Movies: Kazuko Shirakawa

On a cold Monday morning, a group of counselors clock in at an old-fashioned social services office. Their task is to interview the recently deceased, record their personal details, then, over the course of the week, assist them in choosing a single ...

Matsuoi and his wife Tsuya moved to Oshima City because of her unpredictable character. Even though Tsuya continues to have affairs, Matsuoi loves her and is a devoted husband. Tsuya is then diagnosed with a cancer and later goes into a coma. Matsuoi...

Yukio is an ex-farmer working as a dump-truck driver in Kashima. Haunted by the drowning of his two young sons, whose names he has had tattooed on his back in penance, and locked in a sibling rivalry with his traditional but urbane younger brother wh...

Shigematsu Shizuma, who lives with his family in a village near Fukuyama, was in Hiroshima with his wife and niece just after the devastating atomic bombing, a tragedy that cruelly took the lives of thousands of people and forever marked the harsh ex...

A thief, a murderer, and a charming lady-killer, Iwao Enokizu is on the run from the police....

A working-class housewife is sexually unsatisfied by her husband. When she seeks extramarital relationships, her affairs are discovered by a brothel-owner who then blackmails the woman into working as a prostitute for her....

Yuki is a 2nd year high school student. She volunteers at a paediatrics ward for her summer vacation, because she wants to witness the moment a person dies. She got that thought after feeling envious of a transfer student's story of seeing a friend's...

The film depicts carnivalesque atmosphere summed up by the cry "Ei ja nai ka" ("Why not?") in Japan in 1867 and 1868 in the days leading to the Meiji Restoration. It examines the effects of the political and social upheaval of the time, and culminate...

A story of three escort girls living in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. They work at the same escort service while feeling lonely in their urban lives....

A documentary compilation that shows various clips from the Roman Porno series of movies from 1971 to 1988....

A sendup of the stereotypical Japanese family: dad is a salaryman jerk, unable to relate to anyone; mom is a hopeless housewife; the older son is a moderate academic success; but the younger son is a rebellious goof-off for whom a tutor must be hired...

Sayaka is a sexually frustrated housewife whose husband rarely talks and is always busy with work. But she soon finds an antidote to her loneliness and boredom in the form of a door-to-door salesman in this erotic drama....

Rokuheita Narumi is fascinated by oriental art and works as the director of the Saho Art Museum in Nara. His wife, Noriko, is unable to leave Tokyo, despite his wishes, and the two live separately. Feeling lonely and neglected by her husband, she imm...

A man and a woman drift ashore after a typhoon. The man, dead, is an escaped perpetrator, and the woman, alive, is a hairdresser Masako. A detective in charge of an embezzlement case is tracking the whereabouts of disappeared money and suspects Masak...

The story follows the social intercourse between a cameraman, Masaya, with a visual impairment, and Misako who disconnects from the world....

24-year-old OL Chie Ikeshita's (Yuriko Yoshitaka) motto is to try various things to enjoy life. Chie spends her time accordingly to her motto. Chie Ikeshita then starts to date 5 different men and adjusts herself to the different situations. Up to t...

Shuichi and Nobuko are an ordinary, young couple, a promising company employee and his pretty wife. They think nothing can mar their peaceful life but nothing is permanent in this world and Shuichi's company goes bankrupt. Shuichi feels lost. He miss...

Tetsuaki's struggling to write a novel while his mother fades; Mitsuko's engagement has been forced upon her unwillingly; the two individuals run away to share their grief....

In the heart of Osaka's old neighborhoods lies a run-down apartment building known as "Copo." Its thin walls and lack of privacy are home to a group of residents, each struggling with their own pasts and uncertainties. Yuri, a part-time worker, has f...

Existential study on a misplaced workers and ex-prisoner who moves through the city and his influence on other characters' lives....