Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.

In the 12th century, Buddhism was still a relatively new religion in Japan. At that time, one school (Shingon) offered extensive training in complex and very demanding practices which might eventually bring about spiritual purification and realization. Various Zen schools offered students a lengthy path, literally composed of a blank wall and unceasing meditation. Yet another school (Tendai) emphasized complex metaphysics and the study of philosophical systems. Basically, all of them were designed to cater to the few who were able to give up everything else in their lives and focus on liberation, such as scholars and noblemen. In this historical and biographical drama, this is the situation that the young Shinran (1173-1263) discovered when he began exploring Buddhism as an alternative to the violence and ceaseless civil wars that racked Japan at the time.

The female members of the family of the Minister of Health and Welfare, who has just proposed a program of birth control, become pregnant one after the other. - Nikkatsu

Story of a romance between a middle-aged journalist and a young woman.

Two detectives begin a stakeout based on the slim chance of catching a murderer whom they suspect will try to reunite with an old flame.

Based on the novel by proletarian writer Sunao Tokunaga. The story is about a long strike by workers at a large printing house and the strikers' steadfastness, which neither hunger nor violence could break. The heroine of this story actively participates in her colleagues' struggle against layoffs, oppression, and police brutality.

Mokichi Asai is a widowed father living in Nara with three daughters—Chizuru, Ayako, and Setsuko. The youngest, Setsuko, plays matchmaker for her older sisters, leading to humorous and awkward romantic entanglements.

A group of Okinawan high school girls are drafted as nurses during the American invasion of the island. As the enemy army advances further, the situation for the girls becomes increasingly desperate as food and shelter run out and the number of injured climbs, leading to the film's tragic finale.

No synopsis available yet.

The actions and downfall of a man who lives a life of cold calculation, adapted from a Hideo Shirasaki novel.

No synopsis available yet.

Documentary made by Toho for the Masterworks reissue of all of its Kurosawa films. This one focuses on "Ikiru" (1952).

Japanese drama film.

A great ambition to portray with sharp satire and humor the course of modern anxiety and love that is about to be driven to despair.

A conscript from a poor background writes the Emperor asking if he can stay in the army when his service is up.

No synopsis available yet.

From runaway brides to a typhoon, the continued adventures of Ushikata police station.

Japanese drama film.

Akiko Yasutomi, an 18-year-old high school student, lives in poverty with her mother Hisako, but she has feelings for her cousin, a medical student named Masato Miki, who lives upstairs. However, when Masato becomes a part-time tutor for Akiko's classmate, Natsuko Shigeno, and Akiko becomes close to Natsuko, Akiko feels lonely. These feelings also help her to lose her purity to Junichi Yoda, whom she met by chance through an accidental mistake.

Lending money, job hunting for civilians and babysitting. All these things are usually not listed on a policeman's job description. But for the officers of this local police station, it‘s part of their daily routine. One day, patrolman Yoshii (Hisaya Morishige) finds an abandoned baby and a six year old girl standing in front of the station. When he's declined by the welfare office, orphanage and local health clinic to take them in, he decides to take care of them himself.