Movies: Bitters End

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...

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...

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....

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

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 hims...

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 ...

Years after her boyfriend left her for the big city and promised to bring her there after he’s settled down, a Chinese woman sets out on a journey to be reunited with him....

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...

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

Yuda, a Chinese immigrant, and his adopted son Kirin, who he saved being eaten by a tiger in the jungle, stand at the head of a massive pirated goods operation that brings in both money and influence. But their empire is crumbling, as corrupt politic...

This work is a 12-year story of Mana, a woman who cannot accept the death of her best friend, staring at her as she tries to step forward while having deep sorrow....

Toma lives in a small riverside town with his brutish father and his father's girlfriend. Witnessing his father's predilections for abuse, Toma becomes anxious that he will have inherited those urges....

An aging movie actor who is preparing to shoot a death scene finds himself visited by the spirit of a dead, long-ago lover....

"Ars longa, vita brevis" – art is long, life is short. This is one of Japanese music icon Ryuichi Sakamoto's favorite quotes, and the message that he leaves for viewers at the end of his final concert film, shot before he succumbed to cancer in March...

In 1969, Sawada is filled with idealism that permeated that era and starts working as a gonzo journalist for a weekly magazine. Two years later, Sawada interviews activist Umeyama with senior reporter Nakahira. Umeyama boasts that his group will stea...

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...

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...

Junior high school student Yuna lives with her father Toshiharu. Her mother Akemi moved to Naha when her older sister entered high school, and Yuna is worried about her father's life after she leaves....

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...

Miyata lost his wife early on and single-handedly raised their two children. One day he notices a change in his physical condition, and decides that it must be stomach cancer....