Miki Odagiri

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.

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.

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

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

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 young woman, who must support her father as a middle-aged man's mistress, finds herself falling in love with a student closer to her age.

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.