The best Arata Iura’s movies

Ryota Nonomiya is a successful businessman driven by money. He learns that his biological son was switched with another child after birth. He must make a life-changing decision and choose his true son or the boy he raised as his own.

A true-story account of a German businessman who saved more than 200,000 Chinese during the Nanjing massacre in 1937-38.

On a cold Monday morning, a group of counselors clock in at an old-fashioned social services office. Their task is to interview the recently deceased, record their personal details, then, over the course of the week, assist them in choosing a single memory to keep for eternity.

A life-size, inflatable sex doll suddenly comes to life one day. Without her owner knowing, she goes for a walk around town and falls in love with Junichi. She starts to date Junichi and gets a job at the same store where he works. Everything seems to be going perfect for her until something unexpected happens.

After a long and unsuccessful struggle to get pregnant, convinced by the discourse of an adoption association, Satoko and her husband decide to adopt a baby boy. A few years later, their parenthood is shaken by a threatening unknown girl, Hikari, who pretends to be the child's biological mother. Satoko decides to confront Hikari directly.

Based on the best-selling novel about a woman who decides that her one goal in life is to have her tongue split, this is the sexy body modification movie you’ve been waiting for. While alone in a nightclub, straight-laced Lui meets sensitive but troubled punk kid Ama (Kengo Kora of last year’s SAD VACATION). Mesmerized by his split tongue, she becomes obsessed with body modification and soon wants the same treatment. After Ama’s heavily-tattooed friend Shiba (Arata, 20th CENTURY BOYS) pierces her tongue, Lui finds herself inexorably drawn to both men – and to her growing list of desires, she now adds a tattoo.

Luca follows in his father's footsteps to rescue his mother from evil Ladja. Finding the heavenly hero who wields the Zenithian sword is his only hope.

The film's heroine, Kanna, is a 12-year-old girl who learns from a rabbit named Shiro that she and her late mother Yayoi are descendants of gods. Yayoi had the responsibility of delivering food to the Izumo conference. Now Izumo must fill her mother's responsibilities, and possibly convince the gods to revive her mother.

The final showdown, and the final reveal. who is Friend? How can he be stopped?

The year is 1987 and Japan is just reaching the peak of its economic success. Eighteen-year old Yonosuke Yokomichi arrives in Tokyo from Nagasaki. Ordinary in every way possible, he lives in a suburb far from the excitement of the big city and commutes to a university in the center of Tokyo.

On the eighth anniversary of a cult's failed chemical attack on Tokyo and their subsequent mass suicide, family members of those affected gather at the cult's former base on the shores of a lake to observe the anniversary of their loved ones' deaths.

As children, the introverted Smile was being bullied by a gang of kids until the brash Peco comes by and chases all of them them away. Peco then takes Smile under his wings and teaches him how to play the game of ping pong. From there a life long best friend relationship comes into existence between these two polar opposite kids. Fast forward a decade later, these two best friends try to deal with their own inner turmoils, as they move further and further into the regional ping pong tournament. Peco has to overcome a knee injury while trying to rediscover the fun aspects of the game of Ping Pong. Meanwhile, Smile now seems to have gained the killer instinct by going through a rigorous training regiment instilled by his high school coach. As the tournament progresses it becomes more likely that these two best friends will face off against each in the final match.

Etsuko's café in her peaceful little seaside town is where everyone gathers to gossip and taste her famous brew. But the winds of change are beginning to blow.

Sae (Yui Aragaki) is a high school student who is studying hard for her college entrance exams. She lost her father when she was very young and so lives with her mother Ryoko (Hiroko Yakushimaru) in Hokkaido, Japan. Her father Kemimichi (Arata) once planted a dogwood tree in their garden after he found out he had a terminal disease and could not watch Sae grow up. She hopes to enter a university in Tokyo. She then meets Kouhei (Toma Ikuta), who attends a specialized high school teaching fishery. He hopes to follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather as a fisherman. These two young people meet and have a long distance relationship. Although their love is strong it does not last. 10 years later these two people have a miracle ...

Meiko Inoue is a recent college grad working as an office lady in a job she hates. Her boyfriend Shigeo is permanently crashing at her apartment because his job as a freelance illustrator doesn't pay enough for rent. And her parents in the country keep sending her boxes of veggies that just rot in her fridge. Straddling the line between her years as a student and the rest of her life, Meiko struggles with the feeling that she's just not cut out to be a part of the real world.

From the late 1950s through the '70s, more than 90,000 of the ethnic Koreans in Japan emigrated to North Korea, a country that promised them affluence, justice, and an end to discrimination. KAZOKU NO KUNI tells the story of one of their number, who returns for just a short period. For the first time in 25 years, Sonho is reunited with his family in Tokyo after being allowed to undergo an operation there. Sonho’s younger sister Rie is at the centre of the film, and is not hard to recognise as the director’s alter-ego. In her documentaries DEAR PYONGYANG and SONA, THE OTHER MYSELF, Yang Yonghi told the story of her own life, and how, at age six, she experienced the departure of her three older brothers, who left their family for Pyongyang.

The film is told in three acts, beginning with a historical background of Japan's student movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, mostly using archive footage and a narrator. The second act follows the formation of the group to their mountain training camps in the southern Japanese Alps. It emphasizes the dogmatic (and eventually hypocritical) bullying of the group by Mori and Nagata, with 12 members being killed for infractions as small as improperly cleaning a gun, wearing make-up, and kissing. The third act shows the splitting up of the group after two members run off. It follows one group of five members to Karuizawa and a hostage-taking and police standoff known as the Asama-Sansō incident.

S.W.O.R.D. Chiku is a devastated and dangerous town with 5 gangs - Sannoh Rengokai, White Rascals, Oya Kohkoh, Rude Boys and Daruma Ikka - fighting fiercely. The name S.W.O.R.D. comprises of the first letter in each of these gangs. Before these 5 gangs, the legendary Mugen gang dominated the town. Mugen and the Amamiya Brothers (who did not submit to Mugen) clashed and Mugen disbanded, but ...

A couple of months have passed since the serial murder case. A new dead body is found in the same area. Detective Manabu Kagaya tries to find the truth. He goes to see serial killer Yoshiharu Urano in prison.