Free Resources of Rare Movies
Posts tagged Drama
Detroit Metal City / Detoroito Metaru Shiti (デトロイト・メタル・シティ) (2008)
Feb 12th
Soichi Negishi moved to Tokyo to chase his dream of becoming a musician playing stylish, Swedish-style pop. Instead, he finds himself leading the death metal band Detroit Metal City, or DMC, as the costumed and grotesquely made-up “demon emperor” Johannes Krauser II. Although he hates the role and the things he has to do as a member of the band, he has a definite talent for it. Adapted from the hit Japanese comic book by Kiminori Wakasugi, the movie follows Negishi’s antics as he tries to reconcile the two very different sides of his life and find out what it really means to achieve his dream.
Death Note L Change the World (L: Change the World) (2008)
Feb 12th
A spin-off of the popular Death Note films, L: Change The World focuses on the legendary detective L as he uses his final 23 days to solve crimes all over the world. When a young girl and boy come to him for aid, L is soon faced with what may be his most difficult case yet: stopping a group of corrupted scientists from spreading a lethal virus throughout the earth.
The Sky Crawlers (スカイ·クロラ) (2008)
Feb 12th
Youngsters called Kildren, who are destined to live eternally in their adolescence. The Kildren are conscious that every day could be the last…
I Just Didn’t Do It (Soredemo boku wa yattenai) (2006)
Feb 12th
A young man is falsely accused of molesting a high-school girl on a train. He is arrested and charged, and goes through endless court sessions, all the while insisting that he is innocent.
Hana / Hana yori mo naho (花よりもなほ) (2006)
Feb 12th
In a poor district of Edo lives a young samurai named Soza. He has been sent by his clan to avenge the death of his father. He isn’t an accomplished swordsman however, and he prefers sharing the life of the residents, teaching the kids how to write etc. When he finally finds the man he is looking for, he will have to decide whether he follows the way of the samurai or chooses peace and reconciliation.
5 Centimeters Per Second / Byôsoku 5 senchimêtoru (秒速5センチメートル) (2007)
Feb 12th
Takaki and Akari are two classmates in elementary school. During their time together they have become close friends. Their relationship is tested when Akari moves to another city because of her parents’ jobs. Both of them struggle to keep their friendship alive, as time and distance slowly pulls them apart. When Takaki finds out that he is moving further away, he decides to visit Akari one last time.
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time / Toki o kakeru shôjo (時をかける少女) (2006)
Feb 12th
A teenage girl finds that she has the ability to leap through time. With her newfound power, she tries to use it to her advantage, but soon finds that tampering with time can lead to some rather discomforting results.
Memories of Matsuko (Kiraware Matsuko no issho) (2006)
Feb 12th
Shou’s father Norio finds his son in a rather meaningless existence in Tokyo dominated by alcohol and porn videos. Having left home two years earlier to pursue life as a musician, Shou has left his band and his girlfriend has left him. His father asks a favor, that Shou clean out the apartment of his aunt Matsuko, who he says led a meaningless life until her murder at the age of 53. The apartment is filled with garbage bags and is even more unkempt than his apartment has become, and he becomes intrigued with his aunt as details of her life are supplied by a tattooed neighbor and others. Her feelings of neglect by her father Tsunehiro, who favored her chronically ill younger sister, Kumi, translated into becoming a dutiful junior high school teacher devoted to her students until being forced to resign after being blamed for the theft of some money by one of them. Leaving her family due to the disgrace…
Big Bang Love, Juvenile A (2006)
Feb 12th
An unknown future. A boy confesses to the murder of another in an all-boy juvenile detention facility. More an exercise in style than storytelling, the story follows two detectives trying to uncover the case. Homosexual tension and explosive violence drives the story which delivers some weird and fascinating visuals.
Mirrored Mind (Kyoshin) (2006)
Feb 12th
Renowned cyber-punk director ISHII Sogo strays from his roots, entering the realm of the subconscious with Mirrored Mind, a composed, contemplative and also a very personal film. Guiding us along with an actress who suffers an identity crisis when all at once she finds herself spirited away from the bustle of Tokyo to a tropical paradise, director ISHII poses philosophical questions about the origins of our soul. A visually stunning ode to the need for a spiritual and tranquil life. Mirrored Mind is the feauture length version of the short by the same name, which was made as part of the Jeonju International Film Festival initiated Digital Short Films by Three Filmmakers 2004.
Hula Girls (Hura garu) (2006)
Feb 12th
In 1965 the planned closing of a coal mine in Iwaki (northeastern Japan) will put 2,000 people out of work with devastating effects on the community. The mining company plans to build the Hawaiian Center to promote tourism, but the idea meets with resistance by the community’s union families who boycott the effort. However, a few of the young women in Joban see the call for dancers to possibly provide a more promising future. Norio Yoshimoto is put in charge of organizing the center, with Madoka Hirayama, a professional dancer fleeing creditors in Tokyo hired to train the dancers. Kimiko, her friend Sanae, and Sayuri are amongst the handful first showing up for lessons but soon others join them. When Kimiko’s mother, Chiyo, discovers that she has skipped school classes to learn dancing the two argue and Kimiko leaves home. Her brother Yojiro, one of the newly out of work miners…
Love and Honor (Bushi no ichibun) (2006)
Feb 12th
Shinnojo, a low level samurai, lives with his pretty, dutiful and loyal wife Kayo. He has come to find his position in a castle as a food-taster for a feudal lord to be boring and pointless, and talks about opening a kendo school open to boys of all castes where he can teach the use of the sword. Before he can act on his dream he becomes ill with a fever after tasting some sashimi made from shell fish, but an investigation reveals that the poisoning was not due to a human conspiracy, but a poor choice of food out of season. After three days he awakes but finds that the toxin from the food has blinded him. Kayo is summoned by Shinnojo’s family to explain how the couple will survive. His uncle laments that he no longer knows anybody with influence in the castle, and asks Kayo if she knows of anybody. She relates how Toya Shimada, the chief duty officer in the castle and a samurai of high rank…
Death Note: The Last Name (2006)
Feb 12th
In the second installment of the Death Note film franchise, Light Yagami meets a second Kira and faithful follower Misa Amane and her Shinigami named Rem. Light attempts to defeat L along with Teru Mikami (a Kira follower) and Kiyomi Takada (another Kira follower) but in the end will Light win? or will a Shinigami named Ryuk make all the difference in Light’s victory or his ultimate death?
Death Note (Desu noto) (2006)
Feb 12th
Light Yagami finds the “Death Note,” a notebook with the power to kill, and decides to create a Utopia by killing the world’s criminals, and soon the world’s greatest detective, “L,” is hired to find the perpetrator. An all out battle between the greatest minds on earth begins, the winner controlling the world.
Noriko’s Dinner Table (Noriko no shokutaku) (2005)
Feb 12th
A teenager called Noriko Shimabara runs away from her family in Tokoyama, to meet Kumiko, the leader of an Internet BBS, Haikyo.com. She becomes involved with Kumiko’s “family circle”, which grows darker after the mass suicide of 54 high school girls.
Always – Sunset on Third Street (2005)
Feb 12th
Leaving her provincial home, teenage Mutsuko arrives in Tokyo by train to take a job in a major automotive company but finds that she is employed by a small auto repair shop owned by Norifumi Suzuki. Suzuki’s hair-trigger temper is held somewhat in check by the motherly instincts of his wife, Tomoe, and his young son Ippei immediately bonds with Mutsuko as if she were his older sister. The Suzuki shop lies almost in the shadow of the Tokyo Tower as it rises steadily above the skyline during construction in 1958. Others in the neighborhood also are striving to better themselves as Japan continues to emerge from the shadow of war. Hiromi has just abandoned her shady life as a dancer to start a sake bar. Abandoned by his single mother, young Junnosuke is first handed off to Hiromi but she passes him off to Ryunosuke Chagawa, a struggling writer who runs a candy shop and only manages to sell adventure stories for boys as his serious novels continue to be rejected…
The President’s Last Bang (Geuddae geusaramdeul) (2005)
Feb 12th
On October 26, 1979, President Park Chung Hee, who had ruled South Korea since a 1961 coup, was assassinated by Kim Jae Kyu, his director of intelligence. The film depicts the events of that night, with a coda about the fate of each conspirator. While Park dines in the Blue House with two associates and two young women, Kim carries out his plot. He talks briefly of bringing democracy; mostly he seems irritated. The other assassins seem without motive beyond following orders. The killings are bloody, the aftermath equally disorderly and haphazard. Can major events of history be so mundane, so nearly comic?
