to make a five-member team contemplate strategies to improve the management of the group. Ordered to submit a proposal, Ichinose and the members head to Vietnam in search of ideas for cost-cutting measures. He finds out about a new business plan, a license business in Vietnam. However, that is when he learns of the ongoing bribery behind the contract work between headquarters and subsidiary as a result of the license business. Ichinose’s former boss, Taki Shinsuke, is aware of this bribery, and had promised to keep quiet about it in exchange for a director’s position at Hashiba Electronics. Determined to push through reforms in order to correct company’s way of doing things and fulfil his own and the other members’ dreams, Ichinose gets close to but a series of big hurdles stand in his way.

Detectives Sakurai Shintarou and Hikage Koichi are partners. They are also corrupt and often blackmail criminal groups and seize their money. One day, the Chief of Police becomes aware that 2.5 million yen in seized money is missing. He orders Shintarou and Koichi to bring the money in by tomorrow morning. Shintarou and Koichi are in big trouble. They then read an article about a pension fund embezzlement case involving 6 billion yen. The prime suspect of the pension fund embezzlement case spent most of that money, but he has 2.5 billion yen left.

Story depicts follows a family who runs a winery.

Ao (Yo Oizumi) and Roku (Shota Sometani) are brothers. In the past, Ao abandoned his family to pursue his dream, but his dream was lost. He then returned to his hometown. Now, Ao runs a winery at a grape farm and wheat field, which was left behind by his father. Ao devotes himself to making wine. His younger brother Roku, who holds mixed feelings, supports Ao.

It is the Spring of 1814. The restaurant "Tsuru-ka" is gaining much popularity after its chef, Mio, won the prestigious cooking competition. One day, the owner of "Tsuru-ka", Taneichi, employed young Fuki to be the attendant for customers' shoes. Mio could fully empathize with young Fuki, who was an orphan and yet was courageous enough to survive on her own. Around the same time, the famous novelist Seiemon started coming to "Tsuru-ka". Even though Seiemon criticized Mio's cooking each time, he always returned to the restaurant daily. Remembering the words spoken by the samurais that had last seen Komatsubara, "Tokei no Ma", Mio was very tempted to ask Seiemon the meaning of the words! Meantime, "Tsuru-ka"'s rival restaurant, "Toryuro" was always serving food that was similar to Mio's latest creation. Even before Mio had a chance to offer them on "Tsuru-ka"'s menu. It happened repeatedly, which left Mio puzzled and troubled by it all. To add to her worries, Mio heard from Mataji that her dear childhood friend, Noe, who is one of the top oiran (prostitutes) in Yoshiwara (red-light district of Edo), was injured while trying to protect another prostitute from being slashed by a patron. Mio's despair at not having been able to help Noe escape her fate at Yoshiwara all those years ago threatened to overwhelm her completely. Especially since her fellow housemate, O-Ryo's son was stricken by the life-threatening measles at the same time...

Every day, bank branches encounter various problems like missing money, information leaks, loan problems & breach of duties. Mai Hanasaki's (Anne Watanabe) job is to go there and fix the problems. She is able to do so, even though she is just a bank clerk without higher level powers. Because of her character, Mai Hanasaki will not keep still when she sees a wrong. She's willing to stand up for the side of the weak, regardless of the relation between the top and bottom factions of the bank.

Yukiko Makabe works at the #3 Special Investigation Team of the Metropolitan Police Department. She has excellent negotiation skills. Yukiko then attempts to negotiate with a hijacker on a bus, but something unexpected happens and her mission fails. Yukiko takes full responsibility and takes a transfer to a special interrogation team "Kintori". Her boss is Katsutoshi Kajiyama and Yukiko has had a difficult working relationship with him in the past. Her other coworkers include Susumu Hishimoto, Zenjiro Nakata and Haruo Koishikawa.

A man with leather gloves asks a girl to place a can of cookies in the police substation. Because of this, a police officer dies. Tetsuji Watanabe and Daijiro Kenmotsu, detectives from the #1 investigation team, finds out the identity of the man in leather gloves. They believe the culprit is famous attorney Fujishiro who only takes on miscarriage of justice cases. Fujishiro vehemently denies his involvement in the cookie incident during his interrogation by the Kintori team. Around this time, a man turns himself in and takes responsibility for an explosion at a police substation.

Based on the same-titled novel, the drama is set in the year 1964, the year the Olympics were held in Tokyo. A nation trying to rebuild its economy post world war II, Japan was eager to show the world what it had to offer. Amidst all the excitement and enthusiasm, two fires had broken out consecutively; at the private residence of the Chief of Police, Suga Shuichiro, and then at the Nakano Police Academy. However, both incidents were hushed up, and even Detective Ochiai Masao, from Division One MPD (Metropolitan Police Department) had to find out about it from his fellow colleague. Ochiai was puzzled as to why no investigations were being carried out and it soon came to light that prior to the first fire at the Chief's home, a threatening letter had been sent to the MPD. In view of the upcoming Olympics, everyone at the MPD were feeling jittery over the letter and the arson, and thus a team was set up to ensure the safety of the public during the event. Ochiai and his team mates were to carry out the investigation secretly. Information came to Ochiai, that some 25 tubes of dynamite were stolen from a gunpowder factory. While questioning the owner, Ochiai was introduced to Shimazaki Kunio, a poor student from Akita prefecture, attending Tokyo University and working part-time there. Suspecting him of the crime, Ochiai started digging around into Shimazaki's life and was surprised to find out that his own sister, Yumi, was actually dating Shimazaki!

Sugimura (Koizumi) works as an editor at the public relations department in the Imada Konzern. One day, the chairman, and his father-in-law, Yoshichika (Mikijiro Hira), asks him to support the daughters of his personal driver who died in an accident. The driver was killed in a hit-and-run accident by a bicycle, but the criminal hasn't been caught yet. The younger daughter Riko (Nao Minamisawa) is eager to find the suspect by writing a book about her father's life. But the older daughter Satomi (Kyoko Fukada) opposes the idea, and explains why by telling Sugimura about her father's dark past...

TBS

Three of Japan’s top veteran samurai stars shine in this colour remake of the classic Kobayashi film, Samurai Rebellion. The roles made famous by Mifune Toshiro and Nakadai Tatsuya are taken over by the ever popular Tamura Masakazu and Matsudaira Ken, with the surprise addition of Lady Snowblood’s Kaji Meiko as Suga, the shrewish wife of master swordsman Sasahara Isaburo. Staying true to the original storyline lends authenticity to this new and beautifully executed version. Lord Matsudaira of the Aizu clan has sent his favourite concubine to marry Sasahara’s son Yogoro after she had borne the lord a second son. Bloody violence will erupt when the lord wants her back!

In Edo of the early 1800's, Mio (Kitagawa Keiko) is foretold that while she will live a life of trials and tribulations, there will always be a blue sky waiting for her beyond the clouds. As she tries to find a path for herself amongst the highly competitive world of chefs, she comes to learn first-hand just how many trials and tribulations she will have to endure. Still, with the help of those around her, Mio won't give up searching for her own flavor...

11 mysteries, 11 actors. Japan's favorite mystery author, the world of Higashino Keigo comes to life on screen through an assortment of short stories.

For every episode, there will be a different lead actor and story, it's themes varying from mystery to comedy to horror to human drama. Nakai Kiichi is the navigator as he takes you on a journey through each episode, seasoned with Higashino's authentic spices, failing your assumptions with vivid story composition and an even bigger betrayal before the finale. It's a weekly drama that will keep you hungry from episode to episode, like a special holiday event each and every time.

“IS” stands for “intersexual,” a term referring to people who cannot clearly be classified as male or female, and who may biologically possess characteristics of both sexes. Rokuhana's manga primarily deals with the troubles faced by the young Hoshino Haru (played by Fukuda), an intersexual who was registered as a girl at birth but has been raised as a boy.

Goriki plays Aihara Miwako, a mysterious classmate who tries to get close to Haru. Inoue Masahiro has been cast as Ibuki Kenji, a member of the soccer club whom Haru begins having feelings for. Nishida Naomi and Minami Kaho play Miwako's and Haru's mothers, respectively.

Blessed with good looks, Takano Kyohei, a college student, is always suffering from the unreasonable behaviour of customers who want him and the sexual harassment of his store manager. Because of his hot temper, he loses his head on this occasion and is fired from his part-time job. Then one day, the glamorous owner, Ms Nakahara proposes, "I'll give you free board-and-lodging if you can turn my niece, Sunako, into a lady!" Kyohei and Toyama Yukinojo, Oda Takenaga and Morii Ranmaru, the other guys living together in the same boarding house, are enthusiastic, but the person who appears before the four of them is a spooky girl whose hair covers her face and who loves horror and vampires. And so, their tumultuous communal life begins.

Adapted from the manga "The Wallflower" (ヤマトナデシコ七変化) by Hayakawa Tomoko (はやかわともこ).

Blessed with good looks, Takano Kyohei, a college student, is always suffering from the unreasonable behaviour of customers who want him and the sexual harassment of his store manager. Because of his hot temper, he loses his head on this occasion and is fired from his part-time job. Then one day, the glamorous owner, Ms Nakahara proposes, "I'll give you free board-and-lodging if you can turn my niece, Sunako, into a lady!" Kyohei and Toyama Yukinojo, Oda Takenaga and Morii Ranmaru, the other guys living together in the same boarding house, are enthusiastic, but the person who appears before the four of them is a spooky girl whose hair covers her face and who loves horror and vampires. And so, their tumultuous communal life begins.

Adapted from the manga "The Wallflower" (ヤマトナデシコ七変化) by Hayakawa Tomoko (はやかわともこ).

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?

The story concerns a boy called Shuji, growing up in a rural area of Japan where the community is divided into "Shore" and "Offshore" - the latter so-named because it is built on reclaimed land. He meets a few main...

Grade-school teacher Shinichi just can't get any respect. His wife treats him like a nuisance, his daughter ignores his every word, his coworkers think he's pitiful. His students regard him as a bore and an imbecile, and mercilessly bully his son, who wants nothing to do with him as a result. The only place Shinichi can find any confidence and self-esteem is alone in his room, where he's secretly sewn together a costume. It's a perfect replica of the suit worn by Zebraman, the hero of a third-rate 1970s superhero show that nobody remembers except Shinichi -- and much to his joy, the new, wheelchair-bound student at his school.

At the same time, strange things are occurring throughout the area. The citizens are nervous, and the military has dispatched agents to uncover - or perhaps cover up -- the source of the danger. Shinichi's urge to sneak out and prowl in his costume, to feel what a hero feels when guarding the night from evil, soon has him dragged into an increasingly bizarre mystery.

The Special Mission Task Team is not considered as important as it might sound. It's positioned in the lowest section of the Metropolitan Police Department and headed by Ukyo Sugishita. Together with his partner, Kaoru Kameyama, this team is Japan’s version of The Odd Couple, solving clueless cases in original and outrageous ways.

Sabu and Eiji were best friends since they were small. They served as poor trainees in a traditional umbrella store. When they grew up, it was time for them to turn on a new leaf and live on their own. Unforturnately, Eiji was falsely accused as a thief. He was then isolated in a deserted island and forced to work as a coolie. Eiji was very angry and upset. He kept on thinking of ways to take revenge on the person who falsely incriminate him. During this period, Sabu kept on supporting Eiji and visiting him in jail. At the beginning, Eiji was jealous of Sabu and became hostile to him. As time went by Eiji met many pals in the jail and they worked hard to fight against many difficults. Finally, Eiji learnt to compromise to his fate. After many years of isolation, when Eiji was about to recover his freedom, a cruel fact was revealed to him by Sabu and it drove Eiji crazy.....

Yuka Misaki, whose parents run a flower shop, casually begins dating college student Akio Asami, and later falls for him. But due to some type of accident, the two lose contact with one another.

One year after the accident, the two suddenly meet again. Yuka is still working at her father Shigeo's flower shop, and Akio is a teacher at a nearby high school.

It's January 7, just right after the New Year begins. Makeup classes are being held for students that aren't keeping up with their daily studies. Taking the classes are the popular Tadashi Otomo, and the leader of the delinquent students, Sho Takamatsu. And giving the lecturers is Noriko Sekiya, a teacher that has taken out all kinds of loans to pay for the popular brand items that she buys.

Yuka comes to the school to collect money from Noriko. While at the school, with thoughts of the past in the back of her mind, Yuka and Akio meet and get into a fight. Then all of a sudden, there is a small tremor, and after it subsides.

Adapted from the manga "The drifting classroom" by Kazuo Umezu.

As a former gang member, Hazama Ichiban witnessed the worst side of the emergency medical system and vowed to become a doctor to change it. With the aggressive passion he learned on the streets, Ichiban has worked his way to becoming a no-nonsense emergency medicine resident. But it is this same passion that he must learn to control when confronted with a situation beyond his help.

This documentary-style film recreates the infamous Asama Sanso Incident of 1972 wherein an extreme faction of the Students Allied Red Army holed themselves up in a mountainous cabin in the dead of winter. By the time the police finally caught up with them, it was discovered that they had murderously turned upon themselves in a bizarre extension of their radical philosophy. This event virtually marked the end of the Student Revolution.

Shot in Los Angeles, California, Takeshi Kitano plays Yamamoto, a lone yakuza officer. Defeated in a war with a rival family, his boss killed, he heads to L.A.

As time passes, Yamamoto and his new gang emerge as a powerful force, gradually expanding their turf to an extent that they must confront the Mafia. The Mafia's attacks are ruthless, and soon Yamamoto and his gang are driven into a disastrous situation of no return as they are hunted down one by one.

Lee Jung-jae, who was also featured in E's debut, plays E U-in, a Korean civil servant bored and unfulfilled in his job and life. Void of a circle of friends, U-in spends his nights cruising internet porn sites. His voyeurism does not stop with his nighttime activities, however, for he also engages in stalking a woman unavailable to him, a young, punkish woman (Kim Min-heui) whose hair is dyed a fire-y Run Lola Run-ish red. One day U-in receives a spam email that he proceeds to reinforce by clicking on the provided link. He is asked to type in his perfect woman and he proceeds to type in the demographics of Mia, the object of his daytime gaze. From here, the titular character is created from U-in's gaze, Asako in Ruby Shoes.

Asako in Ruby Shoes The women behind the gaze that is Asako is a young Japanese named Aya (Tachibana Misato) who has found her life to be similarly soulless. Having decided on a unique form of suicide, she plans to hold her breath across the International Date Line so as to confuse whether she died today or yesterday, she decides to forgo her future and stop attending her pre-college classes. Getting a job at a health club, she befriends a co-worker, Rie (Awata Urara), a slightly manic-depressive loner who is attracted to Middle Eastern men. After eventually being fired from the health club, Aya decides to pursue a "modeling" gig in order to afford her trip to the International Date Line and to fully pay for the object of her gaze, the Dorothy-esque Ruby Shoes.

Tales of the Unusual: A four-part anthology in the spirit of The Twilight Zone, this film starts off with a group of commuters stranded at a train station in the rain, listening to stories told by one of the group. These include tales of a group stranded in the mountains and haunted by guilt over a death they inadvertently caused, an emotionally broken chessmaster pressed into playing a real-life game for an eccentric millionaire, a wandering medieval samurai who finds a modern-day cell phone on the ground and a person on the other end asking questions about the past, and a young couple who agree to try a computer simulation of what their future as husband and wife would be like.

Salaryman Masumi goes to great lengths to get his 6-year-old daughter into a prestigious primary school.

Duration: 1 hr. 54 min.

Content Rating: 15+ - Teens 15 or older

Three apparently unrelated suicides occur on the same day in Tokyo. One involves a young athlete, one a groom at his wedding reception, and the third an elderly man celebrating his wife's birthday. A middle aged detective investigating one of the cases begins to suspect a connection between the three when he discovers that each person mentioned a "green monkey" before they died. With the help of a young psychiatrist he formulates the theory that hypnosis is somehow involved. In the mean time other bizarre "suicides" are reported and the mystery intensifies. Who will be next? What is the truth? Can more deaths be prevented? Written by Infofreak.

"Falling into the Evening" tells the story of a young woman’s confusion when her boyfriend starts a relationship with another. Rica and Kengo have been living together for the past four years. It’s been a very happy time for Rica; the only dark spot being an accident she caused during a shoot for a commercial in which Kengo’s good friend, Shibata, nearly lost his life. The memory of this event weighs heavily on Rica’s conscience. One night Kengo tells Rica that he has fallen in love with a charming but „inscrutable“ woman named Hanako. Kengo moves out of their apartment and, although Rica is terribly hurt and confused, she cannot bring herself to hate Kengo. Nevertheless, she suffers a great deal as a result of their separation. She cannot believe her eyes when Hanako suddenly appears at her door, but this is not nearly as baffling as when Kengo also turns up at Rica’s apartment looking for his new lover. For a while this threesome co-habit in a kind of Ménage à trois, but then Hanako starts staying away for nights on end – without telling either of them where she goes. Kengo soon tires of the situation; Rica, however, decides to find out what’s going on once and for all.

A young woman's husband apparently commits suicide without warning or reason, leaving behind his wife and infant. Yumiko remarries and moves from Osaka to a small fishing village, yet continues to search for meaning in a lonely world.

The life story of Ashikaga Takauji, the founder and the first Sei-I-Tai-Shogun of Ashikaga Shogunate. He was born in the late Kamakura Period, during the time of discontentment with the Hojo clan's monopoly in the Shogunate administration. Emperor Go-Daigo took this opportunity to restore back Emperor's power. After some failed earlier attempts, he succeeded eventually with the help of a few independent Samurai Lords and Takauji's betrayal of the Hojo clan. However, it was not long before the Samurai class revolted due to unfair treatment and discontentment with the Nobles' domination in the new government. As the head of Minamoto descendants, Takauji took responsibility to confront Go-Daigo and establish Ashikaga Shogunate.

Adapted from the novel "Shihon Taiheiki" by Yoshikawa Eiji.

Set during the Edo Period, a young man from a noble family meets a young woman under a special tree called "Raiou" (the tree was struck by lightning at one time with the broken part eventually sprouting out cherry blossoms). The young woman lived freely in the mountains after she was abducted as a young child. The couple soon fall in love under the Raiou tree, but become acutely aware of their different social positions & the ramifications it has on their relationship. Narimichi (Okada Masaki), born to the high ranking Tokugawa family, spends his sheltered days bored and lonely. One night, the family retainer, Seta Sukejiro (Koide Keisuke) tells Narimichi of a story involving Tenku, a monster who resides in the mountains near his hometown of Setamura. Narimichi is fascinated by the tale and heads off to Setamura with Seta Sukejiro. Rai (Aoi Yu) lives on the mountains near Setamura. She lives with her foster father Riemon (Tokito Saburo). 20 years ago Riemon refused orders to kill young Rai over disputes of water rights and since then has raised her as his own child. Rie often threatens villagers who come into the mountains to not damage the mountains. On the way to Setamura, Narimichi decides to ride alone into the mountains to where the rumored Tenku lives. There he comes across Rai. Narimichi, now back in Setamura, tells Sukejiro of a female Tenku he came across in the mountains. Sukejiro responds that he is sure the woman he saw is his younger sister Yu - who was kidnapped 20 years ago. Rie, who was told by her foster father to go live with her birth family, then comes to live in the village of Setamura as Yu. Narimichi and Yu meet once again near the lightning tree. Yu, having grown up alone in the mountains, knows nothing of the class system & treats Narimichi in a frank, honest way. They are both attracted to each other...