The best Ken Mitsuishi’s drama movies

A bravado period action film set at the end of Japan's feudal era in which a group of unemployed samurai are enlisted to bring down a sadistic lord and prevent him from ascending to the throne and plunging the country into a war-torn future.

Kaiji Ito moves to Japan after graduating from high school. Unable to find a job and frustrated with society at large, Kaiji spends his days gambling, vandalizing cars, and drinking booze. Two years later and his life is no better. A debt collector named Endo arrives to collect money owed. The debt collector offers two choices to Kaiji: spend 10 years paying off his loan or board a gambling boat for one night to repay his debt & possibly make a boat load of money. Could the debt collector Endo actually be setting up Kaiji? One way or another, for Kaiji it's going to be the night of his life.

In this excursion into Tokyo's dark side, a sexually repressed woman finds liberation by turning tricks at night a sex worker is taken by surprise when her ex drops by and a sex blogger finds strange kinship with a loner.

Seven years after the death of his wife, widower Shigeharu seeks advice on how to find a new wife from a colleague. Taking advantage of their position as a film company, they stage an audition. Interviewing a series of women, Shigeharu is enchanted by the quiet Asami. But soon things take a twisted turn as Asami isn’t what she seems to be.

When exchanging letters two women discover new things about a deceased man they used to know.

Set after the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, all 14-year-old Sumida Yuichi wants to become is a regular boy and live a decent life. His environment though repeatedly drags him into the mud. He runs his parent's rental boat business, which is located next to a nondescript lake. His mother frequently comes home with different men and soon she leaves him entirely. His father only comes around looking for money. Chazawa Keiko is a classmate of Sumida Yuichi. She harbors a severe crush on Yuichi. Keiko's home life isn't much better than Yuichi's. Her mother builds a gallows with a noose in place for Keiko to take her own life. Her mother believes her life would be better off without Keiko. Under these circumstances, Keiko pays a visit to Yuichi's home. A group of people are lingering nearby who live in makeshift tents on the property. Keiko tries to befriend Yuichi, but she is berated and even physically assaulted. She doesn't get deterred though and sticks around.

A deadly bus hijacking in rural Kyushu leaves only brother and sister Naoki and Kozue Tamura, and bus driver Makoto Sawai, as survivors. In the aftermath, Makoto abandons his family to wander Japan, and the siblings become mute and dissociated, and are later orphaned. Two years later, Makoto returns and, after failing to reconnect with his family, decides to live with and look after the Tamuras.

Ôtomo gets involved with new Yakuza battles after he comes back the Yakuza society.

An anthology of three short films by Michel Gondry, Leos Carax, and Bong Joon-ho, each of whom offers an imaginative and trans-/super-natural glimpse into the Tokyo Megalopolis.

A woman with a body writing fetish seeks to find a combined lover and calligrapher.

In spring, a girl leaves the island of Hokkaido to attend university in Tokyo. Once there, she is asked to reveal why she wanted to go there in the first place.

After failing his university entrance exam, Yuki Hirano sets his eyes on the role of a forestry trainee. Setting off for training he doubts his decision many times, but eventually after passing the training course, he is sent to Kamusari Village for a year of work experience - where he becomes assimilated with the beauty of nature and the warm-hearted people of the village.

Swallowtail Butterfly takes place in an alternate Japan, in a ghetto where immigrants from all over the world have come to live and make their fortune. The city is called Yentown, and it is much like Tokyo. Sixteen-year-old Ageha, a young girl whose mother has just died, is passed on from person to person until a prostitute named Glico finally takes pity on her. Under Glico's care, Ageha has many experiences with the other poverty-stricken immigrants in Yentown. Eventually, due to a sudden twist in fate, the immigrants are given a chance to realize their dreams. But in doing so, they destroy their solidarity, and have to face their problems separately.

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. Shinji Kase tells his wife that he came to Earth to invade.

White-collar worker Yamashita finds out that his wife has a lover visiting her when he's away, suddenly returns home and kills her. After eight years in prison, he returns to live in a small village, opens a barber shop (he was trained as a barber in prison) and talks almost to no-one except for the eel he "befriended" in prison. One day he finds the unconscious body of Keiko, who attempted suicide and reminds him of his wife. She starts to work at his shop, but he doesn't let her become close to him.

A teenager named Noriko Shimabara runs away from her family in Toyokawa, to meet Kumiko, the leader of an Internet BBS, Haikyo.com. She becomes involved with Kumiko’s “family circle,” which grows darker after the mass suicide of 54 high school girls.

Adapted from the bestselling Japanese autobiography of the same title, this gentle coming-of-age drama concerns an adolescent boy, Boku - Masaya, torn between the inherited recklessness of his father Oton and the inherited responsibility, wisdom and emotional strength of his mother Okan. Following a period of intensely rebellious behavior, Boku learns that his mom has contracted cancer; suddenly, his mother comes to live with him in Tokyo the entire emotional landscape of his life is altered.

A high-school girl inherits a declining yakuza organization, which seeks to repair its fortunes under her leadership.

When people finish their day and hurry home, his day starts. His diner is open from midnight to seven in the morning. Pork, miso soup combo, beer, sake and shochu is all that he has on his menu. Nevertheless, he makes whatever his customers request as long as he has the ingredients for it.

Shimizu Yuichi (Tsumabuki Satoshi) is a shy and lonely day laborer looking for love. He aimlessly spends time corresponding with girls via telephone dating services and going on random encounters with girls looking for spending cash. His world is shattered one day when he is involved in the murder of one of his former encounters, the sweet-faced Ishibashi Yoshino (Mitsushima Hikari) who, after being jilted by playboy Masuo Keijo (Okada Masaki), berates and mocks the troubled loner.