Typhoon Club

Typhoon Club 1985

6.60

Offering a caustic immersion into the lives of disaffected junior high students on the cusp of adulthood, the film takes place over the five-day period before, during, and after a ferocious, seemingly-liberating typhoon, which six of the students endure while marooned in their school.

1985

Funeral Parade of Roses

Funeral Parade of Roses 1969

7.60

In 1960s Tokyo, Gonda owns a bar in which the gay, cross-dresser, and trans scenes meet. Gonda is in a relationship with the madam of the bar, Leda. As the younger Eddie starts a passionate affair with Gonda, she ignites the jealousy of Leda, unaware of another kind of history between them.

1969

Pastoral: To Die in the Country

Pastoral: To Die in the Country 1974

7.50

A director faces creative block while working on his latest film - a reimagination of his adolescence growing up in a mountain village in rural Japan.

1974

Death by Hanging

Death by Hanging 1968

7.40

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.

1968

Demons

Demons 1971

7.70

Tells the story of the samurai Gengobe, who seeks revenge after falling prey to the schemes of a geisha and her husband.

1971

Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets

Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets 1971

7.40

An experimental, psychedelic odyssey through Japanese subculture experienced via the eyes of a disillusioned young man, who must contend with intense familial dysfunction, psychosexual alienation, and existentialist malaise.

1971

This Transient Life

This Transient Life 1970

7.50

Near a remote Buddhist monastery, a young man falls in love with his sister and gets her pregnant. After a monk finds out, the young man becomes an assistant to a master sculptor, only to proceed to complicate matters with his affairs.

1970

Diary of a Shinjuku Thief

Diary of a Shinjuku Thief 1969

4.60

In Tokyo's Shinjuku district, the lives of a young man prone to theft, a young woman he meets at a bookstore, and a kabuki actor intersect.

1969

Distant Thunder

Distant Thunder 1981

6.80

A young man living on growing tomatoes in a greenhouse in a residential area. Tomato cultivation is as doomed as his personal life where he tries to keep alive his romance with the eccentric Kaede and parents selected fiancee Ayako.

1981

Emperor Tomato Ketchup

Emperor Tomato Ketchup 1971

5.60

In a Japanese colony, children overthrow their parental guardians and attempt to form a new society. Their plan spirals out of control and they are soon lost in a web of sexual deviation and violence.

1971

Zigeunerweisen

Zigeunerweisen 1980

6.50

A surreal period film following a university professor and his eerie nomad friend as they go through loose romantic triangles and face death in peculiar ways.

1980

Himiko

Himiko 1974

7.10

The myth of the Sun Goddess who founded Japanese society is seen through the lens of a modern view of history.

1974

Boy

Boy 1969

7.30

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

1969

Mandala

Mandala 1971

6.00

Two university students from Kyoto decide to swap partners and spend the night in an isolated motel. However, one of the couples is attacked. Desperate for answers, they search for the attackers and come across a cult that promotes sexual freedom.

1971

Mermaid Legend

Mermaid Legend 1984

6.90

After a woman is framed for the murder of her fisherman husband, she seeks out a bloody revenge on the corrupt businessmen responsible.

1984

The Human Bullet

The Human Bullet 1968

6.10

A soldier has been in the Japanese military for the entirety of WWII, and in that time, his dedication to the army has never faltered. However, as the war draws to a close, his commanding officers become increasingly desperate and push their men to ever more absurd extremes. The ridiculousness of the orders from above peak when the hero of the story is assigned to drive a one-man submarine straight into the hull of an enemy battleship.

1968

The Family Game

The Family Game 1983

6.70

A sendup of the stereotypical Japanese family: dad is a salaryman jerk, unable to relate to anyone; mom is a hopeless housewife; the older son is a moderate academic success; but the younger son is a rebellious goof-off for whom a tutor must be hired. The tutor, played by the prototypical bad boy actor Matsuda Yusaku, proceeds to blow the entire family apart.

1983

Deathmask

Deathmask 1984

4.60

Haunted by the drowning death of his own daughter, a police investigator embarks on an obsessive 10-year hunt for the identity of a dead boy, to the detriment of his family life.

1984

The Wanderers

The Wanderers 1973

5.70

Follows the fluctuating fortunes of three ronin in feudal Japan who wander from castle to castle, selling their services to whichever lord will fill their rice bowls. Though they use the servants' entrance, they still feel themselves bound by the samurai code of Bushido; and this tension leads to tragedy.

1973

Double Suicide

Double Suicide 1969

7.00

Successful and married with children, paper-mill owner Jihei knows better than to contradict the strict social and moral codes of 18th-century Japan. But when he meets the lovely courtesan Koharu, he becomes a man obsessed. Koharu returns his love, even foregoing other customers while Jihei schemes to somehow buy her freedom. His efforts yield ruinous consequences for his business and his family life, and Koharu is meanwhile purchased by another client.

1969