The best Mariko Kaga’s drama movies

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

Domyoji holds an extravagant press conference to announce his wedding to Makino the following spring. The press is playing her up like a modern-day Cinderella and everything seems to be going well. Later, the families offer congratulations to the couple. Even Domyoji’s mother, who was formerly opposed to the relationship and tried desperately to break them up at every opportunity is suddenly happy for them. She even offers Makino a family heirloom: a tiara worth 10 billion yen (about $95 million USD) called “Smile of Venus”.r be meddling again, hoping to make it look like Makino carelessly lost the tiara herself? Or is someone at the hotel trying to cover up the crime? Domyoji and Makino are determined to get to the bottom of things and end up going on a wild adventure together which takes them through Las Vegas, Hong Kong, and various places throughout the world.

Muraki, a hardboiled Yakuza gangster, has just been released from prison after serving a sentence for murder. Revisiting his old gambling haunts, he meets Saeko, a striking young upper-class woman who is out seeking thrills, and whose presence adds spice to the staid masculine underworld rituals. Muraki becomes her mentor while simultaneously coping with the shifts of power that have affected the gangs while he was interred. When he notices a rogue, drug-addicted young punk hanging around the gambling dens, he realizes that Saeko's insatiable lust for intense pleasures may be leading her to self-destruction.

A college student has an affair with a married, middle-aged teacher.

A poignant love story between a 29-year-old woman, who has once been a prostitute but is now the mistress of a wealthy jewelry merchant, and a 19-year-old college student.

Two boys, whose parents ply their trade by the mouth of a muddy river in Osaka, become close friends.

Yuko is in love with an old poet who happens to be also a married man. She waits patiently for him and only him, yet she is constantly being lust by others.

A disillusioned Natsume arrives at Coin de Rue, a popular Tokyo pastry shop, begging for work. Aiming to become a high-calibre pastry chef, she is determined to overcome both her past and the challenges ahead. Pastry critic Tomura is a frequent visitor to Coin de Rue. Moved by Natsume's persistence, he slowly begins to confront his own painful past aided, of course, by mouthfuls of tasty pastries.

Takashi Fujiki stars as a rebel in this drama about life on the Yokohama waterfront by New Wave director Masahiro Shinoda. The rebel works as an errand boy for a shipping company and vents his frustrations by plucking on the guitar. His interpretations of popular trends in music are sometimes right-on, and sometimes not exactly. Bereft of his guitar, the rebel's modes of expression are not as effective in generating interest as the Yokohama docks themselves, a fascinating world in their own right.

Yuka is a “good-time girl” from Yokohama who is persuaded by her papa to sleep with a foreign business executive so that he can close an important deal. Nakahira presents a shrewdly observed portrait of a modern, sexually assertive woman—an unsettling character for a changing but still patriarchal society.

Two infantry regiments of the Imperial Japanese Army—210 men overall—tackled Mt. Hakkoda in the winter of 1902 to prepare for war with Russia.

Shoko and Mutsuki get married to satisfy their worried parents, but she is well past the age at which a 'good' Japanese woman should marry, and he is in love with a young male college student. The film is less a realistic exploration of gay life than a fairy tale of three young Japanese trying to construct an alternative to the sexual and familial roles given to them by a society turning increasingly emotionally barren.L.

Following the journey of a caterpillar along the Japanese islands from Nagasaki to Hokkaido, this allegorical and oblique first feature film by Kuroki depicts in exquisite images a series of encounters and life's turning points.

In the town of Sakurada, where about half of the residents have special abilities, Kei Asai (Shuhei Nomura) is a high school student and is able to remember everything. Misora Haruki (Yuina Kuroshima) is also a high school student and she has the power to reset the world by 3 days. If they use both of their powers together, they can go back in time by 3 days and retain their memory. They are watched by the administrative bureau.

When the man who seduced the famous painter Otoko as a teenager--and then wrote a bestselling novel about it--reappears in her life, her pupil--and lesbian lover--hatches a plot to destroy the man and his family.

A corrupt businessman blackmails the lovelorn reprobate Atsushi into watching over his suitcase full of embezzled cash while he serves a jail sentence. Rather than wait for the man to retrieve his money, however, Atsushi decides to spend it all in one libidinous rush—fully expecting to be tracked down and killed.

A Tokyo family escaping the war relocates to a Hokkaido village; their daughter is set to marry the local leader's son, but her siblings disapprove.