• Alternative Title: Hotaru no Haka
• Japan Casts:
  Akemi Yamaguchi, Ayano Shiraishi, Tsutomu Tatsumi, Yoshiko Shinohara
• Description:

  Based on an autobiography by Akiyuki Nosaka, the film, set during the bombing of Japan in –of all times– World War II, centers on Seita, a loving, headstrong Navy soldier’s son and his innocent little sister, Setsuko. Their fatal struggle for survival begins right at the start, when both are bombed out of house and home by American B-29s. Mom is seriously wounded and found wrapped in bandages at a hospital, where she dies shortly after. The children move to Nishinomiya to stay with their aunt. Auntie, a cold, bitter, self-serving woman, has no patience with Seita or Setsuko, especially when they would rather chase after fireflies at moonlight, play by the beach, or lounge around the house instead of helping out. After butting heads with Auntie long enough, the children decide to run away, setting up home in an abandoned cave by the lake. Both try by all means to live off of vegetables or whatever food they can afford to trade and/or steal, to no avail….

  Read more »

• lternative Title: Saga no gabai-baachan
• Genre: Family
• Film Date: June, 2006
• Japan Casts:
  Kazuko Yoshiyuki, Taro Yamamoto
• Description:

  Set in a rural village in southern japan in the late 1950s, the film tells the story of “gabai“ (or “super“) Granny and her grandson Akihiro, who ends up living with her for eight years. Granny is full of power and an expert at Yamamoto Taro, Suzuki Yôma, positive thinking. Through her, Akihiro learns to find the bright side of their poor postwar life and especially to never give up.

  Heartwarming portrait of life in postwar Japan, with legendary Yoshiyuki Kazuko from Oshima Nagisa’s Empire of Senses (1976) as resolute Granny. In the role of the mother Kudoh Youki, who’s achieved international fame in Snow Falling on Cedars (1999) and Memoirs of a Geisha (2005). Based on the bestseller Saga no Gabai Baachan (Gabai Granny from Saga) (2005), in which popular comedian Shimada Yôshichi depicts his childhood memories.

• Alternative Title: 監督·ばんざい!
• Genre: Comedy, Drama
• Film Date: June, 2007
• Japan Casts:
  Anne Suzuki, Kayoko Kishimoto, Kazuko Yoshiyuki, Keiko Matsuzaka , Takeshi Kitano, Toru Emori
• Description:

  Takeshi Kitano plays a version of himself in which he’s a struggling director cycling through a number of different genres in an effort to complete his latest project.

Alternative Title: Hu Die Fei
Genre: Drama, Romance
Taiwan Casts:
Chou Yu Min, Li Bing Bing, Maggie Shiu, Roy Cheung, Wong Yau Nam, Yao Yung
Description:
Tung (played by Chou Yu Min) is a popular student at his college. He was initially dating Fan, the college’s Queen, but became attracted to Gia (played by Li Bing Bing) whom he fell in love at first sight.
One day, Gia and Tung had a quarrel and when Tung gave chase to Gia on his motorcycle, he had a car accident and died. After the accident, Gia isn’t herself anymore and relies on medication to control her emotions.
Three years have passed since Tung’s death. Gia has graduated and works as a legal assistant in a law firm. Life is busy but she feels empty. She does not know if it is because of guilt or that she misses him.
Her doctor, Dr. Yuen (played by Roy Cheung) advises her to stop the medication and move on with her life. However, once she stops the medication, she begins to see Tung in her dreams. She suspects that her encounters with Tung are real. At the same time, she realizes that her love for Tung is true and she has never stopped loving him. Read more »

Alternative Title: Gong Fu Guan Lan,Kung Fu Guan Lan,Slam Dunk
Genre: Action, Comedy
Taiwan Casts:
Baron Chen, Charlene Choi, Eric Tsang, Jay Chou, Will Liu, Wilson Chen
Description:The film revolves around an orphaned boy who grew up in a kung fu university and becomes a talented basketball player. The youngster, Fang Shi Jie (Jay Chou) grew up at the Kung-Fu School. He practiced excellent Kung-Fu and is equipped with good skills. When he is punished by his principal to stay on the streets for one night, he demonstrates his incredible accuracy to a down-and-out hustler, Wang Li. On the pretext of helping him search for his family, Wang Li invites him to play basketball at ‘First University’ as the new star of its basketball team. Meanwhile, Wang Li capitalizes on media interest in Shi-Jie to make money via interviews and news articles…

Alternative Title: Bu jian bu san, Good Bye, Dragon Inn
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Film Date: July, 2004
Taiwan Casts:
Chao-Jung Chen, Chun Shih, Kang-Sheng Lee, Kiyonobu Mitamura, Kuei-Mei Yang, Shiang-Chyi Chen, Tien Miao
Description:A Japanese tourist takes refuge from a rainstorm inside a once-popular movie theater, a decrepit old barn of a cinema that is screening a martial arts classic, King Hu’s 1966 “Dragon Inn.” Even with the rain bucketing down outside, it doesn’t pull much of an audience — and some of those who have turned up are less interested in the movie than in the possibility of meeting a stranger in the dark

Genre: Thriller
Japan Casts:
Izam , Naohito Fujiki, Ryo Ishibashi, Ryudo Uzaki, Yukie Nakama
Description:
Advertising executive Shunsuke Sakuma (Naohito Fujiki) is at the top of his game. Winning numerous advertising awards, the cool Shunsuke lives a life most men only dream of. He luckily lands a new massive product campaign for Mikado Beer, Japan’s largest conglomerate corporation. Working on the project for almost two years with an estimated three-billion Yen invested, the project would “make” Shunsuke. But in its final stages, the project is suddenly dropped by a single man - Katsutoshi Katsuragi (Ryo Ishibashi) the son of the original founder and Vice President of Mikado Beer.

Declared “incompetent” by peers in the world of advertising and replaced by a nobody on the project, Shunsuke gets drunk and drives to Katuragi’s mansion to “tell him off.” But instead, he sees a girl climbing out from the house and trails her. The “girl” happens to be Juri Katsuragi (Yukie Nakama), Katsutoshi Katsuragi’s eldest daughter from a mistress. Shunsuke approaches Juri, threatening that he would tell her father if she did not come with him. Initially, Shunsuke planned to bring her back to Katuragi to win his favor, but after thinking things through, he plots a “payback” scheme by kidnapping Juri. Juri, not wanting to stay with her father, goes along with the kidnapping. Scared of the media frenzy that would result if they found out that he had an extramarital affair, Katsutoshi Katsuragi goes along with the kidnapping. . . or does he? In a world of players where everyone is playing a game, who is the one to pull the strings? . . .

Alternative Title: Doraggusutoa gâru
Film Date: November, 2007
Total Videos: 1
Japan Casts:
Masatô Ibu, Akira Emoto, Rena Tanaka, Yuji Miyake
Description:
Motoki Katsuhide’s “Drugstore Girl” is a light, cute, and often pathetic comedic story of a beautiful young pharmacology student who turns a group of middle-aged men into raving, lecherous gits whilst starting a new life in a new town. Obayashi Keiko (Tanaka Rena) finds her live-in boyfriend cheating on her and subsequently bolts her apartment in Shinjuku, boarding the JR and basically disembarking at a random station. She ends up in the town of Masao on the outskirts of Tokyo-to and there she begins a new life (except for the fact that she has her pharmacology classes back in the city). Whimsically letting things fall into place, she lands a job at “Hustle Drug”, a new Wal-Mart sort of super store which threatens to put the local mom & pop merchants out of business. A group of middle-aged men - consisting of three of the local merchants (druggist, baker and kombini owner), a monk and Keaton-esquire homeless man - initially plan to sabotage the grand opening of Hustle Drug, but one sight of the lovely Obayashi and the old boys quickly forget about their economic agenda. When their leader Nabeshima (Emoto Akira) discovers that Obayashi plays lacrosse, the old boys set out to learn this strange new sport, complete with fishing nets and protective gear made from cardboard boxes and bamboo.

Genre: Action, Fantasy
Film Date: June, 2007
Total Videos: 1
Japan Casts:
Abe Atsushi, Kou Shibasaki, Satoshi Tsumabuki

Alternative Title: The Last 23 Days of L
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Film Date: January, 2008
Total Videos: 1
Japan Casts:
Bokuzo Masana, Erika Toda, Ken’ichi Matsuyama , Kiyotaka Nanbara , Masanobu Takashima , Mayuko Fukuda, Megumi, Renji Ishibashi, Sei Hiraizumi, Shingo Tsurumi , Shunji Fujimura, Yuta Kanai
Description:
Ken’ichi Matsuyama reprises his role as L Lawliet from the previous Death Note films. The film chronicles the final 23 days of L’s life, as he solves one final case involving a bioterrorist group that aims to wipe out much of humanity with a virus with ten times the infectiousness of Ebola, taking a boy, the sole survivor of its use in a village in Thailand, and a junior high schooler named Maki Nikaido under his wing.Shunji Fujimura also reprises his role as Watari, though he dies early in the film as per the events of The Last Name. The characters Misa Amane, death god Ryuk, and Light Yagami also all have brief cameos in the film.