Cruel Story of Youth

The Dawn of Asia

A TV drama consisting of thirteen episodes about the trans-China/Japan collaboration of revolutionaries in the early twentieth century. It was Nagisa Oshima’s rare attempt to direct a TV drama in a social atmosphere in which Japan was embracing postwar prosperity as well as the effects of permeating mass media. Making an effort to reach out to the mass audience through a seemingly conventional method of filmic representation, Dawn of Asia takes up the epic of trans-Asiatic solidarity while challenging nationalism on both sides.

Mao Tse-Tung and the Cultural Revolution

Nagisa Oshima's documentary details the rise of Chairman Mao during the revolution and shows the Communist Party's struggle and cultural upheaval. Made in 1969 for NTV station, this TV documentary also questions Mao's dictator tendency during the cultural revolution.

Death by Hanging

A Korean man is sentenced to death in Japan but somehow survives his execution, sending the authorities into a panic about what to do next.

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence

Island of Java, 1942, during World War II. British Major Jack Celliers arrives at a Japanese prison camp, run by the strict Captain Yonoi. Colonel John Lawrence, who has a profound knowledge of Japanese culture, and Sergeant Hara, brutal and simpleton, will witness the struggle of wills between two men from very different backgrounds who are tragically destined to clash.

Boy

A family of four lives off of scams in which they pretend to be injured by automobiles.

Empire of Passion

A married woman and her lover murder her husband and dump his body into a well, but his ghost returns to haunt them as the local gossip intensifies.

The Christian Revolt

In Tokugawa-era (1637) Shimabara, oppressed peasant Christians revolt against the shogunate with the aid of charismatic Christian rebel leader Shiro Amakusa.

The Ceremony

Oshima’s magisterial epic, centering on the ambivalent surviving heir of the Sakurada clan, uses ritual and the microcosm of the traditional family to trace the rise and fall of militaristic Japan across several decades.

In the Realm of the Senses

A passionate telling of the story of Sada Abe, a woman whose affair with her master led to an obsessive and ultimately destructive sexual relationship.

Taboo

Set during Japan's Shogun era, this film looks at life in a samurai compound where young warriors are trained in swordfighting. A number of interpersonal conflicts are brewing in the training room, all centering around a handsome young samurai named Sozaburo Kano. The school's stern master can choose to intervene, or to let Kano decide his own path.

Night and Fog in Japan

Long takes and a highly theatrical visual approach combine to form a tense and confrontational look at the decline of a socialist student activists' movement in Japan.

Yakuza Graveyard

A police investigator cracks down on yakuza business, but once he realizes the police are in negotiations with certain factions, he sides with his own syndicate of choice.

The Sun's Burial

In Osaka's slum, capricious folks without futures engage in pilfering, assault and robbery, prostitution, and the trading of ID cards and blood.

The Forgotten Imperial Army

This documentary examines the plight of Korean veterans who were conscripted into the Japanese imperial army during World War II and later left destitute in postwar Japan. Many, disabled by their service, are denied compensation because of their Korean nationality. Filmed for Japanese television, the work confronts public apathy and exposes the unresolved moral responsibility Japan bears toward those who fought in its name.

Violence at Noon

Two young women must come to terms with the fact that a man they're deeply linked to is a murdering rapist.

Tomorrow's Sun

Shochiku's up-and-coming stars take the stage in a series of short skits parodying popular films of the time.

Monster

In 1989, prostitute Aileen Wuornos befriends and enters a relationship with a young woman named Selby. Determined to straighten out her life, Aileen's limited education lands her back on the corner. She's raped by a trick, who she kills. A string of murder and robbery follows that ultimately leads Aileen to becoming America's first female serial killer.

The Young and the Damned

A group of juvenile delinquents live a violent life in the infamous slums of Mexico City; among them Pedro, whose morality is gradually corrupted and destroyed by the others.

A Clockwork Orange

In a near-future Britain, young Alexander DeLarge and his pals get their kicks beating and raping anyone they please. When not destroying the lives of others, Alex swoons to the music of Beethoven. The state, eager to crack down on juvenile crime, gives an incarcerated Alex the option to undergo an invasive procedure that'll rob him of all personal agency. In a time when conscience is a commodity, can Alex change his tune?

Class of 1984

Andy is a new teacher at an inner city high school that is unlike any he has seen before. There are metal detectors at the front door and the place is basically run by a tough kid named Peter Stegman. Soon, Andy and Stegman become enemies and Stegman will stop at nothing to protect his turf and drug dealing business.

Another 48 Hrs.

For the past four years, San Francisco cop Jack Cates has been after an unidentified drug kingpin who calls himself the Ice Man. Jack finds a picture that proves that the Ice Man has put a price on the head of Reggie Hammond, who is scheduled to be released from prison on the next day.

Three Times

In three separate segments, set respectively in 1966, 1911, and 2005, three love stories unfold between three sets of characters, under three different periods of Taiwanese history and governance.

Life as a House

When a man is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he takes custody of his misanthropic teenage son, for whom quality time means getting high, engaging in small-time prostitution, and avoiding his father.

Woman in the Dunes

A vacationing entomologist suffers extreme physical and psychological trauma after being taken captive by the residents of a poor seaside village and made to live with a woman whose life task is shoveling sand for them.

The Tale of Zatoichi

The adventures of a blind, gambling masseur and master swordsman. Zatoichi targets a yakuza-controlled village, because war with a neighbouring town's smaller gang is brewing.

The Tale of Zatoichi Continues

Returning to the village where a year before he had killed Hirate, a much-admired opponent, Zatoichi encounters another swordsman and former rival in love.

The Petrified Forest

Gabby, the waitress in an isolated Arizona diner, dreams of a bigger and better life. One day penniless intellectual Alan drifts into the joint and the two strike up a rapport. Soon enough, notorious killer Duke Mantee takes the diner's inhabitants hostage. Surrounded by miles of desert, the patrons and staff are forced to sit tight with Mantee and his gang overnight.

Block Pass

Friendship and rebellion - but how will a secret play out in the masculine world of motocross? Willy and Jojo are best friends. They share a passion for motocross - whereas Willy uses it to honour his deceased father, it is only by excelling in the sport that Jojo’s father will notice him. Also the masculine world or racing is perfectly suited to suppress their own insecurities. Yet when Willy one fateful night discovers the hidden love life of Jojo, he will be forced to take sides in the wave of homophobia that follows.

Brother

A Japanese Yakuza gangster's deadly existence in his homeland gets him exiled to Los Angeles, where he is taken in by his little brother and his brother's gang.