Best movies like Lost Paradise in Tokyo

Keiko, whom everyone calls Mama, narrates her story: she's a hostess on the Ginza, 30, a widow. She describes life's vicious cycle: acting cheerful around drunks, dressing and living well to convey confidence, needing money for these expenses and for her demanding mother and brother, and knowing she's growing older. She's of an age when she must choose: to seek marriage (difficult given her tarnished occupation), to be a kept woman, or to borrow money to buy a bar of her own. Each route has dangers, including investors demanding a return on their loans. Keiko has a quiet dignity that attracts men, but are they what they seem? Does she actually have choices?

In Tokyo, Osen is the servant girl of an unscrupulous antiques dealer, Kumazawa, who takes in the penniless Sokichi Hata. Kumazawa mistreats Sokichi and Osen, while swindling some Buddhist monks out of their temple treasures. When Kumazawa is arrested, Osen agrees to help Sokichi finance his dream of going to medical school. They live in a humble room, and eventually the only way Osen can find enough money for them is to prostitute herself during the day, without Sokichi knowing. (Will Gilbert)

On his death bed the man who raised Joji reveals that he is not his real father and that Joji’s real parents died tragically in a plane crash. Shortly thereafter Joji goes to Japan is search of his sister and his twin brother Toru. Joji’s quickly finds his sister Chihiro who is now blind and lives with their uncle. Joji one evening accidently over hears his uncle who has ties to the criminal underworld discussing his various illegal operations. Joji ‘s eavesdropping is discovered by his uncle who offers him a chance to join the organization. Joji promptly turns his uncle’s offer down which immediately puts his life in danger.

Light Yagami finds the "Death Note," a notebook with the power to kill, and decides to create a Utopia by killing the world's criminals, and soon the world's greatest detective, "L," is hired to find the mysterious murderer. An all out battle between the two greatest minds on earth begins and the winner will control the world.

The film depicts carnivalesque atmosphere summed up by the cry "Ei ja nai ka" ("Why not?") in Japan in 1867 and 1868 in the days leading to the Meiji Restoration. It examines the effects of the political and social upheaval of the time, and culminates in a revelrous march on the Tokyo Imperial Palace, which turns into a massacre. Characteristically, Imamura focuses not on the leaders of the country, but on characters in the lower classes and on the fringes of society.

A low-key private detective agency in Paris is run by Rie and her lover and partner Kishin, two ex-pats who tick along between cases by giving guided tours of the city to busloads of Japanese tourists. After the wealthy Okuyama hires them to trail his French mistress Lorraine whom he believes to be having an affair, feeble-willed Kishin finds himself seduced by this femme fatale and way out of his depth in a seamy underworld of rich Japanese businessmen, S&M games and huge piles of money.

Importing illegal automatic weapons for resale is a big business and Moe is the middleman. Even with the huge monetary rewards available, he finds that his love life is suffering and he is looking for that special someone. When he finds her, he wants to become respectable and marry, but it seems that business and a double date conspire to end this romantic relationship once and for all.

Kihachi, an unemployed worker, wanders around the industrial flatlands of Tokyo's Koto district with his two young sons, Zenko and Masako. He is unable to find a job and has to rely on his sons catching stray dogs to earn reward money for their meals. As days go by, Kihachi and the boys no longer have enough money to stay at an inn for the night. Luckily for him, he encounters an old friend, Otsune, who finds him a job and allows them to stay at her eatery house.

After a ten year absence, acclaimed filmmaker Molly Dineen is back with a new feature documentary: Being Blacker; an intimate portrait of Jamaican-born reggae producer, businessman, father, son and prominent community figure, Blacker Dread. 40 years after featuring in Dineen’s first film, Blacker and his family, friends and community in South London face the combined challenges of rapid social change, gentrification, inequality, poverty, crime and racism as they seek to secure their futures. Made with intimacy and warmth, the film takes us deep into Blacker’s world as he buries his mother, closes his business and faces prison for the first time. Being Blacker offers a rarely-heard perspective on life in Britain today.

The Chinese prince T'Su Wong Shih loves Quan Yin, the daughter of a gardener, but his uncle wants him to marry a girl of his own class. Leaving to study in the United States, the young man promises his beloved that they two will be together soon. Having finished university, one day T'Su Wong Shih visits the market of San Francisco, and at an auction of slaves, he finds Quan Yin auctioned. To save her, he agrees to pay a price of five thousand dollars but, not possessing the full amount, he makes a deal with the auctioneer for a three-year extension in which he must work to raise the money needed to rescue the girl. T'Su Wong Shih has no great success until he manages to win a large sum in a lottery. However, Quan Yin is now in danger because a Chinese gangster wants to have it and, to do that, goes to threaten the auctioneer who is forced to comply. T'Su Wong Shih is then engaged in a struggle to liberate his beloved: he defeats the gangster, rescues Quan Yin and claims her as his...

A young girl from a small parochial country village is raped and ravaged at the hands of local roughnecks, escapes to a new life in the big city of Tokyo, and finds a pretty similar fate awaiting her there.

When a young woman is seduced into joining a brothel of lusty vampires, she unwittingly shatters a truce between the vampy hookers and a band of vampire slayers who agreed to let the women live as long as they left the locals unmolested. Now that the fangs have come out, it means war.

What is the life of a Geisha like once her beauty has faded and she has retired? Kin has saved her money, and has become a wealthy money-lender, spending her days cold-heartedly collecting debts. Even her best friends, Tomi, Nobu, and Tamae, who were her fellow Geisha, are now indebted to her. For all of them, the glamor of their young lives has passed; Tomi and Tamae have children, but their children have disappointed them. Kin has two former lovers who still pursue her; one she wants to see, and the other she doesn't. But even the one she remembers fondly, when he shows up, proves to be a disappointment.

A documentary film by Peter I. Chang which traces the life of the Japanese musician Hisao Shinagawa through his early years as a folk singer in Tokyo to his current occupation as a street performer in Los Angeles.

The story of Heidi Fleiss, known as "The Hollywood Madam", who was the daughter of a prominent Los Angeles doctor and eventually became a prostitute for a well-known Los Angeles madam. She took over her boss' operation and soon was raking in $300,000 a month by hiring only the most beautiful and highest-class hookers and catering to wealthy Hollywood types, European and American corporate executives and Arab sheiks. Her operation was broken up by Los Angeles police in 1993, and she eventually went to prison for income-tax evasion.

Bonnie & Max are crew members of Pirate Zap's ship. They're tired of the life they're in a want to escape. Only problem is they have no money. Three child hostages over heard their conversation and the eldest, Amanda knows where Bonnie & Max can get loaded. As her father was a pro treasure hunter who hid a treasure and made a deal that they can have it. Max & Bonnie agreed and sneaked away with the 3 kids. And spent one month on the small island on where the treasure is said to be. Luffy and his crew got involved with the conflict. And end up battling against the Bayan & Zap Pirates who both want the same thing. And Amanda is the key to locating the treasure. Will the treasure be claimed by the right people?

Prostitutes in burnt out Tokyo ghetto of post-WWII Japan peddle their flesh and save one-third of their money for a proposed dancehall to be named Paradise. The hookers live in a bombed-out building, but they accept the precarious situation with typical resolve.

Michael Reeves s a martial arts instructor. Michael meets Marina who brings her young son, Christopher to his school. Michael develops a relationship with Marina. Marina's ex husband, Jimmy owes money to a crime syndicate, Christopher is kidnapped. Michael brings Jimmy to the gangsters insisting they free Christopher but defeats one of their best fighters in self-defence. Michael is offered to fight in an underground tournament to free Christopher. Michael agrees.

A Maritime Board of Inquiry investigates the loss of the merchant ship, the Black Rover . Its captain, Jim Parker, offers the following testimony on his own behalf: Jim is recommended by Fred Winthrop to his father, owner of the Winthrop Shipping Line, to command the Black Rover after its captain and crew refuse to make the voyage. Jim, who has just received his captain's papers, agrees, unaware that Winthrop is illegally running a cargo of contraband weapons. The film has never had a theatrical release. Production began in 1930 under the title "Contraband," stopped when the producers ran out of money, then began again under the title "Contraband Cargo." Production soon stopped again and was not resumed until 1939, when new footage was shot and footage from HELL HARBOR (1930) was edited in. The film was still deemed not suitable for theatrical distribution, and it was not until 1949 that it was finally released... for late night airing on television.

Utamaro was an artist who lived in Edo (which was later to become modern-day Tokyo) in the late 18th century. This film, which has a complex and wide-ranging storyline, recreates the world of that time, as it appeared in Utamaro's paintings.

The house he lived In: A conversation with Fred Baker (1932-2011) filmmaker , director , screenwriter , film producer, actor and jazz musician. A shining example of America's bohemian underground that has been around since the days of Walt Whitman. A sensualist. His favorite topics are sex, art, food and politics. To the rhythm of New York and Lenny Bruce.

40 years after The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961), Alan Brady wants to hire Rob and Sally to write his eulogy - in order to win a bet with his wife. Although they don't want to do it, he offers them a huge amount of money. If Rob takes the job, Laura could open her dream dance studio.

It's a city that transformed itself from a sprawl of wooden dwellings into a huge modern metropolis. Over 150 years, Tokyo has risen from the ashes twice--from an epic earthquake and a devastating series of bombings--rebuilding itself into the world's largest city. Examine the evolution and modernization of Tokyo through digitally remastered and colorized archival footage.

Crazy sums up the final night of the baseball season, when the Tampa Bay Rays and St. Louis Cardinals overcame improbably long odds and huge September deficits to waltz into the post-season as wild cards. As part of the Walk-Off Stories series, this film takes a deep look at September 28, 2011 – the dramatic final day of the 2011 Major League Baseball season with playoff berths on the line.

Me, My Brother and Our Balls is an intimate and personal documentary exploring male fertility with Love Island star Chris Hughes and his brother Ben. When Chris, who had suffered from testicular health scares in the past, appeared on live television to have a testicular examination, it made a huge impact.

A Mizubiki Village, close to Tokyo were Takumi and his daughter Hana lived. One day, the village inhabitants become aware of a plan to build a glamping site near Takumi's house, offers a city resident and its affects Takumi's life.

A ruined businessman was forced to sell his daughter, Hisano, to a brothel in Yoshiwara, the largest red-light district in Tokyo. The owner of the brothel has hopes to make her a great new addition which will attract the richest of customers. But after several months of training, she tries to flee Yoshiwara when the time has come for her to take her first customer...

Fumiya owes 5 million yen to a female load shark for a gambling debt, while having affair an with Mrs. Hosoi who offers him 5 million to murder her husband. Fumiya has no choice but to kill Mr. Hosoi. Unfortunately he's see by a neighbor. In the escape, he meets a girl named Akiko. He hides in her house. Later on, Fumiya and Akiko fall in love and have sex. After that, he finds that the house owner Shin kidnapped Akiko whem she was a little girl and has kept her in the house for over a decade. Fumiya is determined to take her away from Shin's brutal confinement. A battle of wills between jailer, prisoner and accidental savior begins….

An actress returns to Tokyo after a successful stint in Hollywood to reclaim—with the help of her gangster brother—the daughter she abandoned years before.

Kimiko, a Tokyo white-collar working girl, lives with her serious, intellectual, haiku-writing mother. Kimiko seeks to marry her boyfriend but needs her absent father to act as the go-between and negotiate the marriage. Kimiko travels and finds her father living with a second family.

A faction of the Communist Party puts Tokyo rocked by demonstrations that they start. Despite this marked the inner circle of more uncertainty and group sex than determination and morale. When the police forcing them to go underground, and the mysterious Suzuki joins, starts the internal tensions in the group take over.

Princess Wilma is forced to wed by midnight or lose her inheritance. She impulsively chooses gypsy vagabond Latzi, offering him a huge sum of money if he'll consent. Swallowing his pride, Latzi agrees to the marriage, but soon the coy Countess falls in love with young Lieutenant de Tokay, who is himself in love with Latzi's gypsy sweetheart Tinka.

A young, talented singer (Misora) is orphaned, not once but twice, and has to turn to a rather unlikely, and unwilling, parental figure, while avoiding her wealthy, absentee father, his hired goons, and the neighborhood fortune teller (Enoken) who's after the reward money.

Out-of-work cowboys Kansas Jones and Chito Rafferty are offered jobs at pretty Dusty Willis' ranch after saving her from a beating by saloon owner Clint Burrows. Dusty's good-hearted but weak-willed brother Harry, adding to his $3000 gambling debt to Willis, reluctantly agrees to pay it off by allowing the Ringo Kid, Burrows' vicious hired gun, to rustle cattle from his sister's ranch. Kansas intervenes, deters the rustlers and persuades Harry to confess his involvement to Dusty. Kansas, sent into town by Dusty to pay off Harry's debts, suddenly finds himself on the wrong side of the law, wrongly accused of murder and must rely on Dusty's belief in his innocence for his salvation.

This transnational production featuring a South African- born director, a Dutch leading man, and a Japanese cast and crew tells the story of a passionate love affair between a convict and a porn star, which is undone by greed and private ghosts. Escaping from the Japanese police, Jack meets Keiko, a money-hungry adult film actress and the younger sister of his ex-wife. He takes refuge in her flat and soon they fall in love. Jack is unable to leave her apartment because he quickly learns that both the police and the dreaded yakuza are after the criminal. He grows distraught and despondent, spending hour upon hour alone as Keiko works long hours on the set. At one point, Keiko visits the yakuza don who placed the hit on Jack and agrees to hand him over in exchange for a pile of cash. But she has one stipulation: that she get to spend three days with her soon-to-be deceased lover. The boss agrees only if she engages in kinky sex with him. The deal seems set until unforeseen events occur.