The Lights of Asakusa

The Tokyo Night Sky Is Always the Densest Shade of Blue

February 2017 •Japanese

Mika works as a nurse by day; by night she entertains covetous men at a girls' bar. Shinji is blind in one eye and ekes out a living as a construction worker. Young and grown-up at the same time, they both lead a lonely existence, but somehow their paths keep miraculously crossing under the Tokyo sky.

Castle of Sand

March 2019 •Japanese

A bruised and battered corpse in Shibuya, Tokyo has the attention of the local cops. A veteran detective is assigned to the case. The last utterance of the victim is one clue that detective Imanishi has to work on. Yet, the case becomes more tangled quickly. Elsewhere, a prodigy named Waga Eiryo is composing an orchestral piece. Remake of The Castle of Sand (1974).

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

June 2006 •English

In order to avoid a jail sentence, Sean Boswell heads to Tokyo to live with his military father. In a low-rent section of the city, Shaun gets caught up in the underground world of drift racing

Tokyo Sonata

September 2008 •Japanese

A young boy takes interest in piano while his family begins to disintegrate around him after his father loses his job.

Tokyo!

August 2008 •Japanese

Three distinct tales unfold in the bustling city of Tokyo. Merde, a bizarre sewer-dweller, emerges from a manhole and begins terrorizing pedestrians. After his arrest, he stands trial and lashes out at a hostile courtroom. A man who has resigned himself to a life of solitude reconsiders after meeting a charming pizza delivery woman. And finally, a happy young couple find themselves undergoing a series of frightening metamorphoses.

Tokyo Noir

September 2004 •Japanese

Three tales that center around sex and citizens of Tokyo: A repressed woman embraces her sexuality, ("Birthday"), an unexpected reunion disrupts a sex worker's routine ("Night Lovers"), and a sex blogger discovers connection in the depths of loneliness ("Girl's Life").

Fear and Trembling

March 2003 •French

Amélie, a young Belgian woman, having spent her childhood in Japan, decides to return to live there and tries to integrate in the Japanese society. She is determined to be a "real Japanese" before her year contract runs out, though it precisely this determination that is incompatable with Japanese humility. Though she is hired for a choice position as a translator at an import/export firm, her inability to understand Japanese cultural norms results in increasingly humiliating demotions. Though Amelie secretly adulates her, her immediate supervisor takes sadistic pleasure in belittling her all along. She finally manages to break Amelie's will by making her the bathroom attendant, and is delighted when Amelie tells her the she will not renew her contract. Amelie realizes that she is finally a real Japanese when she enters the company president's office "with fear and trembling," which could only be possible because her determination was broken by Miss Fubuki's systematic torture.

The Castle of Sand

October 1974 •Japanese

Two detectives are tasked to investigate the murder of an old man, found bludgeoned to death in a Tokyo rail yard.

Girls Drive

November 2023 •Japanese

Four high school students deal with their issues while travelling to Tokyo during their summer vacation.

Enter the Void

May 2010 •English

This psychedelic tour of life after death is seen entirely from the point of view of Oscar, a young American drug dealer and addict living in Tokyo with his prostitute sister, Linda. When Oscar is killed by police during a bust gone bad, his spirit journeys from the past -- where he sees his parents before their deaths -- to the present -- where he witnesses his own autopsy -- and then to the future, where he looks out for his sister from beyond the grave.

Rolling Marbles

February 2020 •Japanese

Shibuya in Tokyo, a city that continues to change due to redevelopment. At a house in the corner of Shibuya, Ai dreaming of a model, Mizuho working for the editorial department of a magazine, and musician Erika live together. This story is about the modest cohabitation of the three.

Roujin Z

September 1991 •Japanese

Mr. Takazawa, an elderly invalid who is cared for at his home by Haruko, a young nursing student, is chosen by the Japanese Ministry of Public Welfare to test the Z-001, a computerized hospital bed with robotic features that allegedly displays more efficiency and skills than any human nurse, but Haruko mistrusts a machine unable to consider human feelings.

Naked Weapon

November 2002 •

A mysterious woman, known as Madame M, kidnaps forty pre-teen girls and transports them to a remote island to train them as the most deadly assassins. CIA operative Jack Chen follows the case for 6 years with no leads, but when a series of assassinations begin to occur, Jack suspects that Madame M is back in business.

Farewell Tokyo

September 1985 •Korean

The Ramen Girl

February 2008 •English

An American woman is stranded in Tokyo after breaking up with her boyfriend. Searching for direction in life, she trains to be a ramen chef under a tyrannical Japanese master.

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo

November 1944 •English

In the wake of Pearl Harbor, a young lieutenant leaves his expectant wife to volunteer for a secret bombing mission which will take the war to the Japanese homeland.

Tokyo Story

November 1953 •Japanese

The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko, the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.

Tokyo Godfathers

December 2003 •Japanese

On Christmas Eve, three homeless people living on the streets of Tokyo discover a newborn baby among the trash and set out to find its parents.

Always - Sunset on Third Street

November 2005 •Japanese

Teenage Mutsuko comes to Tokyo for work but ends up at a repair shop. She befriends the owner's family. Neighbors Hiromi, writer Chagawa with admirer Junnosuke strive alongside them in postwar Tokyo's evolution.

Miss Hokusai

May 2015 •Japanese

A daughter is constantly overshadowed by her famous father, but she is determined to make her own mark in the world.