Asian Drama

Following the ascension to power of Taira no Kiyomori, the Minamoto clan is exiled. Minamoto no Yoritomo meets Masako, the sister of Hojo Yoshitoki and later marries her. Following this marriage, the gears of Yoshitoki's destiny begin to turn.

Tanimura Tsutomu is a 30-year-old man, living in a provincial city. He works as a private secretary for Kawashima Shohei, who is a member of the House of Representatives and he has strong support from his constituents. One day, Kawashima Shohei collapses. Around this time, the House of Representatives is dissolved. For the next House of Representatives election, Kawashima Shohei’s 45-year-old daughter, Kawashima Yumi, decides to run for office.

Sagara Ryosuke is an ordinary salaryman and he works for a mid-size shipping company. He is a good natured person. His family consists of his wife Maho, high school student daughter and elementary school student son. Maho works part-time at a supermarket. They are a happy family, but, Maho and their two children suddenly disappear. There are no clues about their disappearance. Ryosuke gets the attention of the media and public. He tries to find the truth behind his family's disappearance with the help of his subordinate Ninomiya Mizuho at work.

The story of a young man who has felt since childhood utterly alien from others around him. Since that time he has learned to put on a face to hide his alienation. He feels incapable of belonging to the human society, especially so by society's refusal to take him seriously. He then follows a descent into alcohol, drugs, and suicide...

Based on one of the best-selling Japanese novels by Dazai Osamu.

Futaba, whose husband suddenly left her one year ago, lives with her shy daughter, Azumi. When Futaba abruptly receives a diagnosis of a terminal illness, she aims to use the brief amount of time she has left to bring back her husband, restart the family's shut-down bathhouse business, and set Azumi on the path to independence.

Asako (Rie Miyazawa) lives with two cats, named Gou Gou and Bi, in Kichijoji, Tokyo. She works as a popular manga artist. Her assistant Minami (Haru Kuroki) prepares to work independently as a manga artist. Iida (Atsuko Maeda) applies for Minami’s former assistant position.

In bustling, 19th-century Edo, demons lurk in the shadows, disguised in human form. They are loathe to show their true faces, for even in disguise, they can easily be spotted and slain by the arrogant Demon Wardens. But then Bizan, the beautiful leader of the demons, appears to Kuninari, the captain of the Demon Wardens and smugly tells him that the rebirth of Ashura, the Queen of the Demons, has been foretold, and that mans reign over the world will soon end.

Hiroshi (Yojiro Noda) has given up on his dreams of becoming a painter and works part-time cleaning office windows. He learns that he has only 3 months left to live. During his last summer, high school student Mai (Hana Sugisaki)...

The plot of ''Lonely Heart'' concerns a gunman who murders all the occupants of a bookstore. But this quickly becomes the story of the policemen who investigate the crime. One of them was engaged to one of the victims and must now go on with his life. Another, the man with the two children, is still pondering his wife's defection.

In timeline at least, this is a sequel to director Teshigahara's earlier film Rikyu, which can be found on Asia Torrents here: RIKYU It follows the lives of Princess Go and Lord Oribe Furuhata from just after Rikyu committed 'sepukku' when Hideyoshi Toyotomi was in power until just after Lord Oribe's death when Shogun Ieyasu Tokagawa was in power. Though the daughter of the Lord of the Maeda clan, Princess Goh was adopted at birth by Hideyoshi, the supreme ruler at the time, who until that point had been unable to sire any children. He brought her up almost as a son and spoiled her quite completely. She was very intelligent and became highly skilled in the martial arts. She was also very headstrong and the arrogance of her youth matured into an imperious self-confidence as she aged. Throughout her life she used the more assertive (and usually masculine) form of the first person pronoun (ware) rather than the more socially acceptable, less assertive form generally used by women (watashi). There was nothing reticent or weak about this woman. Her story shows us her youth and early friendship with Lord Oribe during Hideyoshi's reign and then her later life under a virtual house arrest at her family mansion in Kaga. It is her attempt to renew her friendship with Oribe by inviting him to a tea ceremony with Lords Ukon and Tadaoki that stirs up not totally unforseen troubles. Intertwined with her storyline is the life of Lord Oribe who inherits Rikyu's position as Tea Master to Hideyoshi, although that comes with a thinly vieled threat to do better or suffer a similar fate. The film opens with this scene between Hideyoshi and Oribe. It is filled with tension and threat. As an aside, there have been some criticisms of Teshigahara's direction as being stiff, especially in this sort of scene. I would suggest that they come from a complete misunderstanding of the cultural and social millieu where even a nobelman like Oribe had to be very careful of every word and gesture for fear of upsetting a man who could easily have him killed. There is a very clear stiffness and awkwardness underpinned with fear and warriness which I believe is completely intended by the director. Later in the film Oribe finds himself in a similar relationship with Ieyasu. In this case it has to do with Ieyashu's fear of a Christian rebellion and that fact that Oribe's sister had married Lord Ukon the most prominent daimyo to convert to Christianity. Also Oribe's close friend Lord Hosokawa Tadaoki had married a very prominent and influencial noblewoman who converted to Christianity and took the name Gracia. These relationships caused Ieyasu to suspect Oribe's loyalty.

Love and ambition collide when two brilliant architects compete for the same woman and the glory of success in their highly competitive field. Kakeru, a young dreamer just entering the professional world, starts out with the goal of building a magnificent church. The story unfolds when a world-famous architect, whom Kakeru idolizes but has never seen, collapses in front of him on the beach. The skillful portrayal of the intertwined loves and professional trials of these characters makes for a suspenseful and inspiring drama.

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.

Tsukasa leaves her home town to work in Tokyo. While there, she is on her own facing the fascination and challenges of the working world. Her experiences gained, together with what she sees in others, gradually lead her to grow up. She is no longer in midst of illusions and misconceptions.

A housewife named Rika Umezawa gets a part-time job at a bank in which she’s responsible for traveling to customers’ homes and collecting their deposits. In spite of receiving positive evaluations from her boss and customers alike for her courteousness and work ethic, she begins to feel a void in her life. Her husband seems to be losing interest in her and the two of them have been gradually drifting apart.

Soon, she engages in an affair with a university student named Kota and begins embezzling money from the bank customers’ deposits she’s responsible for collecting. As she spends more time with Kota and away from her husband, her theft escalates rapidly in order to fund her trysts as well as her newfound addiction to shopping.

Asako (Rie Miyazawa) lives in Kichijōji, Tokyo. She works as a popular manga artist. Everyday, she is busy meeting deadlines, but suddenly her pet Saba dies. Since the death of her pet, Asako cannot draw or even eat. Her editor Omori recommends to Asako to try moving to a particular house. After she moves in, her life does not get better. One day, when Asako walks in Inokashira Park, she meets a homeless person carrying a sick kitten. Asako wants to help the sick cat. Without telling the homeless person, Asako takes the cat to the hospital.

Asako lives in Kichijōji, Tokyo. She works as a popular manga artist. Everyday, she is busy meeting deadlines, but suddenly her pet Saba dies. Since the death of her pet, Asako cannot draw or even eat. Her editor Omori recommends to Asako to try moving to a particular house. After she moves in, her life does not get better.

One day, when Asako walks in Inokashira Park, she meets a homeless person carrying a sick kitten. Asako wants to help the sick cat. Without telling the homeless person, Asako takes the cat to the hospital.

It begins with Mitsue (Rie Miyazawa), a young librarian, rushing home in a thunderstorm, frightened out of her wits. Her terror, we soon see, is a product of the war, particularly the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, which she barely survived. She lives with her father, Takezo (Yoshio Harada), in their bombed-out house, now partly repaired. Dad is her confessor, adviser and friend, the only one she can tell about her fears, dreams and past. Most of her friends and family died in the bombing - including Dad. That Dad is with her only in spirit doesn't faze her. He looks, acts and talks like one of the living. But, as befits a ghost no longer bound by selfish earthly concerns, he is interested only in her problems. Particularly her budding relationship with the shy, bespectacled Kinoshita (Tadanobu Asano), who is researching the bombing and wants Mitsue's help - and possibly slightly more than that.

Reiko is a rich heiress to an industrial and financial business conglomerate, but she chose to work as a detective. She resents her superior, Kazamatsuri, who always seem to be making illogical deductions that causes murder cases to become cold cases. One day, her butler suddenly announces his retirement, and he chooses Kageyama as his replacement. Reiko realizes that Kageyama's deduction skills are very good after Kageyama solved a seemingly unsolvable mystery. Now, set on the Princess Reiko, the largest luxury liner in Asia, the sharp-tongued butler and Detective Reiko are challenged to solve a puzzle against 300 other passengers and crewmen.

The 42nd NHK Taiga Drama is MUSASHI. Many Japanese history buffs are familiar with The Book of Five Rings written by Miyamoto Musashi in the 17th century. Musashi's treatise on strategy and the way to lead instantly became the business executive's bible when the translated version hit the bookstores more than three hundred years later.

In 2003, the story of this legendary swordsman-philosopher-painter comes to life in the NHK Taiga Drama MUSASHI. Based on the famous biography written by Yoshikawa Eiji, this taiga drama boasts a list of stars that reads like a Who's Who of screen and television.

Orphaned before he was ten years old, Musashi (his real name is Takezo, so you'll hear his childhood friends call him by that name) grows up skilled in the martial arts. During the Battle of Sekigahara, he fights on the side of the losing Toyotomi forces, but eludes the enemy as they hunt down the vanquished soldiers. He then spends years wandering the countryside mastering the sword, becoming a stronger samurai. As his fame spreads throughout the nation, men seek him out to test their skills against him--most notably Sasaki Kojiro who faces Musashi in the ultimate Duel at Ganryujima.

The story takes place in a beautiful pavilion in 1930's Suzhou. Jade is a famous songstress courtesan, marrying into the noble house. She develops a dubious relationship with a female cousin of the family and also being admired secretly by her butler. LAN, the cousin, is a modern woman who wants to be independent and serves her country, but when she meets the charismatic Shing, an official from the North, all her plans go astray. These two women's love bears no fruit with their men and in the end, they have only each other to lean on.

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.