Rentaro Mikuni

Harakiri

Down-on-his-luck veteran Tsugumo Hanshirō enters the courtyard of the prosperous House of Iyi. Unemployed, and with no family, he hopes to find a place to commit seppuku—and a worthy second to deliver the coup de grâce in his suicide ritual. The senior counselor for the Iyi clan questions the ronin’s resolve and integrity, suspecting Hanshirō of seeking charity rather than an honorable end. What follows is a pair of interlocking stories which lay bare the difference between honor and respect, and promises to examine the legendary foundations of the Samurai code.

Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto

Struggling to elevate himself from his low caste in 17th century Japan, Miyamoto trains to become a mighty samurai warrior.

Kwaidan

Taking its title from an archaic Japanese word meaning "ghost story," this anthology adapts four folk tales. A penniless samurai marries for money with tragic results. A man stranded in a blizzard is saved by Yuki the Snow Maiden, but his rescue comes at a cost. Blind musician Hoichi is forced to perform for an audience of ghosts. An author relates the story of a samurai who sees another warrior's reflection in his teacup.

Mitabi no kaikyô

Shinran: Path to Purity

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.

Solar Eclipse

When bribe money from a rigged election funnels into a dam construction project, collusion, lust, greed and even murder are on the ballot.

Rikyu

Late in the 1500s, an aging tea master teaches the way of tea to a headstrong Shogun. Through force of will and courageous fighting, Hideyoshi becomes Japan’s most powerful warlord, unifying the country.

Beauty and the Thief

The picture belongs to the jidai gekki (historic) genre. It is a powerful story of violence and eroticism, picturing a world at once sordid and poetic, with two central themes which intermingle to compound an admirable panel of a critical period in Japanese history: the great famine in the mid 19th Century.

Harakiri

Down-on-his-luck veteran Tsugumo Hanshirō enters the courtyard of the prosperous House of Iyi. Unemployed, and with no family, he hopes to find a place to commit seppuku—and a worthy second to deliver the coup de grâce in his suicide ritual. The senior counselor for the Iyi clan questions the ronin’s resolve and integrity, suspecting Hanshirō of seeking charity rather than an honorable end. What follows is a pair of interlocking stories which lay bare the difference between honor and respect, and promises to examine the legendary foundations of the Samurai code.

Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto

Struggling to elevate himself from his low caste in 17th century Japan, Miyamoto trains to become a mighty samurai warrior.

Kwaidan

Taking its title from an archaic Japanese word meaning "ghost story," this anthology adapts four folk tales. A penniless samurai marries for money with tragic results. A man stranded in a blizzard is saved by Yuki the Snow Maiden, but his rescue comes at a cost. Blind musician Hoichi is forced to perform for an audience of ghosts. An author relates the story of a samurai who sees another warrior's reflection in his teacup.

Mitabi no kaikyô

Shinran: Path to Purity

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.

Solar Eclipse

When bribe money from a rigged election funnels into a dam construction project, collusion, lust, greed and even murder are on the ballot.

Rikyu

Late in the 1500s, an aging tea master teaches the way of tea to a headstrong Shogun. Through force of will and courageous fighting, Hideyoshi becomes Japan’s most powerful warlord, unifying the country.

Beauty and the Thief

The picture belongs to the jidai gekki (historic) genre. It is a powerful story of violence and eroticism, picturing a world at once sordid and poetic, with two central themes which intermingle to compound an admirable panel of a critical period in Japanese history: the great famine in the mid 19th Century.

Wife

Ten years into a marriage, the wife is disappointed by the husband's lack of financial success, meaning she has to work and can't treat herself and the husband finds the wife slovenly and mean-spirited: she neither cooks not cleans particularly well and is generally disagreeable. In turn, he alternately ignores her and treats her as a servant. Neither is particularly happy, not helped by their unsatisfactory lodgers. The husband is easily seduced by an ex-colleague, a widow with a small child who needs some security, and considers leaving his wife.

Ryûri no kishi

Kiku and Isamu: Two Siblings Born in Japan

Kiku and her brother Isamu are social outcasts, children of a prostitute mother and black GI father, in postwar Japan.

Vengeance Is Mine

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

The Inugami Family

When a tycoon passes away, he unexpectedly leaves the family fortune to outsider Tamayo on the condition that she marries one of the grandsons, pitting blood against blood.

The Old Man and the Sea

An old fisherman makes the biggest catch of his life.

Hell's Kitchen

Sailor Suit and Machine Gun

A high-school girl inherits a declining yakuza organization, which seeks to repair its fortunes under her leadership.

A Story from Echigo

A sake factory worker on holiday returns to his home town, where he rapes the wife of one of his co-workers in the forest. The other man returns home to find his wife changed and suspects that she has been unfaithful.

Tokyo Untouchable

Free and Easy 11

Hama-chan accompanies Su-san on a business trip to Okinawa in the middle of the recession, but Su-san remains in low spirits over business matters.

The Burmese Harp

In Burma during the closing days of WWII, a Japanese soldier separated from his unit disguises himself as a Buddhist monk to escape imprisonment as a POW.

Neon taiheiki

Captive's Island

Seeking revenge against the guard who tormented him, a young man returns to the island where he was imprisoned in reform school. But his plans for vengeance are disturbed when he encounters a strange and beautiful young woman.

Thirst for Love

Natsuko, a Tokyo bar proprietress, and Yuki, a Kyoto Ryokan owner, vie for the affections of an advertising professional.

Free and Easy 19

Hama-chan joins a company excursion to Oita with the rest of his department including his new junior Daisuke. Beautiful Namiko, the organizer of the trip is a contract employee and her elder brother is a fisherman. Hama-chan, as always sets out to sea for a bout of angling. He is a tad surprised when Namiko's brother consults him about Namiko's status as an unmarried contract worker...

Professional Killers

A shikakenin was an under-the-cover trade that undertook killing in Edo. Hanemon of Otowa, an agency that introduced laborers and maids, was also one of these. Katsugoro Iseya was a timber dealer who had come in as a client. His target was the constructions magistrate Hanno, and the Tatsumiya who sipped on the benefits. Hanemon who had a stong code towards killing, where he would only kill those who do no good to be in the world, accepts this request. Baian Fujieda, a needle doctor would carry out the killing. However, the professional killer Baian fails to bring down Tatsumiya. Hanemon then looks to another shikakenin, the ronin Sanai Nishimura for the role. Although Sanai's ability with the sword is good, he lives poorly in a tenement, and accepts this commission on the condition that it is kept a secret from his wife and child. Here, they close in on Hanno and Tatsumiya again...

Nemuri Kyoshiro

Thirteen years after his mother took her own life as a ritual sacrifice for the Black Mass, samurai Kyoshiro (Masakazu Tamura), who lives his life with his eyes turned away from happiness, uses his beloved sword to slay his enemies who come at him.....

Akai Unmei

The story of two girls switched in an orphanage.

Hito wa sore wo scandal to iu

Akai Shisen

When Ryoko, a ballerina turned disco dancer, gets entangled in a murder and a stolen 10 million yen, she must race against time to uncover the truth and return to her hometown.

Nukata no Ōkimi

A historical romance about the life of Princess Nukata, a Manyo poetess who was loved by two brothers, Emperor Tenji and Emperor Tenmu, and the formation of an ancient nation.

Sekigahara

Blockbuster drama based on the novel Sekigahara by Ryotaro Shiba, a program dedicated to the 30th anniversary of TBS. A total of 120 actors, 3,500 extras and about 500 horses recreated the largest battle in history, the Battle of Sekigahara, in which 200,000 warriors clashed from east and west. The battle, which can be called a turning point in the history of Japan, depicts the conflict, love and hate between people on a grand scale and with a great cast.

Kazoku Netsu

Kuronuma Tomoko lives in a large house in Tokyo with her husband Kenzo, her two step sons and Kenzo's father. One day, she discovers that her husband has started seeing his previous wife again.