Best movies like Station to Heaven

Famed onnagata (a man who plays women's parts in Kabuki) Tamasaburo Bando follows up on the success of his directorial debut, Gekashitsu, with this soft-focused romance about love and obligation, based on a novel by Kafu Nagai. Set during the Meiji period (1868-1912), Kaede (Sayuri Yoshinaga) is the former mistress of a wealthy merchant. When he dies, she is forced out on the street and forced to give up her young daughter to the merchant's family. The film opens with her working in a high-class brothel abutting Tokyo Bay. Though she has passionate affection for a drug wholesaler, whom she loves as well, Kaede is swamped with not only debts to the bordello and family obligations -- she is expected to support her parents and her sister -- but also guilt over losing her child. This pain is only increased when Kaede learns that her daughter is being abused. She does the only thing she can: She buys back her child by signing on at the brothel for a longer stint.

Nobuko (Sayuri Yoshinaga) works in Nagasaki, Japan as a midwife. Her son died 3 years earlier from the atomic bomb. On August 9, 1948, her son appears in front of her again. Since that time, Koji (Kazunari Ninomiya) appears in front of her and they reminiscence about pleasant times. These happy, but bizarre moments seem eternal.

A story of a shopkeeper and his ex-wife, lives full of tragedy.

Rei helps the woman she's been in love with for years escape her abusive husband. While on the run, their feelings for each other catch fire.

A woman married to the brutal and infertile owner of a dye mill in rural China conceives a boy with her husband's nephew but is forced to raise her son as her husband's heir without revealing his parentage in this circular tragedy. Filmed in glowing technicolour, this tale of romantic and familial love in the face of unbreakable tradition is more universal than its setting.

Set in Tokyo in 1940, the peaceful life of the Nogami Family suddenly changes when the father, Shigeru, is arrested and accused of being a Communist. His wife Kayo works frantically from morning to night to maintain the household and bring up her two daughters with the support of Shigeru's sister Hisako and Shigeru's ex-student Yamazaki, but her husband does not return. WWII breaks out and casts dark shadows on the entire country, but Kayo still tries to keep her cheerful determination, and sustain the family with her love. This is an emotional drama of a mother and an eternal message for peace.

Etsuko's café in her peaceful little seaside town is where everyone gathers to gossip and taste her famous brew. But the winds of change are beginning to blow.

Struggling manga author Satoru Fujinuma is beset by his fear to express himself. However, he has a supernatural ability of being forced to prevent deaths and catastrophes by being sent back in time before the incident occurred, repeating time until the accident is prevented. One day, he gets involved in an accident that has him framed as a murderer. Desperate to save the victim, he sends himself back in time only to find himself as a grade-schooler one month before fellow classmate Kayo Hinazuki went missing. Satoru now embarks on a new quest: to save Kayo and solve the mystery behind her disappearance.

This sensuously beautiful film chronicles the activities of four sisters who gather in Kyoto every year to view the cherry blossoms. It paints a vivid portrait of the pre-war lifestyle of the wealthy Makioka family from Osaka, and draws a parallel between their activities and the seasonal variations in Japan.

Yumechiyo, a geisha house madam recently diagnosed with a terminal illness, yearns to do something constructive with the little time she has left. Through her responsibility lies in taking care of her girls, she finds purpose in providing a man innocent of a false murder charge and in the process discovers love for the first time in his arms.

Elite lawyer Ryoko enlists the help of a foreign mafia in rescuing her son from a criminal who holds grudge against her.

Based on the ancient Japanese Tale of Genji. This film is set in 900AD and tells the story of a famous female writer of the time, Murasaki Shikibu. Her story begins from the death of her husband, a Japanese noble, then moves on to her recruitment to train the Prince's young 'wives in waiting'. It is dotted throughout and actually composed mainly of one of the fictional stories she wrote, the tale of Genji. Genji is a rich playboy who falls in love and has a son to his stepmother. He falls in love often and has many wives whom are all completely subservient to him. Genji is played by a woman actress from the all-female Takarazuka theatre. The two interrelating stories are also interrupted occasionally by fantasimical musical clips from a past Japanese teen-idol, Seiko Matsuda.

Sachie Kitahara is a housewife and she has devoted her life to her family. Mako Goda is a wealthy woman who runs a business. They are both diagnosed with terminal illnesses and are told they only have a short time left to live. These two women from completely different walks of life meet at the hospital. They both feel emptiness in their lives. They happen to get a 12-year-old's written bucket list. Sachie Kitahara and Mako Goda decide to carry out the girl's wish list and they begin to feel happiness entering their lives.

On a small island, inhabited by only fourteen hundred people, a young fisherman's son, Shinji falls in love with Hatsue, the daughter of the richest and most difficult man on the island. Despite their differences in class, they begin to meet and rumors spread of them having an illicit affair. Soon after, Shinji jumps into a stormy sea to help a ship in distress. The vessel turns out to be owned by Hatsue's arrogant father, who now becomes an understanding and sympathetic parent and allows the two lovers to marry.

In 1943, critical developments in the Pacific War have placed Japan at a disadvantage, although the fiery breaths of war hadn't yet reached Okinawa Normal School for women. Nothing seemed the least bit out of the ordinary, as Kazuko and her friends enjoyed a day of sports. A year later the war takes a devastating turn, as US forces plan an amphibious attack known as "Operation Iceberg" on the Ryukyu island.

In the Edo period, a nameless ronin accepts an assignment to go to a mountain pass and wait. Near the pass he stops at an inn where a collection of characters gather, including a gang set on stealing shogunate gold that's soon to come over the pass. When the Ronin's assignment becomes clear, to help the gang, he's ordered to kill the inn's residents, including a woman he's rescued from an abusive husband. He's reluctant to murder innocent people; then he learns that the gold shipment is a trap and he's part of a double cross. How he sorts through these divided loyalties tests of his samurai honor, and perhaps of his love for a woman.

Jiro, a young yakuza, and Mami, a diplomat’s daughter, are two young lovers from different worlds. Having met by accident, they soon discover a new life together. But their love is ill-fated. Mami's family will not accept her choice, while leading an honest life seems like an unattainable goal for Jiro. Can there be anything else but a tragic ending?

2500 years ago, in India, Siddhartha was born as a prince of the Shakya clan, but he gives up his position as a prince to see the world. He meets a strange boy named Assaji, who can predict the future, a monk with only one eye and Depa. Siddhartha continues traveling. Siddhartha is overwhelmed by the sufferings he witnesses around him. Meanwhile, Prince Ruri of Kosara begins his attack on the Shakya clan. Second Buddha movie from Tezuka Productions.

Patterned after Japanese art and silk screens, Taro, The Dragon Boy is an animated feature about Japanese mythology and cultures, focusing on Taro, a young boy who has to make a voyage to a distant lake to save his mother, who has been turned into a dragon.

After a passenger ship sinks in 1954, Go Akutsu devises a life-saving project in the form of a tunnel under the Tsugaru Strait. While working on this project Akutsu becomes involved with Tae Makimura leading to his estrangement from his wife.

A yakuza frames another yakuza who goes to jail for 5 years. When he is released he goes to seek revenge only to fall in love with the daughter of the man who framed him.

While Sakura and Hiroshi struggle to save funds to build a house, Torajiro befriends three young women on vacation during his travels.

The film follows the relationship between a mother and her son. In 1945, the mother played by Sayuri Yoshinaga fled with her two sons from the Russians to Hokkaido. In 1972, her son played by Masato Sakai returns to Japan after finding success in the U.S.

Set in the Taisho era, which might be regarded as Japan's Hippie Phase, Hana no ran is a story about fashionable people without impulse control. Much of the action centers on a popular woman writer, the real-life poet Akiko Yosano, and her experiences among the literati of early 20th century Japan. Because of her independent, anti-war and often erotic poetry, she was a lightning rod for revolutionaries and other extremists, many of whom were destined to glamorous, yet ultimately pointless, deaths. The closest parallels might be the Byron/Shelley group or the people drawn to the Beat Generation.

Sawako worked as an emergency physician at a university hospital. Due to to a situation, she returns to her father Tatsuro's home in Ishikawa Prefecture. She then begins to work at the local Mahoroba Clinic. She works with the clinic director Toru, Nurse Mayo and staff Seiji. Seiji, who worked with Sawako at the university hospital, followed her and works with her again. Mahoroba Clinic provides home healthcare to patients. Sawako visits the patients' homes and provides treatment there. At first, she has a hard time due to the different system. She becomes acclimated to the different system and finds a way to deal with the patients, their lives, and their families. --asianwiki

Based on the folk tales "Repayment from a crane". One snowy night a beautiful woman named Tsuru (Crane) visits poor peasant Taiju and says she will become his wife...

Final part of epic drama about war and its effects upon human beings, follows the fortunes of the Godai family through the Sino-Japanese War through the Soviet Union's sudden attack upon Japanese troops at the end of the war.

A lonely woman trapped in an abusive marriage finds solace in her online lover -- a man she only knows through online video chatting. Unknown to her, she is also being secretly watched via her webcam. After the woman suffers a brutal beating, her lover proposes a bold plan -- a way she can kill her husband and claim self-defense. But the plan goes horribly wrong.

On the surface, 22-year-old Horigai seems to be drifting through life. Having managed to secure a decent job as a child welfare officer, but not attaching much value to anything in life, she whiles away her boring days between classes and her apartment before she graduates. However, her indifferent exterior hides various tangled emotions, including her apprehensions about becoming a social worker and the fact that she’s still a virgin. When she meets Inogi, Horigai’s life gains a sort of anchorage as the women develop an unlikely bond. Yet tragic developments with one of Horigai’s friends, as well as revelations about Inogi’s dark past, threaten to unbalance their new-found peace, bringing unexpected sadness to the surface.

During his idle journey on the Izu Peninsula, a university student, Kawasaki, encounters a group of traveling entertainers – including Kaoru (Sayuri Yoshinaga), one of the “odoriko”. Kawasaki is taken and cannot take his eyes off her. When he is invited to stay at the same lodgings, the two grow closer. In time, the two come to learn the pain of love.

Shinko Terasawa was always considered to be the odd ball of the bunch. At a time when romance was against school regulations, Shinko was the first to take a bite out of the forbidden fruit. Expelled from her former school, she finds herself in an all-girls school in Jokamachi, where rumors fly. One day, Shinko delivers an anonymous love letter addressed to her English teacher, Ms. Shimazaki. Convinced that the students are playing a prank, Ms. Shimazaki is adamant about getting to the bottom of this "problem”.

On the day of college graduation, Mieko (Sayuri Yoshinaga) stood on stage as the valedictorian for the Department of English. During her university years she made sure that she would always come out on top, and she did. With a victorious graduation behind her, she plans out the next chapter of her life: become a successful novelist and go out with a classmate she's been secretly eyeing for the past couple of years.

A high school boy and girl in the midst of their youth try to get their parents to remarry.

A girl is in love with two men.

Teacher Kawashima Haru takes a position on a remote island off the coast of Hokkaido, where she takes charge of six students. However, she is later forced to leave after an accident occurs. 20 years later, Haru learns that one of her former students has committed a crime, and eventually returns to the island once more.