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...

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

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....

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...

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....

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...

Two disaffected, unemployed Chinese youth drift through life on the streets of their industrial town, their paths crossing with that of a local young singer and dancer working for a liquor company as a spokesmodel....

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 ...

Director Yoshiyuki Kishi and screenwriter Takehito Minato—the team behind acclaimed boxing epic Wilderness—reunite to adapt Ryo Asai's prize-winning novel. A sensitive drama about the aberrant in a society without regard for diversity, the story unit...

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

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....

Kanao, a courtroom portrait artist, observes crimes, scandals and the decline of Japanese values without passing judgement. As he and his wife endure the tragedy of their first child’s death, hope slowly unfolds and their love story flickers to life ...

As a decades-old state-run aeronautics munitions factory in downtown Chengdu, China is being torn down for the construction of the titular luxury apartment complex, director Jia Zhangke interviews various people affiliated with it about their experie...

Kageko, a teacher in a small mountain village with a thriving Japanese paper industry, is visited by a former student, who proposes a plan to manufacture counterfeit money. She initially refuses, but eventually decides to join the project for the sak...

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...

An old couple, their only son, the son's wife, a young man and his lover live peacefully in a village. Then, a terrifying earthquake strikes that causes a nearby nuclear station to explode. The residents must evacuate, but the family lives on a farm,...

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...

Two young men arrive at a deserted countryside train station. They are Tsuboi and Kinoshita, amateur filmmakers on their way to a meeting with a genuine film star who might be interested in appearing in their next production....

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...

Takashi, an unemployed young man, is entrusted with a "catch ball shop" by a stranger he meets in the park. While accepting people's feelings through catch ball, Takashi himself remembers the important things that he had forgotten....