The best Maiko Kawakami’s movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best Maiko Kawakami’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 Maiko Kawakami.
Violent Cop
7.1/10
A detective breaks all rules of ethical conduct while investigating a colleague’s involvement in drug pushing and Yakuza activities.
Gonin
6.7/10
Five men plot to steal a large sum of money from the local yakuza, but everything does not go as planned and the men find themselves hunted down by contract killers.
Tomie: Unlimited
4.7/10
Tsukiko is part of the photography club at school, but has always felt less than her sister Tomie. She's cute and very popular among boys. However, one day, Tomie dies in a horrible accident, triggering endless nightmares for Tsukiko. One year later, right when Tomie was supposed to turn 18, someone knocks on the door. Tomie is back. Little by little, Tomie will start to show her darkest side to Tsukiko, making her nightmares come to life.
A Tale of Happiness
5.9/10
Yusuke Mikuni, a department manager at his company, buys a one-room apartment to have some space to himself. He signs an agreement with a young woman named Chako and has an affair with her once a week at the apartment.
Postcard
7.1/10
Toward the end of World War II, middle-aged soldier Keita is entrusted with a postcard from a comrade who is sure he will die in battle. After the war ends, Keita visits his comrade's wife Yuko and bears witness to the tragic life she has led. This year's Oscar entry from Japan finds SHINDO in top form and his 49th and reportedly last film as fresh and poignant as ever.
Angel Guts: Red Flash
5.5/10
Nami is a photographer on the set of a porn film. When photographing a rape scene between a teacher and a schoolgirl, she becomes uncomfortable, having remembered a similar incident in her own past.
Labyrinth of Cinema
6.7/10
The story centers on a group of young people who travel back in time when they are in a movie theater just before closing time. They witness deaths during the closing days of Japan’s feudal times and on the battlefront in China before they are sent to Hiroshima just before the Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bombing of the city.
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.
The Wicked Reporter
6.1/10
More than his indie debut Skinless Night, this was the film that launched Mochizuki on his distinctive trajectory through the crime and yakuza genres. Matsuzaki (Eiji Okuda) is a racing tipster for a sports paper, a lowlife who spends half his time drunk, hangs out with yakuza and other riff-raff and complicates his sex life by succumbing to advances from his girlfriend's sister. As played by Okuda, he's also a figure of considerable hangdog charm. Less a plot-based movie than a guide to the several forms of high stakes gambling in Japan, this centres on his attempt to help a friend swindled in a bent mahjong game. Hakuryu appears (memorably) as an inscrutable yakuza in a black leather jacket. The film's success led to two sequels.
Teacher and Three Children
5.5/10
The 95-year-old director shot the film in his hometown of Ishiuchi, Hiroshima. The story is based on a teacher he had when he was a child.
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.
Curse, Death & Spirit
5.3/10
This is a series of three short supernatural-themed movies. The first tells the story of a teen girl who dreams of haunted doll. In the second movie, a widowed mother brings her children to a house in the woods to help them forget the death of their father. While in the woods one of the children meets a ghost that wants more than just to be friends. The last movie tells the story of three teen-aged girls who go on vacation, only to find themselves at a haunted inn.
Yoko the Cherry Blossom
6.4/10
In 1940, Masaaki Takaoka works as a teacher in the agricultural division at a youth training institute. Although Japan’s defeat seems imminent, all of Masaaki’s students are drafted in a futile last-ditch effort. In an attempt to give the young men some hope, he makes everyone promise that they will all meet again under the cherry blossoms upon their safe return. Consumed by sadness over the fate of his students, Masaaki devotes the next 30 years of his life to develop a new species of cherry blossoms that could thrive in any climate in remembrance of his students.
Apron Stage
5.3/10
About a group of itinerant actors.
The Horizon
7.3/10
Internationally acclaimed for his cinematic realism and social commitment, Kaneto Shindo based the story of THE HORIZON on his sister's experiences. The film concerns Hideo, a young girl who leaves Japan in 1920 to settle her family's debt by being sold in marriage to a Japanese farmer in San Francisco. Over the next 20 years the couple works hard and raises 4 children. After Pearl Harbor is attacked they are interned with other Japanese immigrants in a camp, losing both their land and their assets. Hideo has now been uprooted twice and has to adjust to her son's going to war and her daughters' post-war assimilation and marriage to Americans despite her protests. But Hideo is a survivor and she awaits a new immigrant from Japan with hope.
Road 88: Deaiji shikoku e
A young girl with leukemia travels a pilgrimage by skateboard.
Black Board
6.7/10
Takeshi Yasui, a junior high school student is found dead in a river. The police investigate it as a murder related to bullying. The dead boy turns out to have been murdered by two of his schoolmates, who he had been bullying.
The Breed
Children born with special power. They seek blood for eternal life. And tonight, the victims ...!
Partners
6.9/10
19-year-old freeter (a Japanese expression for people between the ages of 15 and 34 who lack full time employment or are unemployed, excluding housewives and students.) Tsuyoshi Osanai enters a school for guide dog trainers. After 2 years of training, Tsuyoshi becomes an assistant trainer. His first dog to train is Chie.
Big Bird in Japan
7.1/10
While visiting Japan, Big Bird wanders off from a guided tour bus in Tokyo, and is lost until a Japanese woman helps him get to where he needs to go. The woman, however, is hiding a secret.
