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?

  6.4

Dance Subaru

2007, China, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong

• Actors: Meisa Kuroki, Ara, Yûta Hiraoka, Miku Sano, Ken Maeda, Toshio Kakei, Kaori Momoi, Jae-jung Kim
• Genre: Drama
• Director(s): Chi-Ngai Lee
• Available languages:
  • Japanese Japanese.

A ballerina overcomes the odds to follow her dreams.

  7.1

Memoirs of a Geisha

2004, USA

• Actors: Suzuka Ohgo, Togo Igawa, Mako, Samantha Futerman, Elizabeth Sung, Thomas Ikeda, Li Gong, Tsai Chin, Kaori Momoi, Zoe Weizenbaum, David Okihiro, Miyako Tachibana, Kotoko Kawamura, Karl Yune, Eugenia Yuan, Yôko Narahashi, Michelle Yeoh, Kenneth Tsang, Ken Watanabe, Navia Nguyen, Natsuo Tomita, Youki Kudoh, Ziyi Zhang, Fumi Akutagawa, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Koji Toyoda, Rick Mali, Steve Terada, Laura Miro, Diane Mizota
• Genre: Drama, Romance
• Director(s): Rob Marshall
• Available languages:
  • English English.

In 1929 an impoverished nine-year-old named Chiyo from a fishing village is sold to a geisha house in Kyoto's Gion district and subjected to cruel treatment from the owners and the head geisha Hatsumomo. Her stunning beauty attracts the vindictive jealousy of Hatsumomo, until she is rescued by and taken under the wing of Hatsumomo's bitter rival, Mameha. Under Mameha's mentorship, Chiyo becomes the geisha named Sayuri, trained in all the artistic and social skills a geisha must master in order to survive in her society. As a renowned geisha she enters a society of wealth, privilege, and political intrigue. As World War II looms Japan and the geisha's world are forever changed by the onslaught of history.

  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.