Masahiro Motoki

Edogawa Rampo is a writer whose latest work is censored by the government, deemed too disturbing and injurious to the public to be allowed to be published. However, after burning his drafts, his publisher shows him a newspaper with an account of events just like his forbidden story. As the film progresses, fantasy and reality intermingle in a tale that draws heavily on influences from Poe and Stoker’s Dracula. The film’s strongly Expressionistic direction skillfully combines a variety of media (animation, computer-generated imagery, grainy black-and-white fast film stock, color negatives) for artistic effect.Read More »

Synopsis:
Kyoritsu University’s sumo club is in danger of being shut down after years of failure and general disinterest. The hopeless Aoki (a hilarious performance by Naoto Takenaka) is the sole remaining member of the school’s once proud sumo team. At the start of a new school year, however, Professor Anayama (Akira Emoto) manages to recruit four new members, an unlikely cast of misfits who seem to be capable of doing nothing but heaping further embarrassment onto the woeful team. Can this motley crew of ragamuffins revive interest in the traditional Japanese sport and return the school team to respectability?Read More »

With the breakup of his Tokyo orchestra, a young cellist returns with his adoring wife to his hometown. Searching for work, he responds to a cryptic ad for work in “Departures”, only to find out that the position is in the ritual preparation of corpses.Read More »

Quote:
Yohei, a punk rocker, has to become a Buddhist monk in order to inherit a mountain temple. Yohei though initially rebelling against the tough monastic discipline learns to adjust. Then his girlfriend shows up, enticing him to return to his rock ‘n’ roll roots.Read More »

Synopsis
A salaryman and yakuza are each sent by their bosses to a remote Chinese village but discover more then they expected.Read More »

Synopsis
Departures follows Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki), a devoted cellist in an orchestra that has just been dissolved and who is suddenly left without a job. Daigo decides to move back to his old hometown with his wife to look for work and start over. He answers a classified ad entitled “Departures,” thinking it is an advertisement for a travel agency only to discover that the job is actually for a “Nokanshi” or “encoffineer,” a funeral professional who prepares deceased bodies for burial and entry into the next life. While his wife and others despise the job, Daigo takes a certain pride in his work and begins to perfect the art of “Nokanshi,” acting as a gentle gatekeeper between life and death, between the departed and the family of the departed. The film follows his profound and sometimes comical journey with death as he uncovers the wonder, joy and meaning of life and living.Read More »

Those who know Japanese cult director Takashi Miike only through his shock and gore films – Ichi the Killer and Audition are both absolute classics of the genre – will be in for a surprise with The Bird People of China. Bird People stands as absolute proof that, although Miike will likely always be best known for his more extreme films, the man has a surprising degree of depth to him and is more than capable of turning out world class serious film.Read More »