A hard-hearted old woman in a bombed-out Tokyo neighborhood reluctantly takes in an abandoned boy, leading to a heartwarming bond between them.
Social & External
Tane
Kohei
Kikuko
Tashiro
Father
Tamekichi
Okiku
Kawayoshi
Tome
Photographer
Kashiwaya
Wife
Every day, Jay travels the length and breadth of Tokyo in his taxi, looking for his daughter Lily. In the 9 years since he has separated from his wife, he has never been able to get custody of his daughter. Having given up hope of ever seeing her again, he is about to move back to France when Lily hops in his cab. But she doesn't recognize him.
Air Force Major Lloyd Gruver is reassigned to a Japanese air base and is confronted with US racial prejudice against the Japanese people. The issue is compounded because a number of the soldiers become romantically involved with Japanese women, in defiance of US military policy. Ordinarily, a by-the-book officer, Gruver must take a position when a buddy of his, an enlisted man, Joe Kelly, falls in love with a Japanese woman, Katsumi, and marries her. Gruver risks his position by serving as best man at the wedding ceremony.
Desirée, a modern librarian with urban friends and interests is visiting her late husband's grave when she meets Benny, a simple farmer. After his mother's death Benny lives alone on the run-down farm, desperately seeking a woman to take care of him. In spite of their differences the two have the dream of finding that special someone in common, and fall passionately in love. Benny wants Desirée to move in with him and start a family as soon as possible. But being a farmer's wife is not something she is very enthusiastic about. Just presenting Benny as her boyfriend proves to be an embarrassing experience. And when she gets a tempting job offer in Stockholm she has to consider her priorities carefully.
A man and a woman meet by accident on a Sunday evening at their childrens' boarding school. Slowly, they reveal themselves to each other, finding that they have something deeply in common.
A small-town, country doctor has been a widow for two years but is still in love with her dead husband, Michael. The week-long county fair is approaching and her father-in-law traps her into an unfair deal involving the feeding of her bull in return for her attendance at the fair with a suitable escort. She decides to call his bluff by hiring a male escort to attend the fair as her lover. However, things don't go quite according to plan as he smells a rat!
In Japan's Aokigahara Forest, a troubled teacher meets a mysterious lost stranger who takes him on a life-changing journey of love and redemption.
A teenaged girl witnesses her widowed mother's attempt to sustain her family.
A year has passed in postwar Tokyo, and struggling writer Chagawa enters the Akutagawa Prize competition in hopes of securing a better future for the boy in his care, while the Suzuki family unexpectedly take in a new relative who looks down on their humble way of life.
The young caretaker at the estate of a reclusive woman develops a dangerous obsession with her daughter, a sexy television star. Unexpected twists and turns.
Stockholm in the 1920s. Young Roland lives with his socialist father, Jewish mother and a boxing brother. His mother sells condoms illegally, and from them, Roland makes slingshots which he sells. His rebellious ways has gotten him the special attention of his school teacher, who always makes sure that Roland is punished. Roland also tries to make extra money by repairing bicycles, a successful business that in the end lands him in hot water.
Three tales that center around sex and citizens of Tokyo: A repressed woman embraces her sexuality, ("Birthday"), an unexpected reunion disrupts a sex worker's routine ("Night Lovers"), and a sex blogger discovers connection in the depths of loneliness ("Girl's Life").
Searching for escape in Tokyo's back alleys, a haunted English teacher explores love and lust with a dashing Yakuza, as their tumultuous affair takes her on a journey through the city's dive bars and three-hour love hotels.
In postwar Tokyo, Noriko lives with her extended family. Although she enjoys her career and her social life, her more traditional family worries about her single marital status at the advanced age of 28. 40-year-old business associate Takako proposes, Noriko's family press her into accepting, but when her widowed childhood friend Kenkichi returns to the neighborhood, she finds her heart leading in another direction.
A restaurant opens at midnight. Both the menu offerings and personality of the owner draw a series of flawed patrons including Tamako, whose boyfriend has passed away, live-in worker Michiru, and ruckus-raising Kenzo.
An English widow goes to Italy, falls in love with a dentist's son and marries him, against her straitlaced family's wishes.
Graying Spaniard Daniel has a healthy budget for indulging in the finer things in life. Daniel's favorite luxury is playing sponsor to younger men amid the lights and sights of Madrid's gay club scene. After Daniel shares a night with handsome Bulgarian emigre Kyril, he finds himself consumed with an insatiable lust for the charismatic foreigner. But, as their relationship takes shape, Daniel's latest conquest reveals his own manipulative tendencies.
Marcel, a simple-minded factory worker, is tricked into buying a high-priced American convertable car by a widow determined not to let it fall into the hands of her late husband's secretary/secret lover. Once in pocession of the car, Marcel only encounters one bad luck episode after another with the excessive gasoline consumtion, his wife trying to sell it to make ammends meet, getting into traffic jams, accidently riding into a car wash with the top down, and more.
After the passing of his wife, a lonely newspaper editor discovers Berenalin: a medication that promises to put an end to his grief. Its effects begin to drive a wedge between him and his daughter, who needs him more than ever.
Stevie, fresh from prison in Scotland, finds a job on a London construction site. The working conditions are poor and most of the men are working under aliases, due to immigration status and to not conflict with their "signing on" for unemployment benefits. Some coworkers help Stevie secure housing, squatting in a council estate. Then Stevie meets Susan, from Ireland, who's struggling to be a professional singer.
Popular in the riverside area of Porto, Micas raised her daughter, Madalena, at the cost of sacrifice, as her father emigrated to Brazil. With a happy voice, Madalena works on unloading the coal, seeing her loves thwarted by her humble condition. Barata, another typical figure who makes a living from expedients, helps Madalena's father - meanwhile returned, to "register" her - in a kidnapping plan capable of facilitating her reconciliation with Micas, who is reluctant... Things get complicated, but happiness ends up triumphing.
While combing through the belongings of his recently deceased aunt, Matsuko, nephew Sho pieces together the crucial events that sank Matsuko's life into a despairing tragedy.
Shuhei is leading a tough life. His alcoholic mother Akiko can only hook up with bad guys and order Shuhei to go get money from his disapproving grandparents instead of going to school. Except raising the little half-sister, his rock-bottom life seems to have no end.
On Christmas Eve, three homeless people living on the streets of Tokyo discover a newborn baby among the trash and set out to find its parents.
After leaving prison, dwarf criminal Calvin Sims joins his moron brother Percy in stealing an expensive huge diamond from a jewelry store for the mobster Walken. They are chased by the police, and Calvin hides the stone in the purse of executive Vanessa Edwards, whose husband Darryl Edwards wants to have a baby. Percy convinces Calvin to dress like a baby and be left in front of the Edwards' house to get inside the house and retrieve the diamond. Darryl and Vanessa keep Calvin for the weekend and decide to adopt him, while Walken threatens Darryl to get the stone back.
In a small Tokyo apartment, twelve-year-old Akira must care for his younger siblings after their mother leaves them and shows no sign of returning.
In a small village in a valley everyone who reaches the age of 70 must leave the village and go to a certain mountain top to die. If anyone should refuse they would disgrace their family. Old Orin is 69. This winter it is her turn to go to the mountain. But first she must make sure that her eldest son Tatsuhei finds a wife.
A Yokohama shoe executive faces a wrenching choice when kidnappers mistakenly seize his chauffeur’s son but demand the ransom anyway.
Jon Katz is close to burnout. He's a writer with writer's block; his wife has left for her sister's because he's emotionally distant; he rarely answers his phone. A kennel sends him a border collie that's undisciplined because of abuse. Despite a series of mishaps, Jon decides to keep trying with the dog, and he rents a dilapidated farm house to give the dog room to run. A local handyman refers Jon to a woman who might be able to help him train the dog. Reluctantly, Jon gives her a try. Is the dog the problem, or the owner?
Two sisters find out the existence of their long-lost mother, but the younger cannot accept the fact that she was abandoned as a child.
After a Tibetan boy, the mystical Golden Child, is kidnapped by the evil Sardo Numspa, humankind's fate hangs in the balance. On the other side of the world in Los Angeles, the priestess Kee Nang seeks the Chosen One, who will save the boy from death. When Nang sees social worker Chandler Jarrell on television discussing his ability to find missing children, she solicits his expertise, despite his skepticism over being "chosen."
Kyuta, a boy living in Shibuya, and Kumatetsu, a lonesome beast from Jutengai, an imaginary world. One day, Kyuta forays into the imaginary world and, as he's looking for his way back, meets Kumatetsu who becomes his spirit guide. That encounter leads them to many adventures.
Three people — a blue-collar American, a French journalist and a London school boy — are touched by death in different ways.
In 1960s Los Angeles an energetic widow and her six children try to make a dream of theirs come true: to have a home of their own. They leave L.A. and head for the countryside, all the while facing numerous difficulties and obstacles during their journey.
Russ Millings has just been released from prison after serving 21 years for a 3rd strike conviction for possessing an ounce of marijuana. As he tries to adapt to a world he doesn’t recognize – including trying to learn how to use the internet – he finds an abandoned baby in a dumpster behind the fast food restaurant where he works as a dishwasher. Unsure of what to do, and caught between impulses of kindness and panic, Russ soon realizes this could be his chance at redemption.
When the owner of the Minnesota Twins passes away, he bequeaths the team to his preteen grandson. The newly minted head honcho quickly appoints himself manager, causing unrest in an organization that struggles to take orders from a 12-year-old.
In postwar Germany, a displaced Czech boy, separated from his family during wartime, is befriended by an American GI while the boy's mother desperately searches for him.
Kiyoha rises from the lowly courtesan ranks to the high class position of Oiran in the steamy red-light district of Yoshiwara. She is determined to stand on her own two feet and live life as she pleased.
Narumi is on bad terms with her husband, Shinji, when, one day, Shinji goes missing. He comes back a couple of days later, but he seems like a totally different person, and he is now gentle and tender. He goes for a walk every day. Meanwhile, journalist Sakurai covers the story of a family that was brutally murdered, when an unexplained phenomenon takes place.
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.
A pro ball player with a substance abuse problem is forced into rehab in his hometown, finding new hope when he gets honest about his checkered past, and takes on coaching duties for a misfit Little League team