Death by Hanging

Down-on-his-luck veteran Tsugumo Hanshirō enters the courtyard of the prosperous House of Iyi. Unemployed, and with no family, he hopes to find a place to commit seppuku—and a worthy second to deliver the coup de grâce in his suicide ritual. The senior counselor for the Iyi clan questions the ronin’s resolve and integrity, suspecting Hanshirō of seeking charity rather than an honorable end. What follows is a pair of interlocking stories which lay bare the difference between honor and respect, and promises to examine the legendary foundations of the Samurai code.

In the Antarctic, after an expedition with Dr. Davis McClaren, the sled dog trainer Jerry Shepherd has to leave the polar base with his colleagues due to the proximity of a heavy snow storm. He ties his dogs to be rescued after, but the mission is called-off and the dogs are left alone at their own fortune. For six months, Jerry tries to find a sponsor for a rescue mission.

A young magistrate recalls three tales of heinous crimes committed by women, and the brutal punishments that ensued.

Taking its title from an archaic Japanese word meaning "ghost story," this anthology adapts four folk tales. A penniless samurai marries for money with tragic results. A man stranded in a blizzard is saved by Yuki the Snow Maiden, but his rescue comes at a cost. Blind musician Hoichi is forced to perform for an audience of ghosts. An author relates the story of a samurai who sees another warrior's reflection in his teacup.

In the Edo era, two man arrive in a village and engage in criminal activity. While one of them becomes successful and rich, the other gets betrayed and ends up in prison, burning for revenge. The truth changes with the viewpoint in this Wakamatsu film, which has inspired comparisons to Rashomon.

A married woman and her lover murder her husband and dump his body into a well, but his ghost returns to haunt them as the local gossip intensifies.

Set during Japan's Shogun era, this film looks at life in a samurai compound where young warriors are trained in swordfighting. A number of interpersonal conflicts are brewing in the training room, all centering on a handsome young samurai named Sozaburo Kano. The school's stern master can choose to intervene, or to let Kano decide his own path.

Schoolgirl Kuniko is kidnapped by a middle-aged man Iwazono when she is jogging. He tells her that he had a failed marriage which leaves him a deep and everlasting scar in his mind. He kidnaps her in search of a perfect marriage and intends to lock her in the room and 'educate' her to perform perfect sex where body and soul are united.

A thief, a murderer, and a charming lady-killer, Iwao Enokizu is on the run from the police.

After being cruelly set up and deceived by Sugimi, a detective in cahoots with the mob with whom she was whole-heartedly in love, Matsushima’s desire for revenge knows no bounds.

Kumi Taguchi is a model who leaves her boxer boyfriend after he sustains an injury. She meets and quickly marries Hideo, the heir to a corporate empire. Hideo's father, Takehiko, lusts after Kumi. Takehiko sends his son away, ostensibly on a business trip, but actually so that he can be murdered by Takehiko's henchmen. Takehiko seduces Kumi, but is frustrated when she refuses to perform oral sex on him. Angered, Takehiko forces Kumi to undergo surgery in which her clitoris is transferred to her throat, thereby requiring that she engage in oral sex in order to have an orgasm. Hideo, the supposedly murdered son, returns having paid off his assassins. Hideo shoots and kills his father, but Kumi grabs the gun and kills Hideo so that she can inherit the family's fortune

Ryunosuke, a gifted swordsman plying his trade during the turbulent final days of Shogunate rule, has no moral code and kills without remorse. It’s a way of life that leads to madness.

A businessman kills his adulterous wife and is sent to prison. After his release, he opens a barbershop and meets new people, talking to almost no one except for an eel he befriended while in prison.

In war-torn Japan, the Tokugawa Shogun, desperate to restore peace to his people, orders the assassination of the hostile warlords. A beautiful young woman is raised from birth with nine other orphans, to become an assassin. Her name is Azumi, the ultimate assassin.

A Japanese bullet train is threatened with a bomb that will explode automatically if the train slows below 80 km/h, unless a ransom is paid. Police race to find the bombers so the train crew can learn how to defuse the bomb.

Fumiya owes 5 million yen to a female load shark for a gambling debt, while having affair an with Mrs. Hosoi who offers him 5 million to murder her husband. Fumiya has no choice but to kill Mr. Hosoi. Unfortunately he's see by a neighbor. In the escape, he meets a girl named Akiko. He hides in her house. Later on, Fumiya and Akiko fall in love and have sex. After that, he finds that the house owner Shin kidnapped Akiko whem she was a little girl and has kept her in the house for over a decade. Fumiya is determined to take her away from Shin's brutal confinement. A battle of wills between jailer, prisoner and accidental savior begins….

Kaji, sent to the Japanese army labeled Red, witnesses cruelties in the army and revolts against the abusive treatment against a fellow recruit. He also sees his friend Shinjô defecting to the Russian border, and he ends in the front to fight a lost battle against the Russian tanks division.

Wataru's outwardly liberal views on marriage are severely tested when his daughter declares her love for a coworker and is adamant to live her own way, instead of agreeing to an arranged marriage. Outwitted by his female relatives, Hirayama stubbornly refuses to admit defeat.

A woman and her daughter are each forced to contend with an increasing pressure to marry, particularly from three men who knew her late husband.

Go, Go, Second Time Virgin is the story of two damned and abused teenagers who meet and fall in mutant love on a Tokyo rooftop. Their only hope is to cement their love with an escape into oblivion.

A writer haunted by the death of his wife and threatened by the imagined infidelities of his lovers uses his affairs for the subjects of his novels.

A critique of the Japanese family, seen here as militaristic, absurdly incestuous and patriarchal with the father dominating his family sexually and violently. Nihilistic destruction by the young ones seems to be the only way out.

18 years after the mysterious death of her mother, Maya takes religious vows to find out what terrible things happened to her mother inside the Sacred Heart Convent. As soon as the door closes to the nunnery, the nuns start torturing her. She also has to deal with a lecherous archbishops and a lesbian mother superior.

An erotic comedy depicting the sex adventures of young wives living in an apartment complex, that are not satisfied with just having sex with their husbands.

After being used and betrayed by the detective she had fallen in love with, young Matsu is sent to a female prison full of sadistic guards and disobedient prisoners.

A harsh young man seduces a freeloading young woman and eventually takes advantage of her knack for hitchhiking to rob middle-class men.

Two Japanese scientists, Ushioda and Ochi, develop a bond with their sled dogs while on an expedition in Antarctica.

In Tokyo's Shinjuku district, the lives of a young man prone to theft, a young woman he meets at a bookstore, and a kabuki actor intersect.

Based on the factual case of a young man who broke into a nurses' home in Chicago, mutilating and killing several of the inmates, Wakamatsu's film is a precise, sad delineation of a particular aspect of masculine sexual consciousness.

Shigematsu Shizuma, who lives with his family in a village near Fukuyama, was in Hiroshima with his wife and niece just after the devastating atomic bombing, a tragedy that cruelly took the lives of thousands of people and forever marked the harsh existence of the survivors.

Two university students from Kyoto decide to swap partners and spend the night in an isolated motel. However, one of the couples is attacked. Desperate for answers, they search for the attackers and come across a cult that promotes sexual freedom.

A family of four lives off of scams in which they pretend to be injured by automobiles.

After a fishing boat is attacked, the sole surviving crew member realizes it is none other than a resurrected Godzilla. However, efforts to bring the story to light are suppressed by the Japanese government amid growing political tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, who are both willing to bomb Japan to stop the monster.

While her son, Kichi, is away at war, a woman and her daughter-in-law survive by killing samurai who stray into their swamp, then selling whatever valuables they find. Both are devastated when they learn that Kichi has died, but his wife soon begins an affair with a neighbor who survived the war, Hachi. The mother disapproves and, when she can't steal Hachi for herself, tries to scare her daughter-in-law with a mysterious mask from a dead samurai.

Originally released in Japan as "The Return of Godzilla" in 1984, this is the heavily re-edited, re-titled "Godzilla 1985". Adding in new footage of Raymond Burr, this 16th Godzilla film ignores all previous sequels and serves as a direct follow-up to the 1956 "Godzilla King of the Monsters", which also featured scenes with Burr edited into 1954's "Godzilla". This film restores the darker tone of the original, as we witness the nuclear destruction of giant lizard terrorizing Japan.

Shoji runs a store in a desolate town in northern Japan. After the death of his wife, he longs to end his life so that his daughter will receive his life insurance money. But suicide is not covered by his contract, so he seeks help and meets Saki, who is also suicidal. Yoshitaka Kamada raises profound questions about life, death, and the importance of humanity.

A brother and sister live as outcasts from their hamlet due to a belief that mental illness runs in their family. A group of villagers plot to steal their property by beating and hanging the brother and gang-raping the sister. Believing the brother to be dead, scheming to kill the sister, and making both deaths look like accidents... unbeknownst to them, the brother survives and proceeds on a mission to slaughter those responsible in the hamlet.