The Strange Tale of Oyuki

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.

Utamaro, a great artist, lives to create portraits of beautiful women, and the brothels of Tokyo provide his models. A world of passion swirls around him, as the women in his life vie for lovers. And, occasionally, his art gets him into trouble.

When the man who seduced the famous painter Otoko as a teenager--and then wrote a bestselling novel about it--reappears in her life, her pupil--and lesbian lover--hatches a plot to destroy the man and his family.

During the 1940s, Maurice Bendrix, a writer recently discharged from the armed service, falls in love with Sarah Miles, whom he interviews for a book. Sarah is married, but she and Maurice eventually give in to their mutual attraction, leading to an affair that lasts several months. Maurice's jealousy, along with the bombing of London by the Germans, seemingly leads to the end of their relationship. However, the reasons are later revealed to be more complex.

A young boy named Jiro finds his mother and sister murdered in his home. Falsely accused of the crime, he flees from his village and meets a priest named Tenkai, who has him kill a rogue ninja named Tarouza. After fulfilling that task, Jiro undergoes training to become a master assassin. Many years later, Jiro finds out that he was an orphan and his real father was Tarouza, who had worked for Tenkai until he aborted his mission when he fell in love with an Ainu woman. The young ninja discovers that the Shogunate was to retrieve the lost treasure of Captain Kidd and use it to once again isolate Japan from the rest of the world. Using the clues that Tarouza had kept secret, Jiro - along with the female ninja Oyuki and a slave named Sam - travels to Russia and America to search for the treasure in hopes of using it to extract revenge from Tenkai.

When a civil war threatens to break out, two geishas flee from their village with aristocrats. During the long journey, the socially inferior women prove to be morally superior to their betters.

Yukiko's fiance learns her mother runs a geisha house and ends their engagement. She despises what her mother does until one of her clients shows interest and starts to woo her.

With his penultimate film, Uchida revisited one of his popular prewar titles, 1936’s Theatre of Life, an adaptation of Shiro Ozaki’s eponymous novel. Three-time Seijun Suzuki collaborator Goro Tanada wrote a gangsterized adaptation of Ozaki’s story for Uchida at a time when the yakuza had eclipsed the samurai genre as Toei's main cash crop. Protagonist Hishakaku murders a man in a quarrel over a barmaid and goes to jail. In his temporary absence, his girlfriend Otoyo, a former geisha, falls for Hishakaku’s brother, inciting a dangerous love triangle that, in typical yakuza fashion, ends tragically.

Utsugi, a seventy-seven-year-old man of refined tastes who is recovering from a stroke, discovers that, while his body is decaying, his libido still rages on -- unwittingly sparked by the gentle, kindly attentions of his daughter-in-law Satsuko, a chic, flashy dancer with a shady past. Pitiful and ridiculous as he is, Utsugi is without a trace of self-pity, and his diary shines with self-effacing good humor.

During the Christmas holiday season, Félix and Céline find themselves working as volunteers for the drive-home service Opération Nez Rouge. Right from the first, Félix falls for Céline. But Céline doesn't feel the same way: she can't forget the fact that Félix once wrote a scathing review of her first piece of writing, crushing her literary ambitions in the process. Worse, Félix doesn't even remember her name. Céline decides to take her revenge. Just as things seem to be going from bad to worse for Félix, Céline realizes that he is vulnerable, tender... and madly in love with her. She is ready to surrender to love... but a chance encounter causes her to wonder whether Félix isn't playing some twisted love game.

"A Couple" is a film about a long term relationship between a man and a woman. The man is Leo Tolstoy. The woman is his wife, Sophia. They were married for 36 years, had 13 children nine of whom survived. Each kept a diary. Although they lived together, in the same house, they wrote letters frequently to each other. Leo Tolstoy insisted that they read their diaries aloud to guests at dinner parties. The Tolstoy’s were also a dysfunctional couple, arguing frequently and being very unhappy with each other while occasionally enjoying passionate moments of reconciliation. The film is Sophia’s monologue about the joys and struggles of their life together, loosely drawn from their letters to each other and their diary entries.

A photographer based in Tokyo, who's in love with local beauty Tamiko, begins to court an embassy official so she can help him gain entry into the United States.

A woman discovers the truth about her former lover from the diary that his first wife wrote to their son, Nicholas.

A young girl is rigorously trained in the feminine arts so that she can become a geisha. As she struggles through life, she learns to live not just as a woman but as a complete person.

With her family suffering from extreme poverty, Yuko, as the eldest daughter, is sold to a successful brothel in Kyoto. There she is assigned to serve Takamatsu, one of the brothel’s top customers. But while Takamatsu falls madly in love with Yuko, she finds herself attracted to a young priest named Kunugida. Torn by jealousy, Takamatsu hatches an evil plan to tear them apart.

An unassuming mystery writer turned sleuth uses her professional insight to help solve real-life homicide cases.

A post-apocalyptic story about a botched U.S. government experiment that turns a group of death row inmates into highly infectious vampires, and an orphan girl who might be the only person able to stop the ensuing crisis.

A young girl named Dorothy has gone to live with her grandparents on their small farm. One day when Dorothy is left alone in the house a tornado appears. Dorothy fails to get to the basement in time, and the entire house is picked up and transported to a magical land, falling on and killing a wicked witch. There she is informed by a good witch that she must travel to the Capital of Emerald and meet a great magician who may be able to help her find a way home. Along the way she makes some incredible friends and sees many strange and fantastic things.

A miniseries starring famous actresses, based on the short story collection "Tsubasa no Oreta Tenshitachi" by the author Yoshi. This dark drama has a different story for each episode, as the name of the series "Angels With Broken Wings" hints, the common theme is women who have lost their way in life. The series touches subjects like prostitution, peer pressure, gambling, theft and isolation.

The story of Banner, a young orphaned squirrel raised by a kindly mother cat, and his adventures in the forest.

Random Passage follows a courageous woman's journey from servitude in England to the harsh life of Outport Newfoundland. Along the way she endures many hardships, including attempted rape and being abandoned by the father of her child.

A biography series based on the life of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, the brilliant, beautiful and talented Southern Belle who becomes the original flapper and icon of the wild, flamboyant Jazz Age in the 20s. Z starts before Zelda Fitzgerald meets the unpublished writer F. Scott Fitzgerald and moves through their passionate, turbulent love affair and their marriage-made in heaven, lived out in hell as the celebrity couple of their time.

The publication of a new dictionary titled The Great Passage progresses. Mitsuya Majime, originally from publisher Genbu Shobo's sales department, has been recruited by Kouhei Araki, a veteran editor of the dictionary department who is looking to retire soon. The dictionary department is known internally as the "money-eating insect," but Mitsuya uses his perseverance and attachment to the words in order to become a great editor. Mitsuya, who has poor social skills, finds himself working with another man named Masashi Nishioka, who is able to express himself better.

She's single, beautiful and wears clothes that are a bit flashy, but she never smiles in front of her clients. Machi is a real-estate saleswoman who is known for closing the deal no matter who the client is--100% of the time. "There isn't a house I can't sell." She sticks her nose in the private issues of her clients and uses a vast range of tactics to help solve their problems... and sells the house while she's at it! "The kind of home you live in becomes a true reflection of your life." Because the home itself can sometimes even change your life, Machi will pour her heart and soul into finding the right home for you. "Being a real estate agent means having your clients surrender their life to you."

The story begins with Shirō Kido's reunion with a former classmate, Rio Kijima, at a college teacher's funeral. In the past, when they were students, Kijima used to show talent as a novelist, even earning a big prize. Kido was jealous of Kijima's success, but after reading his works he became aware of his lack of talent and gave up writing novels and became an editor of erotic novels. However, after reuniting it became clear to Kido that Kijima was stuck; facing a wall. He had used up all his talent. With Kido also being in a lost state, he offers Kijima the opportunity to write pornographic novels. With the intense eroticism and closeness, both men open up and feed into their desire. As their lust grows, so does their toxic craving. The two become a relationship beyond the line while a mixture of emotions are drawn from the suffering Kijima.

An animated comedy series that follows a comic trio of slimy, crawly, and buzzy bug friends whose tiny world offers up huge adventures.

Mathieu is a public writer in a poor neighbourhood of Montreal. In the past years, he discovered that his job is more about people than literature. He must first listen and then finds the right words for those who can’t write. Feeling the need to tell what his story, he wrote a first novel inspired by his experiences. The critics love it, but the book bothers his employer who immediately fires him. Mathieu wants to continue to help, but he feels more and more divided between the two worlds.

The visionary work and the turbulent life of Ernest Hemingway, one of the greatest and most influential writers America has ever produced. Interweaving his eventful biography with carefully selected excerpts from his iconic short stories, novels, and non-fiction, the series reveals the brilliant, ambitious, charismatic, and complicated man behind the myth, and the art he created.

The drama is based on a blog written by Bakarhythm between 2006 and 2009 where he posed as a OL nicknamed Masuno Kakū, who supposedly worked in a bank and wrote stories about the daily feelings of a OL from her perspective and the people around her.

A male escort's life begins to unravel when he gets involved in a client's family affairs and breaks the cardinal rule of his work: Don't fall in love.