The best Kazuko Shirakawa’s drama movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best Kazuko Shirakawa’s movies, although you may have ordered them differently. In any case, we hope you love it and with a little luck discovering a movie that you still don’t know about Kazuko Shirakawa.
After Life
7.6/10
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.
Vengeance Is Mine
7.7/10
A thief, a murderer, and a charming lady-killer, Iwao Enokizu is on the run from the police.
Dawn of the Felines
5.5/10
A story of three escort girls living in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. They work at the same escort service while feeling lonely in their urban lives.
Radiance
6.4/10
The story follows the social intercourse between a cameraman, Masaya, with a visual impairment, and Misako who disconnects from the world.
Black Rain
7.8/10
Shigematsu Shizuma lives with his senile mother, his wife Shigeko, and his niece Yasuko in a village near Fukuyama. He, his wife, his niece and his close friends in the village were present at the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The Shizumas look for prospective husbands for Yasuko, but find that the families withdraw on finding out she was at Hiroshima.
Apartment Wife: Affair In the Afternoon
6.6/10
A working-class housewife is sexually unsatisfied by her husband. When she seeks extramarital relationships, her affairs are discovered by a brothel-owner who then blackmails the woman into working as a prostitute for her.
Ichijo's Wet Lust
5.3/10
Ichijo Sayuri, once the legendary queen of Osaka strippers, has retired to run a sushi shop. She is awaiting her day in court after having been arrested for indecency at her farewell performance. While she was active, she was both the rival and the model for many young strippers. Harumi was one of them. Ichijo Sayuri was the real-life queen of Osaka strippers who was arrested on her final performance.
The Family Game
7.2/10
A sendup of the stereo-typical Japanese family: dad is a salaryman jerk, unable to relate to anyone; mom is a hopeless housewife; the older son is a moderate academic success; but the younger son is a rebellious goof-off for whom a tutor must be hired. The tutor, played by the prototypical bad-boy actor Matsuda Yusaku, proceeds to blow the entire family apart.
Why Not?
6.8/10
The film depicts carnivalesque atmosphere summed up by the cry "Ee ja nai ka" ("Why not?") in Japan in 1867 and 1868 in the days leading to the Meiji Restoration. It examines the effects of the political and social upheaval of the time, and culminates in a revelrous march on the Kokyo, which turns into a massacre. Characteristically, Imamura focuses not on the leaders of the country, but on characters in the lower classes and on the fringes of society.
The Youth Killer
6.8/10
Though his parents help him run the family business, Jun still feels persecuted by their love; when they bar him from meeting with his girlfriend, tensions increase.
Lily Festival
7.2/10
Sachi Hamano's Yurisai (Lily Festival) is about a man (Mickey Curtis) in his seventies who comes to live in an apartment building that also houses seven elderly women. The film examines the ladies' sexual desires as the man proceeds to woo each of them. Kazuko Yoshiyuki portrays one of the female residents. The film was adapted from a novel by Houko Momotani and was screened at the Montreal World Film Festival.
Honeymoon
5.7/10
Tetsuaki's struggling to write a novel while his mother fades; Mitsuko's engagement has been forced upon her unwillingly; the two individuals run away to share their grief.
Housewife's Afternoon Delight
5/10
Sayaka is a sexually frustrated housewife whose husband rarely talks and is always busy with work. But she soon finds an antidote to her loneliness and boredom in the form of a door-to-door salesman in this erotic drama.
Night's Tightrope
6.2/10
Yuki is a 2nd year high school student. She volunteers at a paediatrics ward for her summer vacation, because she wants to witness the moment a person dies. She got that thought after feeling envious of a transfer student's story of seeing a friend's dead body. Yuki has friend named Atsuko. She was bullied in the past and has anxiety issues. She volunteers at a nursing home for her summer vacation, hoping that she will gain courage if she sees the moment a person dies.
I Will Never Forgive
6.2/10
A psychological drama about the consequences of a 15 year old girl's gang rape.
The Stairway to the Distant Past
6.8/10
Broke, his vintage Nash convertible repossessed, private eye Mike Hama is reduced to combing the mean streets of the Yokohama waterfront on a borrowed bicycle. But when Lily, a beautiful stripper from out of Hama's past, returns to town, the fuse is lit on a criminal powder keg set to blow the lid off the Yokohama underworld.
Blessing Bell
7.2/10
Existential study on a misplaced workers and ex-prisoner who moves through the city and his influence on other characters' lives.
Farewell to the Land
6.9/10
Yukio is an ex-farmer working as a dump-truck driver in Kashima. Haunted by the drowning of his two young sons, whose names he has had tattooed on his back in penance, and locked in a sibling rivalry with his traditional but urbane younger brother who lives in Tokyo, Yukio has become an amphetamine-addicted loner at odds with his family, friends and colleagues.
What Am I Contesting With?
Haruo Izawa is 45 years old and the floor chief of the local grocery store “Umeya”. He is highly trusted by Store Manager Ueda and the part-time ladies and the Ohara branch is the only place where he has been working for 25 years. Although he says that he doesn’t fit to be a store manager, he is still concerned about HR and career advancement. That’s why Ueda’s praise "command center" is his only treasure. Besides, he is also a husband of his wife Ritsuko, and a father of two daughters and a son, Koume, Kanako, and Ryota at home. Humor and pathos are said to be only a fine line, but Haruo’s fruitless actions of paying attention to the human relationships and atmosphere and overthinking never stop.. Where is this middle-aged man’s turmoil going??
Did the Red Bird Escape?
7.2/10
A young outlaw can’t escape his rebellious past despite connections to a well to do family.
