Hisashi Igawa

Shakespeare's King Lear is reimagined as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan where an aging warlord divides his kingdom between his three sons.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa · With Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu

Down-on-his-luck veteran Tsugumo Hanshirō enters the courtyard of the prosperous House of Iyi. Unemployed, and with no family, he hopes to find a place to commit seppuku—and a worthy second to deliver the coup de grâce in his suicide ritual. The senior counselor for the Iyi clan questions the ronin’s resolve and integrity, suspecting Hanshirō of seeking charity rather than an honorable end. What follows is a pair of interlocking stories which lay bare the difference between honor and respect, and promises to examine the legendary foundations of the Samurai code.

Dir. Masaki Kobayashi · With Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Ishihama, Shima Iwashita

Eight visually rich vignettes drawn from Kurosawa’s own dreams—fox weddings and vanished orchards, a soldier’s ghosts, a walk through Van Gogh’s canvases, nuclear nightmares, and a water-mill utopia—meditate on childhood, art, mortality, and humanity’s uneasy bond with nature.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa · With Akira Terao, Mitsuko Baisho, Toshie Negishi

A businessman with a disfigured face obtains a lifelike mask from his new doctor, but the mask starts altering his personality and causing him to question his identity.

Dir. Hiroshi Teshigahara · With Tatsuya Nakadai, Mikijiro Hira, Machiko Kyō

A man wanders into a seemingly deserted town with his young son in search of work. But after a bit of bad luck, he joins the town's population of lost souls.

Dir. Hiroshi Teshigahara · With Hisashi Igawa, Sumie Sasaki, Sen Yano

In postwar Tokyo, beloved writer-professor Hyakken Uchida retires and is buoyed through hardship by the fierce devotion of his former students, who honor him each year with a raucous “Not yet!” birthday toast. Told in warm, gently comic vignettes, Kurosawa’s farewell celebrates aging, friendship, and the sustaining ritual of teacher and pupils refusing to say goodbye.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa · With Tatsuo Matsumura, Kyōko Kagawa, Hisashi Igawa

An elderly Nagasaki hibakusha spends a summer caring for her four grandchildren, whose curiosity about the 1945 bombing stirs buried memories and moral questions. When an American nephew from Hawaii visits, the family confronts grief, guilt, and the possibility of reconciliation across generations.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa · With Sachiko Murase, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Tomoko Otakara

After his girlfriend commits suicide, a man becomes embroiled in gang warfare attempting to obtain a gun in hopes to kill himself.

Dir. Shinya Tsukamoto · With Shinya Tsukamoto, Kirina Mano, Tatsuya Nakamura

Masaki, a baseball player and gas-station attendant, gets into trouble with the local Yakuza and goes to Okinawa to get a gun to defend himself. There he meets Uehara, a tough gangster, who is in serious debt to the yakuza and planning revenge.

Dir. Takeshi Kitano · With Yûrei Yanagi, Yuriko Ishida, Takeshi Kitano

A group of travelers is stranded in a small country inn when the river floods during heavy rains. As the bad weather continues, tensions rise amongst the trapped travelers.

Dir. Takashi Koizumi · With Akira Terao, Yoshiko Miyazaki, Shirō Mifune