The film was made by the Japanese visual artist Uemine Satoshi, and DVD released in 2005. This silent, personal movie bears and reflects the traces of the re-encounter between the director and his girlfriend, who had been hospitalized because of her deteriorating mental condition. Almost all scenes were shot in Hokkaido, the north island of Japan. Although nothing dramatic happens here, Sizuka no Umi builds a series of beautiful images that are raw, honest, and passionate. Lightly influenced by the East Coast experimental filmmakers like Jonas Mekas & kept in touch with some Nouvelle Vague feeling.
Tokyo schoolgirl Hiromi and her friends engage in a practice known as enjo kosai, or "compensated dating", where older men pay young girls for dates. Hiromi plunges deeper into this world to raise money for an expensive ring.
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A submissive hooker goes about her trade, suffering abuse at the hands of Japanese salarymen and Yakuza types. She's unhappy about her work, and is apparently trying to find some sort of appeasement for the fact that her lover has married.
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Masashi is a photographer. He has his parents and an older brother Yukihiro. Through the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, Masashi begins to take staged photos of his family.
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A spell of time in the life of the five-piece Haruno family in rural Tochigi Prefecture. Yoshiko is not an ordinary housewife, instead working on an animated film project. Uncle Ayano, a successful music producer, is looking to get his head together after living in Tokyo. Meanwhile, Sachiko is concerned with why she seems to be followed by a giant version of herself. As the lazy days pass by, each member of the family is followed in a series of episodic vignettes.
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Mitsuki and Yuya become stepsister and stepbrother because of their parents' marriage. Mitsuki can't get along with her new family and Yuya doesn't know how to approach his new stepsister. One day, Mitsuki becomes possessed by the spirit of Hiyori. Hiyori likes Yuya and believes Yuya can help her get to heaven. Hiyori places a leather chastity belt upon on Mitsuki and a plan takes place to help send Hiyori to heaven.
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A story about the disappearance of Kirishima, a star athlete of the volleyball club, and how his disappearance affects every person in school.
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Zatoichi's trek through 88 temples to atone for his violent past is interrupted as he stumbles into a village terrorized by a violent yakuza boss.
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An elderly man visits his mentally ill wife in a psychiatric hospital. Years earlier, she had tried to drown their child and then take her own life. Crushed by guilt and powerless to change what has happened, he stays on at the clinic as a janitor. Soon, their daughter comes to tell him she is getting married, and with her arrival come painful memories and tormenting visions.
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In late 19th-century Tokyo, Kikunosuke Onoue, the adopted son of a legendary actor, himself an actor specializing in female roles, discovers that the praise he receives is only due to his status as his father's heir. Devastated, he turns to Otoku, a servant of his family, for comfort, and they fall in love. Kikunosuke becomes determined to leave home and develop as an actor on his own merits, and Otoku faithfully joins him.
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A former Buddhist monk turned erotic filmmaker, Subuyan lives with hairdresser Haru and her two teenage children. Shooting two skin flicks per day, he somehow manages to stay out of the clutches of the yakuza, but real trouble starts when Haru discovers him lusting after her daughter.
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