General Watchlist

The number-three-ranked hit-man, with a fetish for sniffing boiling rice, fumbles his latest job, which puts him into conflict with a mysterious woman whose death wish inspires her to surround herself with dead butterflies and dead birds. Worse danger comes from his own treacherous wife and finally with the number-one-ranked hit-man, known only as a phantom to those who fear his unseen presence.

White-collar worker Yamashita finds out that his wife has a lover visiting her when he's away, suddenly returns home and kills her. After eight years in prison, he returns to live in a small village, opens a barber shop (he was trained as a barber in prison) and talks almost to no-one except for the eel he "befriended" in prison. One day he finds the unconscious body of Keiko, who attempted suicide and reminds him of his wife. She starts to work at his shop, but he doesn't let her become close to him.

Five prostitutes work at Dreamland, in Tokyo's Yoshiwara district. As the Diet considers a ban on prostitution, the women's daily dramas play out. Each has dreams and motivations. Hanae is married, her husband unemployed; they have a young child. Yumeko, a widow, uses her earnings to raise and support her son, who's now old enough to work and care for her. The aging Yorie has a man who wants to marry her. Yasumi saves money diligently to pay her debt and get out; she also has a suitor who wants to marry her, but she has other plans for him. Mickey seems the most devil-may-care, until her father comes from Kobe to bring her news of her family and ask her to come home.

Episodes from the lives of a group of Tokyo slum-dwellers: Rokkuchan, an intellectually disabled boy who brings meaning and routine to his life by driving an imaginary streetcar; children who support their parents by scrounging or by tedious and ill-paying endeavours; schemers who plot or dream of escaping the shackles of poverty.

A housewife living under her tyrannical husband has her life stressfully turned upside down after getting raped by a burglar.

Amorality in Japan. Tome is born into poverty in rural Japan, in the late 1910s. Chuji, her father, dotes on her; her mother is less faithful. Tome becomes a neighbor's mistress, works at his mill as World War II rages, and has a daughter. After an affair with a mill supervisor, Tome goes to Tokyo to seek her fortune. She leaves the child, Nobuko, in Chuji's care. Tome's a maid at a brothel, learns trade from the madam, enjoys the protection of a businessman whose mistress she becomes, and is soon herself the boss. As Chuji ages and Nobuko grows up with her own ideas, can Tome's self-preserving schemes provide continued comfort? Or will the mice scamper over her?

After securing a major victory on the battlefield, Taketoti Washizu and one of his commanders, Yoshiaki Miki, find themselves lost in the maze-like Spider's Web forest. They come across a spirit-like seer who tells them of their future: both have been promoted because of their victory that day; Washizu will someday be the Great Lord of the Spider's Web castle while Miki's son will someday rule as Great Lord as well. When they arrive at the castle, they learn that the first part of the prophecy is correct. Washizu has no desire to become Great Lord but his ambitious wife urges him to reconsider. When the current Great Lord makes a surprise visit to his garrison outpost, Washizu is again promoted to commander of his vanguard but his wife reminds him of the danger that comes with the position. As pressure mounts, Wahizu takes action leading to its inevitable conclusion.

Iwao Enokizu is a middle-aged man who has an unexplainable urge to commit insane and violent murders. Eventually he is chased by the police all over Japan, but somehow he always manages to escape. He meets a woman who runs a brothel. They love each other but how long can they be together?

In mediaeval Japan a compassionate governor is sent into exile. His wife and children try to join him, but are separated, and the children grow up amid suffering and oppression.

In Yukosuka, many are able to benefit financially, legally and illegally, by the presence of the American naval base established after the war. Kinta, who is low level thug within the Himori yakuza, takes care of the yakuza's pig farm but provides some muscle in shaking down among others shopkeepers who cater and this benefit from the lucrative American military trade. Kinta is often asked to sacrifice himself for the yakuza, the promise being that the yakuza will ultimately recognize the sacrifice with bonuses and promotion within the organization. Kinta's girlfriend, Haruko, a barmaid, doesn't like his life and would prefer that they escape Yukosuka to Kawasaki where they could get jobs in her uncle's factory, something that Kinta continually resists in not wanting to be a "wage slave". Haruko is also continually pressured by her mother to prostitute herself, Mr. Gordon who is willing to pay top dollar to be his kept mistress. Kinta and Haruko's fates will be partly affected by the power struggle within the yakuza, Kinta's cohorts who may be willing to give him up for their own benefit, his boss, Tetsuji, who believes he is dying, and Himori who will do whatever necessary to retain control.

A fifty-year-old prostitute, no longer able to attract men, looks back on her sad life. Once a lady-in-waiting at the imperial court at Kyoto, Oharu fell in love with, and became the lover of, a man below her station. They were discovered, and Oharu and her family were exiled. For Oharu there followed a life filled with one sorrow and humiliation after another.

Deals with the intolerably hard life of a family of four, the only inhabitants of a very small Japanese island in the Setonaikai archipelago. Several times a day they row over to the neighboring island to fetch water for their miserable fields.

The Tokyo engineer Kariya arrives on a primitive tropical island to drill a well to provide water for the sugar mill. He is assisted on the island by Kametaro, from the inbred Futori family. Nekichi Futori is chained in a pit that he has to dig, in order to appease the gods for breaking island customs. Nekichi is in love with his sister Uma, who is a shaman priestess at the sacred shrine, that contains the only good water close to the mill. She is also the mistress of Ryu, the manager of the mill. The patriarch of the Futori family tries to get the engineer to marry his retarded daughter Toriko.

During peace in 1725, aging swordsman Isaburo is living a henpecked life when his clan lord requests that Isaburo's son marry the lord's mistress, with whom he's displeased, even though she's born him a son. Isaburo wants to refuse, but his son Yogoro accepts the woman, Ichi, and they fall deeply in love. Their love renews Isaburo, so when the clan lord's elder son dies and the lord sends for Ichi to return to his side as mother of his heir, Isaburo opposes his lord. Yogoro and Ichi, who now have a baby daughter, stand with him. The clan orders their suicide, then sends soldiers to kill them. Isaburo's only hope is to take his case to Edo to expose the clan's cruelty. Can he?

During feudal times in Osaka, Koharu, a courtesan, and Jihei, a married paper merchant, fall in love, they having met in he being one of her regular customers. Their passion for each other is all consuming, especially for Kihei who leaves the running of the paper store in the hands of his wife, Osan. At the beginning of each month - twenty-nine months thus far - Jihei writes a vow to Koharu to free her from her life so that they can be together. However, he doesn't have the money to pay her ransom, he spending whatever money he has in paying for her services. In the meantime, anyone can pay her ransom, she who would be his possession. Jihei and Koharu have vowed to commit suicide together so that they can be together for eternity if they cannot be together on Earth. Jihei and Koharu's journey is affected by several people: his brother, Magoemon, and Osan's parents, who want Jihei to to do right by Osan as her husband and father to their two young children; wealthy Tahei, who believes money should be able to get him anything, including Koharu, who she detests in return; and Osan herself, who knows more about what Jihei is doing than she may let on to him, and who has a special relationship with Koharu in getting what she wants out of her marriage. Jihei and Koharu's plans for the double suicide are also affected by thoughts of the negative consequences of doing so on the living.

A couple Takeo Omura and Takeko Kaniguchi travel across Japan with their two sons, the eldest, Toshio, who is biologically his but not hers. They are con artists, whose scam is for her to jump alongside moving vehicles feigning being hit and injured, while he, playing the outraged husband, negotiates with the worried driver for an unofficial cash settlement in return for not calling the police reporting the motorist's "guilt". She often does sustain minor injuries from the ruse. She believes that they will continue doing this work until they have enough money to settle down in one place, where he will get a legitimate job. However, he wants to continue the scam indefinitely as he, a veteran, claims that injuries he sustained during the war would prevent him from obtaining that legitimate work. When Toshio reaches age ten in 1966, they enlist him in the con, he now playing the accident victim, with Takeko now playing the concerned mother role. They even manufacture real bruises on Toshio to make the scam more convincing. Like his stepmother before him, Toshio increasingly gets real injuries doing this work. This work takes its toll on their already dysfunctional family, that dysfunction which includes lies, and physical and emotional abuse by both Takeko but most specifically Takeo. That increasing dysfunction is also due to the fact that Takeko learns that she's pregnant again. She wants to keep the baby if only because it will force them to settle down, while he wants her to abort the pregnancy. Toshio has no true perspective of love or life, he only knowing that they need money to live, this work which is the only way he knows to obtain money. He does begin to get a sense that what they are doing is wrong when he witnesses a boy only slightly older than him being extorted for money from older bullies. As an emotional escape, Toshio often thinks about running away, which may not be difficult as his parents allow him free reign while they deal with their own priorities. Toshio also immerses him and his younger brother in a fantasy world where he is an alien from the Andromeda nebula come to Earth to kill all the evildoers of the world.

In Kabuki style, the film tells the story of a remote mountain village where the scarcity of food leads to a voluntary but socially-enforced policy in which relatives carry 70-year-old family members up Narayama mountain to die. Granny Orin is approaching 70, content to embrace her fate. Her widowed son Tatsuhei cannot bear losing his mother, even as she arranges his marriage to a widow his age. Her grandson Kesa, who's girlfriend is pregnant, is selfishly happy to see Orin die. Around them, a family of thieves are dealt with severely, and an old man, past 70, whose son has cast him out, scrounges for food. Will Orin's loving and accepting spirit teach and ennoble her family?

Michiyo moved to Osaka two years ago, when her husband Hatsunosuke who works at a stock brokerage was transfered from Tokyo. She wash, cook and clean 365 days a year. All the dreams and hopes she had when they got married five years ago seems to be gone. From here on we follow the everyday life of Mr. and Mrs. Okamoto.