Hiroko Isayama

Two contract killers cross paths in the middle of the same job and realize they are childhood friends. (imdb)

Kazuo Kuroki's Ronin-Gai transpires during the final years of the time when samurais figured prominently in Japanese society. The title town is filled with prostitutes and samurai who have been disgraced. The hedonistic warriors are presented with the possibility of redemption when the women of the town are threatened. (Perry Seibert, Rovi)

Matsu, known to the prisoners as Scorpian, is locked away in the bowels of the prison as revenge for disrupting the smooth operation of the prison and for her disfiguring attack on the warden... (imdb)

Sachiko has just committed a crime. She is helped by a couple to whom she grants her confidence. Quickly this couple blackmails her and threatens to deliver her to the police. Sachiko has no other choice but to obey them.

The film opens with mobster Yasuo (Ken Mitsuishi) getting out of jail only to learn that his gang's don is dead, and that his own future is in doubt. Seething from the bad news, he sees his old high school friend Kenji (Tadanobu Asano). (allmovie.com)

A group of people model their lives on the hippie culture and share everything, including beds.

While rotting away in jail, Okamoto learns of the death of his beloved sister, Natsuko. Violently assaulted by a group of U.S. military men during a drunken joyride, she was found dead by local authorities. Haunted by the tragedy, Okamoto escapes from jail to hunt down and kill those who destroyed the life of his sister. (synapse-films.com)

Mitsuya Majime is an unsuccessful salesman. But his love of reading and dedication, as well as a post-graduate degree in linguistics, catches the eyes of Masashi Nishioka and Kouhei Araki, dictionary editors who are seeking a replacement for Araki himself. With Majime on the editing team, the group plans to produce a new dictionary called The Great Passage which would bridge the gap between people and the sea of words and would take years to complete. (wikipedia)

Set in 1937, this is the story of Asakichi, who is played by Shiuntaro Katsu, best known as being Zatoichi in 26 films. Asakichi has been disowned by his father for gambling, so he heads off to make his living in cockfighting. He, in quick order, wins some money, takes up with a fallen geisha and quickly comes in conflict with the yakuza. Besting their top man, Asakichi, is drawn into the life of a yakuza despite his efforts to remain outside of it. (imdb)

Toru Hayashi lives alone with his mother. Young salaryman whose life is staggeringly banal, he is what we can call a man stuck, until a pretty young woman moves into the apartment upstairs. Rumi Kato, charming and smart, quickly sympathizes with Toru ... One day, she confesses that she is a professional robber and asks him to join her.

Famous real-life stripper Sayuri Ichijō appears as herself in this fictional account of her daily life. The story involves Ichijō's relationships with two men: Her boyfriend, and the strip-club owner. Ichijō considers her work in striptease to be an art-form and pushes the boundaries of legality. (Wikipedia)

Set in a rural village outside of Tokyo, 'Brother And Sister' is a dark drama of obsessive family relationships marked by both violence and tenderness. Mon, the eldest daughter of an authoritarian father who has come into hard times, moves to Tokyo to earn a living. When she returns home pregnant, her brother Inokichi's rage sends her back to the city where she takes up the life of a streetwalker. (Mydramalist)

Mejika, a pretty Eurasian woman, is hired as a biology teacher at a renowned high school. She is reputed for her iron discipline. But the extremely provocative attitude of Mejika ends up worrying the school's administration.

A girl falls for a pickpocketer who gets arrested, so she hooks up with his ex-girlfriend and his ex-cellmate. (imdb)

Life in the Pep Squad is all about harsh discipline. Seniors are "Gods", juniors are "Humans", sophomores are "Slaves" and freshmen are treated like "Trash". One sunny day, two freshmen are entrusted with the task of drying out the squadron's flag; the most cherished and symbolic item of the squad. When they accidentally burn a hole in the flag with a cigarette, they blame Aota. Aota attempts to take full responsibility by committing "harakiri", but changes his mind during the process – a deep s

Okawa Family’s yakuza, Junji, is released from prison and is told to take over a local radio station by his boss. Junji tries to explain that it is not a yakuza’s job to talk on the radio, but no one listens to him. He reluctantly goes to the radio building and is met by a young, upbeat girl broadcasting a talk show and playing pop music. Will this seasoned gangster really fit in on such a show?

The rich punk Junya has only one thing in mind: to race with the police on his motorcycle. That makes him unpopular, not only with the police, even with his Bosozoku buddies, who slowly but surely distance themselves from him. Junya falls in love with the equally speed-hungry Hiroko.

On her 18th birthday, Nami witnesses the brutal murder of her parents by a man with a burn on his hand. She is then falsely accused of the crime and sent to jail. Sworn to vengeance, Nami battles corrupt officials and cruel inmates to escape prison, only to search through the underbelly of Japanese society to find the man with a burn on his hand, ‘stinging’ anyone in her way.

Junji, the protagonist of FM89.3MHz, must become the principal of a nursery school in Kabukicho after the death of the Okawa Clan's boss.

On 9 August 1945, the Americans dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. This film describes the daily life of people the day before that fateful event, their feelings of joy and sadness. For them, tomorrow would never come, the first film in Kazuo Kuroki's 'War Requiem Trilogy,' which also includes 'Utsukushii Natsu Kirishima' (2002) and 'Chichi to Kuraseba' (2004). (imdb)

Yuji Takanashi is a university philosophy professor who can’t swim. Making awkward justifications to himself about the relationship between water and people, he still decides on the spur of the moment to enroll in a swimming class. There, he encounters the teacher Shizuka Usuhara, who ignores his last-minute hesitation and enrolls him.

Based on the novel by Osamu Dazai and distributed by ATG. The story of a young man who is caught between the breakup of the traditions of a northern Japanese aristocratic family and the impact of Western ideas. In consequence, he feels himself “disqualified from being human” (a literal translation of the Japanese title) and goes down the stairs to self-destruction step by step.