Drive-In Gamo

Kenji Nakagami, one of the most notable Japanese writers of the post-war, died in 1992. His work reveals a strong connection to his homeland, Kishu: a mountainous region that connects to the Pacific Ocean through a river. "To The Alley" (alternative title) is a documentary about Kenji's life. Incorporating 16 mm images from the writer's personal archive and adding new footage, director Shinji Aoyama travels through the paths of the life and art of the Japanese writer.

In rural Japan, the survivors of a tragedy converge and attempt to overcome their damaged selves, all while a serial killer is on the loose.

In this humorous paean to the joys of food, a pair of truck drivers happen onto a decrepit roadside shop selling ramen noodles. The widowed owner, Tampopo, begs them to help her turn her establishment into a paragon of the "art of noodle-soup making". Interspersed are satirical vignettes about the importance of food to different aspects of human life.

One day, a middle-aged man, Fujimoto Makoto, is standing on a train platform, about to jump in front of a train. Nakashiro Kana and Tasaki Shota both happen to be on the same platform, and sensing what is about to happen, they quickly pull him back to safety. There's a reason why Kana and Shota realized Makoto's intentions, they both have the kind of emotional scars that can't be put into words. Even after so much pain, through a series of e-mails, they've become attracted to one another and slowly learn to open up their hearts once again.

A strikingly beautiful young woman is trained from birth to be a deadly instrument of revenge against the swindlers who destroyed her family.

A.D. 2015: A virus spreads in many cities globally, a suicidal disease infected by pictures. Once infected, the diseased will soon meet death. They have no way of fighting back, filled with fear and despair. The media calls it the 'Lemming Syndrome'.

Shortly after moving to the suburbs, the Kobayashis start to come undone. Convinced a family curse is at the root of their erratic behavior, the man of the house takes it upon himself to course-correct before it takes the last of their sanity.

Abandoned by his mother, Kenji scrapes out a meager existence doing odd jobs, including driving bar hostesses and their customers home. Besides this, he cares for the sister of an incarcerated friend and a young illegal immigrant. Eventually, his life reaches a turning point.

Kaoru, a wealthy woman whose youth is fading, abandons the hustle and bustle of the city to live peacefully in a home on the coast. There, she takes care of an old deaf, dumb and blind man as if he were an insect, a child or a pet. He can’t do anything for himself, so she feeds him and accompanies him on his walks. This strong mutual dependency offers Kaoru an escape from society and allows her to free herself from restrictions imposed by common sense.

With the help of a mysterious acquaintance, a former low-level yakuza tracks down and kidnaps the man he believes kidnapped and murdered his daughter, but others are soon implicated in the death.

This is Ogawa Productions’ first major film from their Yamagata period. They had already started photography on Magino Village -A Tale but they were drawn to this village deep in the high country above Magino when a particularly cold bout of weather threatened crops. Inevitably, their attention strayed from the impact of weather and geography on the harvest to the “life history” of Furuyashiki Village. On the one hand, Ogawa returns to his roots by playing with the conventions of the science film. At the same time, he discovers a local, peripheral space in which to think about the nation and the state of village Japan. From this “distant perspective” in the very heart of the Japanese mountains, Ogawa discovers a village still dealing with the trauma of global warfare and struggling for survival as their children flee for the cities.

After killing the man he believes murdered his daughter, a white-collar worker returns to his mundane life, until he's approached by a man offering a mysterious job opportunity.

Three couples stay at a lakeside cottage with their children. They want them to prepare intensely for a prestigious high school entrance exam with the help of a private tutor. One night, one of the wives confesses to her husband that she has killed his mistress.

Believing his boss double-crossed him, recently released gangster Yasuo is on his way to find the betrayer, but before setting out, he asks Kenji to care for his mentally challenged sister and a mysterious black bag.

A talk show hostess takes a camera crew out to an abandoned factory to investigate a purported snuff film that was made there. As she gets closer to the truth, she and her friends are subjected to a brutal nightmare.

Three high-school students tangle with indulgent yakuza and lackadaisical police as they set out in search of the class bully, who has been kidnapped.