Movies: Bitters End

Only three days before their high school festival, guitarist Kei, drummer Kyoko, and bassist Nozomi are forced to recruit a new lead vocalist for their band. They choose Korean exchange student Son, though her comprehension of Japanese is a bit rough...

Yusuke Kafuku, a stage actor and director, still unable, after two years, to cope with the loss of his beloved wife, accepts to direct Uncle Vanya at a theater festival in Hiroshima. There he meets Misaki, an introverted young woman, appointed to dri...

Four independent stories set in modern China about random acts of violence....

As a decades-old state-run aeronautics munitions factory in downtown Chengdu, China is being torn down for the construction of the titular luxury apartment complex, director Jia Zhangke interviews various people affiliated with it about their experie...

On the set of a dark war time drama at an old movie studio, a young director, Toshio Murai, is trying to complete his debut film. The two starring actresses, Hitomi Kurokawa and Saori Murakami, play sisters in his film. Murai has a crush on Hitomi, t...

In summer, Nagisa and Natsuo meet by the sea. Their vacant gazes reflect each other as they exchange awkward words and wade into the rain-drenched ocean. In winter, Li, a screenwriter, travels to a snow-covered village. There, she finds a guesthouse ...

Based on four of the six short stories compiled in Murakami Haruki's anthology, After the Quake explores the complex aftermath of Japan’s earthquakes and other global crises. (Movie version of the TV drama)....

It’s 1940, and the population of Japan is divided over its entry into World War II. Satoko, the wife of a fabric merchant, is devoted to her husband but is beginning to suspect he’s up to something. Soon she allows herself to be drawn into a game in ...

When a gold ingot and a severed human head are discovered in a small provincial town, the rush to solve the curious case wavers between tragic and darkly humorous....

Four people lead ordinary lives in different places, their paths never crossing. A mysterious man appears in each story, always as someone else. One moment, a cram school instructor; the next, a truck driver, a barber - his identity constantly shifti...

An old couple, their only son, the son's wife, a young man and his lover live peacefully in a village. Then, a terrifying earthquake strikes that causes a nearby nuclear station to explode. The residents must evacuate, but the family lives on a farm,...

6 months after the earthquake disaster in Sendai City, Nakagaki Kazumasa is a young man who has lost his job. He encounters a dog named Tamon on its dog tag, who lost its owner in the earthquake disaster. Kazumasa decides to take Tamon in, and the do...

The life of Tao, and those close to her, is explored in three different time periods: 1999, 2014, and 2025....

Two young men arrive at a deserted countryside train station. They are Tsuboi and Kinoshita, amateur filmmakers on their way to a meeting with a genuine film star who might be interested in appearing in their next production....

At Beijing World Park, a bizarre cross-pollination of Las Vegas and Epcot Center where visitors can interact with famous international monuments without ever leaving the city’s suburbs, a security guard betrays his dancer girlfriend by pursuing anoth...

22-year old secretary Kazuko first bumps into Tamaki on the way back from work. Tamaki is crawling along the sidewalk on crutches at a snail's pace, and stumbles into the young audiotypist after apparently having trouble with an ill-fitting shoe over...

Asako lives in Osaka. She falls in love with Baku, a free-spirit. One day, Baku suddenly disappears. Two years later, Asako now lives in Tokyo and meets Ryohei. He looks just like Baku, but has a completely different personality....

Yuta lives in an orphanage while waiting for her mother to pick her up. One day, Yuta, who happened to know his mother's whereabouts, escaped from the facility with all his heart. However, there was a mother who depended on her cohabiting man and liv...

Trapped in her anemic career and love relationship, a 30-year-old TV commercial director returns to her countryside home in the company of a free-spirited friend. In a bittersweet reunion with an alienated family, her childhood memories of freedom an...

A group of high school girls learn to play the game of curling....