JP
Because of her past, 17-year-old Rio lives her days filling the emptiness in her heart with money—until one day, she meets a university professor named Kouki and falls in love.
Nov 2009
A young Japanese man named Kota Tanaka (Osamu Mukai) works to raise money and then build an elementary school in Cambodia.
Sep 2011
Adapted from a sex-stuffed cult novel, LALAPIPO (a play on the phrase “A Lot of People”) follows divergent seedy strands of sexual and narrative spaghetti through the sticky Tokyo night. There’s a chubby freelance writer who’s so obsessed with masturbating to the sound of his upstairs neighbors going at it that he forgets to deal with his own love life and when he finally does have sex he is immediately filled with self-loathing. The upstairs neighbor’s story then splits off like an amoeba: she’s an office lady seduced by a “talent scout” who is falling down the sex industry ladder, moving from hostess, to massage girl, to private karaoke attendant. The talent scout’s story then splits off and runs in its own direction, revealing the sorry state of this young pimp’s soul. From there, the movie takes more and more time to consider the lives of more and more characters until the entire Japanese sex industry is filled with the wailing of lost souls.
Feb 2009
A news report circulates about a man who died after being kicked by a horse on a small island located 300km away from Tokyo. National Police Agency director Takeru Kanbe assigns Vice Director Mineaki Kai the task of making sure rumors surrounding the incident are fully investigated. Soon, partners Ukyo Sugishita and Tooru Kai are dispatched to the island to conduct the investigation. When Ukyo and Tooru arrive on the island, which is privately owned by a wealthy businessman, they discover a unit of former Self-Defense Forces personnel who have set up a small community as they participate in training exercises. While Ukyo initially expected to be investigating an accidental death, he quickly becomes convinced it was actually murder. However, when they finally manage to uncover conclusive evidence of this, the soldiers attack.
Apr 2014