The Call of Zon

Witness a bizarre job interview and a dotty grandma in these five short surreal stories revolving around legendary Japanese department store Parco.

Director Jun Ichikawa spins this affectionate portrait of the people who populate Shimokitazawa, a bohemian corner of Tokyo filled with small theater companies and smoky coffeehouses.

Five young men participate in an experiment drug test, which is known as a short-term, high-paying part-time job.

Utsumi and Seto's daily routine is to spend their afterschool hours just jabbering with one another along a riverbed. Getting excited over trivial word play, agonizing over the content of an email to be sent to a girl, and, at times, talking about a serious problem, the two endlessly engage in meaningless idle talk as if it were meaningful.

A male corpse is discovered with a smashed face and burned hands. Strangely, the cause of death is determined to be strangulation. When Detective Kaoru Utsumi attempts to corroborate the victim’s ex-wife’s alibi she discovers the mysterious neighbor and only a few small clues to help her disprove a seemingly "airtight" alibi...

Masaya is a university student, but he attends a school that's not his ideal school. His days are generally gloomy. One day, he receives a letter from serial killer Haimura. He was convicted for nine murders and received the death penalty. Back when Haimura was committing his murders, he ran a bakery store. At that time, Masaya was a middle-school student and a customer at his bakery store. According to the letter, Haimura confesses to having committed eight murders, but he insists that he did not commit the last murder. Masaya begins to investigate the last murder case involving Haimura.

Shuji is an uncompromising young filmmaker at odds with Japanese society. One day he learns that his loan shark brother, who had helped to finance his films, has been executed by his own yakuza gang for failing to repay his debts.

Kotaro and Kuroe marry almost immediately in a Christian ceremony and move into an apartment. Life is completely joyous until, one day, Kuroe falls ill.

Akemi is unable to get over the death of his girlfriend, but a book leads to his encounter with Akane, a woman with a wonderful smile. He gradually falls for Akane, who soothes him with her positive outlook and cheerful disposition, but Akane has a boyfriend who has a limited amount of time left to live.

Rinko, a woman in a sexless marriage, is blackmailed by a stalker with intimate photos, forcing her into a series of erotic acts that disrupt her mundane life.

Koji Shiraishi interviews the survivors of an indiscriminate attack at a sightseeing resort and starts investigating the strange events that have been happening to them.

Sakiko, a young bank teller, has an unhealthy obsession with money. Thieves hold up the bank, kidnapping Sakiko in the process, but eventually crash their car, resulting in a suitcase stuffed with cash falling into a nearby river. For the remainder of the film, Sakiko begins a desperate quest to retrieve the money.

This enticing period melodrama depicts a long-suffering woman's relationship with her brilliant but self-destructive writer husband in postwar Tokyo. Based on a semi-autobiographical 1947 novel by Osamu Dazai, the story centers less on the womanizing, heavy-drinking, suicidal hero than on the wife who loves him. Written by Palm Springs International Film Festival

After discovering a hole in their crowded cell, nine prisoners escape their confinement to track down the key of the universe, which a fellow prisoner known as the Counterfeit King said he had hidden.

In the wake of the social unrest caused by the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, two female sumo athletes, Kiku and Tokachi, and an anarchist group called the Guillotine Society, spark an unlikely connection.

An apparitions of a young schoolgirl in a yellow rain hat, a family massacre, and a law student's suicide after he fails his bar exam are linked by the ominous recordings discovered on an audio cassette.