Fresh from the triumph of his Tuscany-set Certified Copy (NYFF 2010), master filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami travels even further afield from his native Iran for this mysteriously beautiful romantic drama filmed entirely in Japan. Like Someone in Love revolves around the brief encounter between an elderly professor (the wonderful 81-year-old stage actor Tadashi Okuno, here playing his first leading role in a film) and a sociology student (Rin Takanashi) who moonlights as a high-end escort. Dispatched to the old man by her boss— one of the professor's former students— the young woman finds her latest client less interested in sex than in cooking her soup, talking, and playing old Ella Fitzgerald records (like the one that gives the film its allusive title). Eventually, night gives way to day and a tense standoff with the student's insanely jealous boyfriend (Ry? Kase); but as usual in Kiarostami, nothing is quite as it appears on the surface. Are these characters— who conjure in one another the specters of regret and roads not taken— meeting by chance, or is it fate? Is this love, or merely something like it?

Published in 1987 and since translated into 33 languages, NORWEGIAN WOOD is a story of loss and heartbreak in a time of global instability. Haruki Murakami's bestselling novel is brought to the screen by Tran Anh Hung (Golden Lion winner for CYCLO and Academy Award nominee for "The Scent of Green Papaya") and features Japanese rising star Kenichi Matsuyama and Oscar nominee Rinko Kikuchi alongside newcomer Kiko Mizuhara. Tokyo, the late 1960s...Students around the world are uniting to overthrow the establishment and Toru Watanabe's personal life is similarly in tumult. At heart, he is deeply devoted to his first love, Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman. But their complex bond has been forged by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Watanabe lives with the influence of death everywhere. That is, until Midori, a girl who is everything that Naoko is not -- outgoing, vivacious, supremely self-confident -- marches into his life...

Shohei Sugiyama has attained all that he has wanted in life. But he is still depressed and unhappy. One day, he gathers up the courage to sign up for dancing lessons. He hopes they will rid his depression and help him get his life back together.

Hawaii, 1918. She left Japan for a man she had never met, in a new world she couldn't imagine...America Inspired by the true stories of Hawaii's picture brides, this unforgettable story is set amidst the breathtaking scenery of a tropical paradise. With only a picture in hand, a spirited young woman leaves behind all she knows for the far-off islands of Hawaii - and an arranged marriage with a man she has known only through photographs and letters. Though stunned by the reality she encounters upon her arrival, in time her new life is filled with unexpected discovery and joy. featuring Youki Kudoh (Snow Falling On Cedars), Tamlyn Tomita (The Joy Luck Club), and the legendary Toshiro Mifune (Seven Samurai) in his final film appearance. Picture Bride won the coveted Audience Award for Best Dramatic Film at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival.

After a sex education in school, Haruna begins to wonder if she is pregnant. When she feels "The baby needs me like I need my mother", she decides to give birth to the baby. Her classmates happen to know her pregnancy and they join hands with her.
(c)2008 "CHILD by CHILDREN" Film Partners

UTA used to be a child prodigy and still taking lessons but doesn't show interest to play piano anymore. She teaches playing piano to WAO, a 19 years-old boy, who wants to enter Conservatoire and let him use the grand piano in the residence where she used to live with her parents.
(c)2007 "GENIUS" Film Partners

A Japanese man travels to China with his dying son to learn the local opera of Yunnan Province. © 2005 Elite Group (2004) Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

TSUBOI and KINOSHITA have just arrived at a desolate town because FUNAKI tempted them to come there. But he hasn't arrived yet. They happen to meet with Atsuko and make a journey. But one day, Atsuko suddenly disappears...
(c)2003 Bitters End, Vap

Master Director Kon Ichikawa's 1963 classic is considered by many to be one of the finest films ever made in Japan. Kasuo Hasegawa stars as Yukinojo, a talented kabuki actor who specializes in playing female roles (women were not allowed on the stage during the period of the film). But his success on the stage is but a means to an end; his true goal is to visit vengeance upon the three ruthless and powerful men who destroyed his family's business and drove his parents to commit suicide. Yukinojo's vengeance will be carefully scripted, and skillfully acted. But the price of admission will be high indeed.

A group of eternally young fighter pilots known as Kildren experience the sudden loss of innocence as they battle the enemy in astonishing dogfights above the clouds. (Original TItle - The Sky Crawlers) © 2008 MH/NI and BWDVYHDYCH. All Rights Reserved.

Academy Award® winner* Clint Eastwood directs the untold story of Japanese soldiers defending their homeland against invading American forces during World War II. With little defense beyond sheer will and the terrain of Iwo Jima itself, the tactics of General Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe of The Last Samurai) and his men transform what might have been swift defeat into nearly 40 days of heroic combat. Their sacrifices, struggles, courage and compassion live on in the taut, gripping film Rolling Stone calls "unique and unforgettable" and which won -- among 4 Academy Award nominations* including Best Picture -- the Oscar for Best Sound Editing (2006). MPAA Rating: R Rated "R" by the MPAA for graphic war violence. © 2006 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and Dream Works LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Acclaimed Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda (Nobody Knows, Still Walking) won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival for this touching drama. The life of go-getting workaholic architect Ryota -- one of comfort and quietly ordered affluence with his wife Midori and son Keita -- is violently overturned when hospital administrators reveal the unthinkable: Keita is not his biological son. Switched at birth by the maternity ward nurse, his "true" son has been raised in the disheveled but warm-hearted home of working-class shopkeeper Yudai and his wife. The different approaches of both couples to their excruciating dilemma and the gradual emotional awakening of the all-too-rational Ryota are at the core of this sensitive drama of family feeling, which showcases Kore-eda's rich sense of humanity.

In the aftermath of the great earthquake and nuclear meltdown that devastated the Northeast coast of Japan, two families whose homes fall on opposite sides of the evacuation border must confront hard choices about whether to leave, and whose orders to follow. The elderly Onos have deep reasons for not wanting to abandon their dairy farm, while their son Yoichi and his wife Izumi fear the insidious effects of radiation on Izumi's pregnancy. Meanwhile, the Suzukis' son helps his girlfriend search for her parents in a devastated landscape.

Mysterious life forms called "Phantoms" erased humans completely, except for one schoolboy and three schoolgirls - Masashi, Sanae, Yaeko and Anna. Although they are filled with anxiety and mystery, all four of them enjoy their life at their easygoing pace on the earth!

Based on director Gu Su-yeon's semi-autobiographical novel, Hard Romanticker is a spectacularly violent gangster movie that delivers its story with equal amounts of style and carnage. Dripping James Dean-like cool, bleach blond Gu (Shota Matsuda) is a young, cocky Korean-Japanese hoodlum living in Japan. When someone 'accidentally' kills the grandmother of a ruthless rival thug, Gu soon finds himself on the receiving end as he becomes the target for bloody, even deadly, revenge. And it doesn't help that the police are on his tail as well. What's a snarly, cigarette-puffing thug to do? With tons of ultra-violence, rampaging youths and nihilistic retribution, Hard Romanticker is a sort of a modern-day A Clockwork Orange - yakuza style!

Nobuta Yabuta is a beginning teacher appointed to the prestigious girls' high school Sakura Gakuen, but in fact, he is afraid of women. There are five girls who are supposed to become first-class ladies in his classroom. In order to graduate, they must do just one thing - be kissed by their teacher. They tempt Yabuta in every possible means so that they may win a kiss from him...