5.7

Kamui gaiden

2009, Japan

• Actors: Ken'ichi Matsuyama, Koyuki, Kaoru Kobayashi, Kôichi Satô, Hideaki Ito, Sei Ashina, Ekin Cheng, Yuta Kanai, Naoyuki Morita, Shigeru Nakano, Suzuka Ohgo, Panta, Daisuke Ryû, Yukio Sakaguchi, Gorô Tamiya, Anna Tsuchiya, Tsutomu Yamazaki
• Genre: Drama
• Director(s): Yoichi Sai
• Available languages:
  • Japanese Japanese.

Once a powerful ninja, Kamui walks away from his violent and murderous ways. His travels bring him to a seashore village where he meets Hanbei, a fisherman who shares the former ninja's sense of honor. Though Hanbei's wife is wary of the stranger, the fisherman and Kamui become good friends. Life at the seaside seems idyllic but Kamui doesn't get to enjoy the peace for very long when, one day, a band of pirates arrive... It seems that his past life is catching up on him, and everything and everyone is not as it seems. Now he must draw upon his shadowy arts if he hopes to escape with his life.

  6.0

The Ramen Girl

2008, USA, Japan

• Actors: Brittany Murphy, Kosei Asami, Toshiyuki Nishida, Gabriel Mann, Sohee Park, Akiko Monou, Haruki Kobayashi, Kimiko Yo, Maria Abe, Renji Ishibashi, Daisuke Takahashi, Daniel Evans, Tammy Blanchard, Daigo Tanji, Thane Camus, Hako Ueno, Masayuki Maekawa, Yûya Ogawa, Tomoyuki Kuramoto, Yuta, NaNa, Shinji Suzuki, Ken Toyama, Jûdai Ikeshita, Sachiko Matsuura, Tomiko Ishii, Rei Okamoto, Nichita Tanabe, Ken Maeda, Takaki Uda
• Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
• Director(s): Robert Allan Ackerman
• Available languages:
  • English English.

Abby, four years out of college, an aimless child of privilege, comes to Tokyo to be with her boyfriend, who promptly leaves for Osaka. She wants to stay in Tokyo in hopes he'll come back to her, but she's miserable: she speaks little Japanese and has a dull job as a law-firm gopher. She stumbles into the neighborhood ramen shop operated by the aging master chef Maezumi and his wife Reiko. His soup cheers Abby, so she decides to apprentice herself to him. He's uninterested, she's insistent, so he shouts at her and gives her all the cleaning to do. Weeks go by; she's persistent. Will he ever actually teach her to cook? And if he does, will she bring the requisite spirit to the job?

  7.9

Kagemusha

1979, Japan

• Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Kenichi Hagiwara, Jinpachi Nezu, Hideji Ôtaki, Daisuke Ryû, Masayuki Yui, Kaori Momoi, Mitsuko Baisho, Hideo Murota, Takayuki Shiho, Kôji Shimizu, Noboru Shimizu, Sen Yamamoto, Shuhei Sugimori, Kota Yui, Yasuhito Yamanaka, Kumeko Otowa, Tetsuo Yamashita, Kai Ato, Takashi Ebata, Hiroshi Shimada, Yu Shimaka, Toshiaki Tanabe, Yoshimitsu Yamaguchi, Eiichi Kanakubo, Akihiko Sugizaki, Yugo Miyazaki, Masatsuga Kuriyama, Norio Matsui
• Genre: Drama, History, War
• Director(s): Akira Kurosawa
• Available languages:
  • English English.

When a powerful warlord in medieval Japan dies, a poor thief recruited to impersonate him finds difficulty living up to his role and clashes with the spirit of the warlord during turbulent times in the kingdom.

  8.3

Tengoku to jigoku

1963, Japan

• Actors: Toshirô Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Kyôko Kagawa, Tatsuya Mihashi, Isao Kimura, Kenjiro Ishiyama, Takeshi Katô, Takashi Shimura, Jun Tazaki, Nobuo Nakamura, Yûnosuke Itô, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Minoru Chiaki, Eijirô Tôno, Masao Shimizu, Yutaka Sada, Masahiko Shimazu, Toshio Egi, Kôji Mitsui, Kyû Sazanka, Susumu Fujita, Kamatari Fujiwara, Yoshio Tsuchiya, Kazuo Kitamura, Gen Shimizu, Akira Nagoya, Jun Hamamura, Masao Oda, Kô Nishimura, Yoshifumi Tajima
• Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
• Director(s): Akira Kurosawa
• Available languages:
  • Japanese Japanese.

An executive mortgages all he owns to stage a coup and gain control of the National Shoe Company, with the intent of keeping the company out of the hands of incompetent and greedy executives. He needs the same money, though, to pay the ransom that will possibly save a child's life. His resolution of that dilemma -- the certain loss of the company vs. the probable loss of the child -- makes for one distinct drama, and an ensuing elaborate police procedure makes for a second.