Where Spring Comes Late

Shakespeare's King Lear is reimagined as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan where an aging warlord divides his kingdom between his three sons.

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.

The summer of his high school freshman year, Hodaka runs away from his remote island home to Tokyo, and quickly finds himself pushed to his financial and personal limits. The weather is unusually gloomy and rainy every day, as if taking its cue from his life. After many days of solitude, he finally finds work as a freelance writer for a mysterious occult magazine. Then, one day, Hodaka meets Hina on a busy street corner. This bright and strong-willed girl possesses a strange and wonderful ability: the power to stop the rain and clear the sky.

The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko, the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.

In the summer of 1941, the United States and Japan seem on the brink of war after constant embargos and failed diplomacy come to no end. "Tora! Tora! Tora!", named after the code words used by the lead Japanese pilot to indicate they had surprised the Americans, covers the days leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, which plunged America into the Second World War.

Aspiring to an easy job as personal physician to a wealthy family, Noboru Yasumoto is disappointed when his first post after medical school takes him to a small country clinic under the gruff doctor Red Beard. Yasumoto rebels in numerous ways, but Red Beard proves a wise and patient teacher. He gradually introduces his student to the unglamorous side of the profession, ultimately assigning him to care for a prostitute rescued from a local brothel.

Eight visually rich vignettes drawn from Kurosawa’s own dreams—fox weddings and vanished orchards, a soldier’s ghosts, a walk through Van Gogh’s canvases, nuclear nightmares, and a water-mill utopia—meditate on childhood, art, mortality, and humanity’s uneasy bond with nature.

Kon Ichikawa's retelling of the classic true story of Samurai honor. When a young clan lord is forced to commit seppuku (ritual suicide), his loyal followers (now Ronin, masterless Samurai) dedicate their lives to avenging his death.

In this made-for-television movie, director Kazuyoshi Yoshikawa brought together Fujita Makoto and Masahiro Takashima for the remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Red Beard! A physician and his assistant work desperately to save lives in the face of budget cutbacks at their clinic.

Masaki, a baseball player and gas-station attendant, gets into trouble with the local Yakuza and goes to Okinawa to get a gun to defend himself. There he meets Uehara, a tough gangster, who is in serious debt to the yakuza and planning revenge.

The arranged marriage between a capricious woman from Tokyo high society and a quiet rustic man is tested by a marital crisis.

One day, taxi driver Koji Usami is tasked with driving 85-year-old Sumire Takano from Shibamata, Tokyo to a senior care facility in Hayama, Kanagawa. Sumire asks Koji to make some detours. Gradually opening up to her, Sumire begins to tell the story of her grand past...

After a passenger ship sinks in 1954, Go Akutsu devises a life-saving project in the form of a tunnel under the Tsugaru Strait. While working on this project Akutsu becomes involved with Tae Makimura leading to his estrangement from his wife.

A fictional account of the life of Japanese author Yukio Mishima, combining dramatizations of three of his novels and a depiction of the events of November 25th, 1970.

Widower Shuhei Hirayama's caretaker is his 24-year-old daughter, Michiko. Gradually, he comes to realize that Michiko should not be obliged to look after him for the rest of his life, so he arranges a marriage for her.

Late in the 1500s, an aging tea master teaches the way of tea to a headstrong Shogun. Through force of will and courageous fighting, Hideyoshi becomes Japan’s most powerful warlord, unifying the country.

After the Japanese defeat to the Russians, Kaji leads the last remaining men through Manchuria. Intent on returning to his old life, he faces great odds in a variety of different harrowing circumstances as he and his men sneak behind enemy lines.

The family of an older man who runs a small sake brewery become concerned with his finances and his health after they discover him visiting an old mistress from his youth.

The tragic, true story about Hachikō, an Akita dog who was loyal to his master, Professor Ueno, even after Ueno's death.

Noriko is perfectly happy living at home with her widowed father, Shukichi, and has no plans to marry -- that is, until her aunt Masa convinces Shukichi that unless he marries off his 27-year-old daughter soon, she will likely remain alone for the rest of her life. When Noriko resists Masa's matchmaking, Shukichi is forced to deceive his daughter and sacrifice his own happiness to do what he believes is right.

In a Japan of the near future, the government program Plan 75 encourages senior citizens to be voluntarily euthanized to remedy a super-aged society. An elderly woman whose means of survival are vanishing, a pragmatic Plan 75 salesman, and a young Filipino laborer face choices of life and death.

The neglected common-law wife of a Japanese librarian is repeatedly harassed by a young man with a heart condition who seduces her with the prospect of a better life.

A director faces creative block while working on his latest film – a reimagination of his adolescence growing up in a mountain village in rural Japan.

A convict, newly released from prison for murder, joins two strangers on a road trip through Hokkaido to visit his ex-wife, whom he hasn't seen in four years, knowing that if she puts a yellow handkerchief on the window, it would mean that she wants him back at home.

Nakadai is an English teacher at a local school. He’s put-upon like the patron figure of dozens of films and televisions shows. Viewers who are especially fans of Nakadai will appreciate how the actor comically rants about here. His home life is almost disastrous, with a ditzy (but attractive) wife, three young children, a loud school nearby that’s controlled by a corrupt businessman he loathes, and frequent visits from layabout friends. And the grey-furred, green-eyed cat!

Taka, the daughter of Naniwa-ya, a longtime Osaka store owner, married Kichisaburo Kawashima-ya, the son of a kimono wholesaler. Her husband just tried to play with her like a sweet candy, but Taka fell in love with him. One day, the father-in-law suddenly dies, and the Kawashima-ya family fortune is rapidly changing. However, the depravity of Kichisaburo does not subside...

Mainly the story of Shinsuke and his stepmother, ranging from Shinsuke's infanthood to his mid-teens. Coal workers and the mines dominate nearly every aspect of the life of the characters. Shinsuke's father dies while bravely using dynamite to rescue a group of trapped Korean miners. Several older men attempt to help he and his mother cope, including a kind Korean and a Harley-riding yakuza.

Two detectives are tasked to investigate the murder of an old man, found bludgeoned to death in a Tokyo rail yard.

A woman, Tome, is born to a lower class family in Japan in 1918. The title refers to an insect, repeating its mistakes, as in an infinite circle. Imamura, with this metaphor, introduces the life of Tome, who keeps trying to change her poor life.

Rivalry between a hoodlum group and gangster organization.

In the year 1590, the mighty warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi is close to fulfilling his ambition of unifying all of Japan under his banner when he comes across unexpected resistance in the form of a floating fortress known as Oshi Castle. Narita Nagachika, a frivolous hedonistic fellow and unlikely candidate for the position of rebel general, finds himself in charge of defending the castle. His odds? An army of 500 men to combat Toyotomi Hideyoshi's army of 20,000.

Rei Kiriyama is a 17-years-old shogi (Japanese chess) player. He debuted as a professional shogi player when he was in middle school. He lives by himself in Tokyo, because his parents and younger sister died in an traffic accident when he was little. One day, Rei Kiriyama meets three sisters who are his neighbors. The three sisters are Akari Kawamoto, Hinata Kawamoto and Momo Kawamoto. This is his first meeting with someone outside of the shogi world in many years. Having meals with the Kawamoto family brings warm feelings to Rei Kiriyama. As Rei Kiriyama continues his shogi career, his interactions with his neighbors allows him to grow as a shogi player and as a person.

Repeatedly beat to a pulp by gamblers, cops, and gangsters, lone wolf Shoji Yamanaka finally finds a home as a Muraoka family hitman and falls in love with boss Muraoka's niece. Meanwhile, the ambitions of mad dog Katsutoshi Otomo draws our series' hero, Shozo Hirono, and the other yakuza into a new round of bloodshed.

The time spent between professional Shogi player Kiriyama and his three stories helps to heal his wounds. As he prepares to secure another win in an upcoming tournament, the father who left the three sisters appears and disturbs the peace.

Ruthless dominatrixes pursue a mild-mannered salesman who wants to get out of his unbreakable contract with a secret bondage club.

Sophie, a young milliner, is turned into an elderly woman by a witch who enters her shop and curses her. She encounters a wizard named Howl and gets caught up in his resistance to fighting for the king.

In this humorous paean to the joys of food, a pair of truck drivers happen onto a decrepit roadside shop selling ramen noodles. The widowed owner, Tampopo, begs them to help her turn her establishment into a paragon of the "art of noodle-soup making". Interspersed are satirical vignettes about the importance of food to different aspects of human life.

Directed by Junya Sato and based on a book by Jun Henmi, "Yamato" has a framing story set in the present day and uses flashbacks to tell the story of the crew of the World War II Japanese battleship Yamato. The film was never released in the United States, where reviewers who have seen it have compared the military epic to "Titanic" and "Saving Private Ryan."

Tezuka Osamu's most famous work "Jungle Emperor Leo" has been made into an animated version a number of times. In this theater version, Tezuka Osamu was able for the first time to depict the theme that "All life is equal" through Leo's self-sacrifice.

When Unico, a young unicorn, is banished from his family by a pantheon of manipulative gods, his powers of joy and happiness are tested as he explores the lands with his friends Beezle and Katy.

Torajiro becomes homesick during his travels after watching a television report about his hometown and meeting a young woman that reminds him of his sister Sakura. Meanwhile, a new tenant moves into Toraya restaurant.

An uptight young man comes to suspect that his factory worker girlfriend has a secret involving his boorish older brother.

Misawa Ihei (Nagato) is traveling with his wife Tae (Iwashita Shima) who abhors the practice of sword fighting for prize money. Tae is the daughter of the clan's chief counselor who married the low-ranking Ihei to avoid becoming the clan lord's mistress. Into the mix comes Oba Gunjuro (Tetsurō Tamba), a mysterious ronin who will do anything for money. This leads to a fitting climax as the forces of hate and love converge while the couple attempt to break through the border!

Children's movie about a dog that can type messages into a word processor. When his owner is kidnapped, the canine summons his fellow dogs to help in the rescue effort.

Deep in the mountains of Japan a dam is scheduled to be built, thus forcing a relocation of the farmers. One of them is 78-year-old Denzo, whose son and his wife consider him senile. Left alone, he befriends a young boy, Sentaro, who has heard that the old man was once a great angler. The unlikely pair spend lots of happy time together, until Denzo has a heart attack and dies far upstream. The dam is completed and the entire area is inundated. Everyone will move away, except Denzo.

Kon Ichikawa's war film depicts the 60-hour period from the departure of the battleship Yamato, the pride of the Japanese Navy, until its sinking by the American forces during Operation Ten-Go.