A Chain of Islands

A pioneer farmer's stubborn dream of building Japan's greatest ranch is put to the test when a leisure resort company sets its sights on his village's land.

A sailor is stuck in the harbor due to an engine failure in his boat, and he learns that a friend of his has died, reportedly from suicide. He begins to investigate the matter himself, and finds there may be more to the story...

Set in Japan's Tenpyou era (729-749 CE), four young monks are sent to China to study Buddhism and bring a high priest back to Japan with them. The film tells the tale of the four monks' youth and the life and times of the high priest Ganjin.

The president of the Japanese National Railways is found dead during a period in which train service is plagued by numerous layoffs, strikes and shutdowns. The government says that the president was murdered; the police claim it was a suicide. A quizzical reporter follows the case for years, but the basic question remains unanswered: was the victim killed by members of the burgeoning Communist movement in Japan, or was the death stage-managed by the authorities in hopes of discrediting the Communists?

A young journalist interviews an elderly woman about being forced into prostitution in Borneo at a brothel called Sandakan No. 8.

Historical fiction about the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, on 6 August 1945, and its effects on various civilians, especially children, of that city.

A group of Japanese tourists try to forget their pasts and find themselves in India.

Two interns and a nurse are interrogated by American MPs for their involvement in an atrocity during the war: the vivisections of a downed American air crew.

Kitagawa is an engineer charged with construction of a gigantic tunnel through the Japan Alps for the transportation of equipment in the building of the massive Kurobe Dam. The tunnel crosses an earthquake fault and Kitagawa is beleaguered not only by cave-ins and flooding, but by strife between management and the workers's union. Adding to Kitagawa's stress is the knowledge that as his attention is pulled inexorably toward the tunnel construction, his youngest daughter is dying from leukemia.

A middle-aged salaryman with a typical family, living quietly in a provincial city (Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture), wakes up one morning in the summer of 1994 to find himself the prime suspect in the biggest mass-murder case of the decade.

The relationship between Tetsuro, a university student from a disgraced, burdened family, and Shino, a waitress supporting her impoverished relatives. The couple decides to marry despite the significant emotional and social hardships each faces, viewing their love as a means to overcome the shame and despair inherited from their pasts.

Sen Rikyu is a ceremonial tea master who advises warlord Hideyoshi in sixteenth-century feudal Japan. His daughter, the beautiful Lady Ogin, has an unrequited love for Lord Ukon, who has angered Hideyoshi by becoming a Christian convert. Ogin's father Rikyu also displeases Hideyoshi by opposing the warlord's plan to invade China and Korea. When the animalistic Hideyoshi is rejected by Ogin, he threatens her and her father with arrest and worse.

A film set in Nagasaki examining prejudice against atom bomb victims.

A headmaster and a novelist, looking for inspiration, regard a strange natural phenomenon before sharing stories of their own.

O-Shin is a young brothel worker who, one night, helps a young samurai escape from his pursuers. Against the warnings of her fellow workers, particularly Kikuno and the brothel's owner, O-Shin falls in love with the samurai.

Years after the death of legendary tea master Rikyu, his disciple Honkakubo attempts to resolve the mystery of the master's death.