Ah, Spring / Wait and See / Ah, haru (1998)

Hiroshi is a happy salaryman with a pretty wife, a young son, and a nice home who has always been told his father died when he was five. One day a tramp stops him on the street and introduces himself as Hiroshi's father Sasaichi and asks to stay over for a night or two. The …

Distance (2001)

As the radio describes coming memorials for the victims of an attempt by a religious cult to poison Tokyo's reservoirs, we see four apparently unrelated individuals: Atsushi, a flower shop worker visiting an old man in a hospital; Masaru, a young man out for night on the town with his girlfriend; Makoto, a man going …

Labyrinth of Dreams / Yume no ginga (1997)

Among the most physically beautiful black and white movies ever made in Japan, Labyrinth of Dreams is actually a mystery-suspense movie presented in a dream-like state that seems far more confusing than it is until everything falls into place. Much of the confusion is caused by the movie beginning at the end. A bus in …

20th Century Nostalgia / 20-seiki nosutarujia (1997)

Since its introduction in the late seventies, the Japanese teen romance movie had taken many shapes, but 20th Century Nostalgia is certainly one of the oddest. The Japanese school calendar of three trimesters beginning in the spring gives the summer holiday a completely different feeling than American summer holidays because it comes in the middle …

Bounce Ko Gals (1997)

Japan has long been known for teen girl fashion fads that seem unique to the country, but one of the first to gain real nationwide (and international) attention was the Ko Gal in the nineties, the subject used in Masato Harada's Bounce Ko Gals to look at one of the seamiest aspects of Japanese culture. …

Rampo (1994)

The world of Edogawa Rampo's stories have always been a fertile ground for Japanese movie-makers, but there seems to have been a mini-revival in the mid-nineties in three gorgeously photographed films. Two of these were relatively straight-forward mysteries featuring Detective Akechi adapted from some of Rampo's earliest works. Rampo is a different creature altogether. Rampo …

Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald (1997)

Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald marks the screen introduction of Koki Mitani, one of Japan's most consistently successful writer/directors of the 21st century, particularly notable because he worked exclusively in the field of comedy. Like France's Francis Veber, almost all his movies began as plays he had written, but unlike Veber, he almost always used a …

Open House (1998/2003*)

Urban life is crowded yet isolated in Open House, where no one's house is open. Tomonori is a nomad in the city, standing in a phone booth in the rain as someone (from the tone of the replies apparently a relative) refuses to let him crash for a few days. Mitsuwa is a model who, …

Raigyo (1997)

A man is fishing for eels. A woman is dressing to leave the hospital. A second man is leaving for work as his wife awaits the delivery of their baby. None know each other, but their paths will cross in unexpectedly violent ways in Raigyo. Directed by Takahisa Zeze, who was regarded as a giant …

Girl of Silence / Fazafakka (1995)

There have been many Japanese movies about sex and the teen-aged girl, but few are as disturbing to watch as Girl of Silence. Shizuko is 14 when her mother brings home a new man. She has her first sexual experience with a boy in her school class, and very awkward it is for both of …