Movies: Bitters End

Four independent stories set in modern China about random acts of violence....

Yusuke Kafuku, a stage actor and director, still unable, after two years, to cope with the loss of his beloved wife, accepts to direct Uncle Vanya at a theater festival in Hiroshima. There he meets Misaki, an introverted young woman, appointed to dri...

Director Yoshiyuki Kishi and screenwriter Takehito Minato—the team behind acclaimed boxing epic Wilderness—reunite to adapt Ryo Asai's prize-winning novel. A sensitive drama about the aberrant in a society without regard for diversity, the story unit...

Years after her boyfriend left her for the big city and promised to bring her there after he’s settled down, a Chinese woman sets out on a journey to be reunited with him....

Set in Kyoto, Japan, a love story takes place between Hajime and Reika. Hajime is a handsome young man, who is usually a second quicker than everyone else and straightforward. He works at the post office. Reika is a young woman, who is usually a step...

Three distinct tales unfold in the bustling city of Tokyo. Merde, a bizarre sewer-dweller, emerges from a manhole and begins terrorizing pedestrians. After his arrest, he stands trial and lashes out at a hostile courtroom. A man who has resigned hims...

Only three days before their high school festival, guitarist Kei, drummer Kyoko, and bassist Nozomi are forced to recruit a new lead vocalist for their band. They choose Korean exchange student Son, though her comprehension of Japanese is a bit rough...

Asako lives in Osaka. She falls in love with Baku, a free-spirit. One day, Baku suddenly disappears. Two years later, Asako now lives in Tokyo and meets Ryohei. He looks just like Baku, but has a completely different personality....

The life of Tao, and those close to her, is explored in three different time periods: 1999, 2014, and 2025....

“Ars longa, vita brevis” – art is long, life is short. This is one of Japanese music icon Ryuichi Sakamoto’s favorite quotes, and the message that he leaves for viewers at the end of his final concert film, shot before he succumbed to cancer in March...

Tomiko, a middle-aged woman, waits patiently for her husband, who disappeared thirty years ago, to return. She lives alone in a declining fishing village, and continues to search tirelessly for her husband. One day she meets Nami, whose husband has a...

An old couple, their only son, the son's wife, a young man and his lover live peacefully in a village. Then, a terrifying earthquake strikes that causes a nearby nuclear station to explode. The residents must evacuate, but the family lives on a farm,...

Three sisters share a connection to a violent incident from their childhood reunite to for the chance to come to terms with their past....

Sanae, who went to prison after failing to kill her ex-boyfriend six years ago, meets Kenta, a forest ranger, and gets married. Sanae and Kenta's married life takes a new turn when the wife of Sanae's ex-boyfriend appears. Sanae still can't forget he...

At Beijing World Park, a bizarre cross-pollination of Las Vegas and Epcot Center where visitors can interact with famous international monuments without ever leaving the city’s suburbs, a security guard betrays his dancer girlfriend by pursuing anoth...

As a decades-old state-run aeronautics munitions factory in downtown Chengdu, China is being torn down for the construction of the titular luxury apartment complex, director Jia Zhangke interviews various people affiliated with it about their experie...

On the set of a dark war time drama at an old movie studio, a young director, Toshio Murai, is trying to complete his debut film. The two starring actresses, Hitomi Kurokawa and Saori Murakami, play sisters in his film. Murai has a crush on Hitomi, t...

An aging photographer's obsession with an early form of photography draws his assistant and daughter into a work of mystery....

Two disaffected, unemployed Chinese youth drift through life on the streets of their industrial town, their paths crossing with that of a local young singer and dancer working for a liquor company as a spokesmodel....

Miyata lost his wife early on and single-handedly raised their two children. One day he notices a change in his physical condition, and decides that it must be stomach cancer....