Dolls (2002)
Director
Takeshi Kitano
Main cast
Miho Kanno; Hidetoshi Nishijima; Tatsuya Mihashi; Chieko Matsubara; Kyoko Fukada
Genres
Drama, Foreign, Romance
Description
Dolls is a film about Japanese doll theater and a human love story illustrated through beautiful imagery. This film is a lot more sensitive than most Kitano films.
Takeshi Kitano
Main cast
Miho Kanno; Hidetoshi Nishijima; Tatsuya Mihashi; Chieko Matsubara; Kyoko Fukada
Genres
Drama, Foreign, Romance
Description
Dolls is a film about Japanese doll theater and a human love story illustrated through beautiful imagery. This film is a lot more sensitive than most Kitano films.
Similar movies
Snehmoy (Rahul Bose) and Miyage (Chigusa Takaku) are pen friends who exchange wedding vows through letters. Fifteen years pass but they never meet. Yet the bond of marriage is strong between them. This unusual relationship comes under a cloud when a young widow, Sandhya (Raima Sen), comes to stay with Snehmoy along with her eight-year-old son Poltu. Snehmoy and the little boy bond and the arithmetic teacher discovers the joy of palpable bonds and fatherhood. There develops an inexplicable thread of understanding with Sandhya too. But Snehmoy remained loyal to his unseen Japanese wife. When Miyage was ill from cancer, he took a long leave from his school and tried his best to find a cure for the illness. Meanwhile, malaria took a toll on him and he died. Coming of Miyage in a white sari to Sunderbans after his departure was really touching.
t tells the story of two lovers, Prem (Salman Khan) and Nisha (Madhuri Dixit). Their older siblings, Rajesh and Pooja get married. After Pooja has her baby, the elders decide to get Prem married with a girl like Pooja. Prem and Nisha slowly fall in love with each other. Prem tells his sister-in-law...
The film is about three husbands having affairs outside their marriage. One of their wives hires a detective named Kishen and finds out that their husbands are cheating. Their wives find out when Kishen scares them by blind folding them and when they tell their girlfriends list, Sanjana gets hurt and leaves and tries to commit suicide but Kishen helps her.
Set in Osaka in the 18th century, the film centers on the doomed romance between Jihei (Kichiemon Nakamura), a down and out married paper merchant passionately in love with doe-eyed courtesan Koharu (Shima Iwashita), whom he cannot afford to buy out of servitude. Koharu herself has also fallen in love with Jihei; she even starts turning away other patrons to be with him. Their love is further imperiled by Tahei (Hosei Komatsu), a rich, obnoxious merchant who flaunts his ability to buy Koharu's indenture. Suicide is the only way for the two to be together.
Wise, reflective and bittersweet, director/actor Sylvia Chang's Taipei-set triptych weaves through the lives of a 40-year-old divorcée (Chang), a thirtysomething flight attendant (Rene Liu) and an aspiring pop singer (Angelica Lee). Co-written by the three principals, the script's meditations on love, friendship and life choices are as thoughtful and intriguing as the performances are unforced.
In France of the late 19th century, the wife of a wealthy general, the Countess Louise, sells the earrings her husband gave her on their wedding day to pay off debts; she claims to have lost them. Her husband quickly learns of the deceit, which is the beginning of many tragic misunderstandings, all involving the earrings, the general, the countess, & her new lover, the Italian Baron Donati.
A submissive hooker goes about her trade, suffering abuse at the hands of Japanese salarymen and Yakuza types. She's unhappy about her work, and is apparently trying to find some sort of appeasement for the fact that her lover has married.
Dumped by her fiance just two months before their wedding, comic strip writer Sophie hatches an elaborate plan to get her Jeff back and punish the movie star, Joanna, who seduced him away. She finds herself a partner, Gordon, an ex-lover of Joanna's. The two start on a comic adventure full of laughs and tears, aided by Sophie's two best friends, Lucy and Lily. At the eve of her success, Sophie suddenly faced of having to chose between a repentant Jeff and Gordon who has fallen for her.
The movie follows the lives of a woman and a man starting from several generations earlier. The story spans a whole century and several continents.
Stefan and Dolly Oblonsky have had a spat and Stefan has asked his sister, Anna Karenina, to come down to Moscow to help mend the rift. Anna's companion on the train from St. Petersburg is Countess Vronsky who is met at the Moscow station by her son. Col. Vronsky looks very dashing in his uniform and it's love at first sight when he looks at Anna and their eyes meet.
Three Korean couples travel separately to the Philippines. A middle aged couple first time abroad, a convenience store clerk bumps into an incognito pop star and the runaway Soo-jin meets a businessman who is there for his father's death.
This is the story of Karan and Tanya. Karan is in love with Tanya but is too shy to tell her. One day Tanya witnesses the murder of a scientist by his evil twin brother, the underworld don Mehboob, and needs to flee the country. When Karan's friend coaxes him to track Tanya after she migrates to Dubai, he enlists the aid of a deceptive investigator, Rocky to track her down. Rocky ends up falling in love with her at first sight and tries to stop Karan from wooing her. Meanwhile, Tanya's physically disabled friend, Sanju also has a soft spot for her and tries thwarting Rocky's attempts at getting close to Tanya. The plot thickens when Don Mehboob and his gang track Tanya down in Dubai.
Ho-jeong finds out her boyfriend has fallen in love with a man while studying abroad. She demands one month of dating to win him back.
Akash (Ranbir Kapoor) and Kiara (Priyanka Chopra) are trying to find luck in their life after several failed attempts to be successful in their careers and in love. Fed up, they both decide to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge. However, both land up on the same bridge at the same time.
Set in rural France during the end of the Algerian war, and immersed in the music of the sixties, this film follows four students in friendship and love. Francois's best friend is a girl Maite, but instead he falls in love with a boy Serge, while Serge is falling for Maite. Henri is the outsider, an Algerian-born frenchman who has fled the war, and the catalyst for Francois to find his identity.
This film is about eight individuals facing the most brilliant separations in their lives. The passionate fire fighter, 30 years old, tries to propose to his lover but every time he misses the chance. In the meantime, she becomes anxious whenever she hears a siren. Suk-hyeon intends to break up with her jobless lover, Ha-seok, and he begins an agency that helps other lovers to break up. Juyeong is mad at her son's troubles in school, but she realizes that she has little time to spend with him. Su-eun, with a hearing impairment and a burn on her face, falls in her first love but she doesn't have the courage to come out in his presence.
The war film that's not a war film. A film about the mental institution which backdrop is the Chechen war. A story about the patients living in an institution during the war on the border of Chechnia and Russia during the war. The patients have to continue living their day to day life after being invaded twice over, and they have to deal with their sicknesses.
Nagiko (Vivian Wu) is a Japanese model in search of pleasure and new cultural experience from various lovers. The film is a rich and artistic melding of dark modern drama with idealized Chinese and Japanese cultural themes and settings, and centers around body painting.
Govindan (Manivannan) is a thief who has two children. Aadhi (Pasupathy) and Mathi ('Chiyaan' Vikram). Years go by and the two, Aadhi and Madhi, decide to stop stealing and mend their ways and lead a hardworking life along with their father. They migrate to neighboring village and meet a retired agricultural officer, Chidambaram (Vijaya Kumar) who is in deep debts and is under pressure from the village's landlord, Kalingarayar (Murali) to clear his debts. In efforts to help Chidambaran, Mathi confronts Seetha Lakshmi (Asin), Kalingarayar's daughter, who comes to collect the money Chidambaram owes her father. Seetha Lakshmi starts to acquire a liking for Mathi but keeps it hidden due to her father's atrocious temper. In an attempt to teach Kalingarayar a lesson, Mathi forcibly ties the mangalsutram around Seetha's neck. Kalingarayar, realizing his daughter's love for Mathi...
A drama based on the life of 18th century Italian lyricist Lorenzo da Ponte, who collaborated with Mozart on his "Don Giovanni" opera.
Budapest in the thirties. The restaurant owner Laszlo hires the pianist András to play in his restaurant. Both men fall in love with the beautiful waitress Ilona who inspires András to his only composition. His song of Gloomy Sunday is, at first, loved and then feared, for its melancholic melody triggers off a chain of suicides. The fragile balance of the erotic ménage à trois is sent off kilter when the German Hans goes and falls in love with Ilona as well.
Yokiro was the most successful Geisha house in Western Japan during the first half of the 20th century and remains open to this day. At its peak, it was home to over 200 geisha, however behind the fabulous facade, there were many battles - between family members, men and women, and with the Yakuza. Momokawa was sold to Yokiro at age 12, and despite being the top geisha, her many complicated relationships provide unending challenges throughout her glamorous but turbulent life.
In a building site in present-day Tehran, Lateef, a 17-year-old Kurdish worker is irresistibly drawn to Rahmat, a young Afghan worker. When Lateef is given heavier tasks to compensate for new Afghan worker Rahmat, he resents his displacement and treats Rahmat cruelly. After one of his pranks, however, Lateef discovers Rahmat's secret--he is a girl named Baran. Latif's heart softens towards Baran and he shows his new affection for her by doing what he can to ease the hardships she suffers at work. revelation of Rahmat's secret changes both their lives.Baran is a 2001 Iranian film directed by Majid Majidi, based on an original script by Majid Majidi. The movie is set during recent times in which there are a large number of Afghan refugees living on the outskirts of Tehran. Almost a silent movie, Baran won a number of awards both nationally and internationally for the director and writer Majid Majidi.
Fast, frenetic, and furious, 15 is the story of five Singaporean teenagers who, abandoned by the system and estranged from their parents and life in general, build their own world in which gangs, drugs, fighting, piercing, self-harm and suicide are common and brotherhood is important above all else. Acted by real street kids, it presents a gritty side of modern-day Singapore life.
In the 1950s, Ludvik Jahn was expelled from the Communist Party and the University by his fellow students, because of a politically incorrect note he sent to his girlfriend. Fifteen years later, he tries to get his revenge by seducing Helena, the wife of one of his accusers.
Ayako becomes the mistress of her boss so she can pay her father's debt and prevent him from going to prison for embezzlement.
Salma Zidane, a widow, lives simply from her grove of lemon trees in the West Bank's occupied territory. The Israeli defense minister and his wife move next door; the Secret Service orders the trees removed for security. The stoic Salma seeks assistance from the Palestinian Authority (useless), Israeli army (dismissive), and a young attorney, Ziad Daud, who takes the case; this older client attracts him. While the courts deliberate, the Israelis fence her trees and prohibit her from entering the grove. As the trees wither, the defense minister's wife and, separately, an Israeli journalist, look on Salma with sympathy. In this allegory, does David stand a chance against Goliath?
An "air doll" suddenly come to life one day. Without her owner knowing, she goes for a walk around town and falls in love with Junichi. She starts to date Junichi and gets a job at the same store where he works. Everything seems to be going perfect for her until something unexpected happens.
At the request of his old war time colleague Ailsa Brimley, George Smiley agrees to look into the murder of Stella Rode. Brimley had only just received a letter from her saying she feared for her life at her husband's hand. The husband, Stanley Rode teaches at Carne School, but Smiley is doubtful that he had anything to do with his wife's death. As Smiley investigates, he learns that Stella was a nosy busybody who loved to learn other's little secrets and then gossip about them - or possibly blackmail them. When a student is killed and Smiley unearths a secret, he has the evidence to name the killer.Based on John Le Carré's 1962 thriller (his first) in which George Smiley is brought out of spy retirement to solve a murder in a British public school. The setting is based on Le Carre"s own schooldays in Sherborne and his brief experience teaching at Eton.
Hitting an off-the-charts level of subversive allegory, Zulawskiâs second feature is a blood-splattered rampage through a war-charred 1790s Poland that turns the historical epic inside out, and dances on its carcass. Immediately banned in the directorâs Communist Poland for over a decade and a half, The Devil writhes with nonstop demonic energy as it follows an nobleman who, after escaping from prison, swandives into insanity and mass murder. Returning home to his once-rich family â one now reduced to savages â and manipulated by a black-cloaked Satanic stranger at the center of a web of political treachery, the nobleman eventually enacts a Hamlet-like pyrrhic revenge on just about everyone in sight. But The Devilâs most spectacularly intense violence is all emotional, with near-constant outbursts of grief, and desperation of a seizure-like intensity that is downright mesmerizing. â The Cinefamily
To infiltrate a criminal organization responsible for the death of one of his colleagues, the Detective Tajima adopts the behavior of of a brutal thug and plays opposing yakuza bosses against each other.
Two men and a woman happen to meet in a bar. We learn from their conversations both the intriguing and banal details of their lives. But is anyone really telling the truth? From the meat market, to the president's drinking habit or the soviet cloning project, this allegory opposes different aspects of contemporary Russian society
A Hong Kong-set mystery centered on a detective who has been framed for a series of gruesome murders.
âTattooed Life' begins with a parasol wielding Yakuza assassin attacking a rickshaw. It almost looks like feudal Japan until somebody pulls a gun and we're reminded that it's the 20th century. Post-shooting, the assassin delivers his bounty to his brother (to pay for his art school education) before getting ambushed in one of the few rickshaw-jacking incidents in film history, and being rescued by his art-student brother. In the aftermath, one brother is marked for death by the Yakuza, and the other brother won't go to art school with blood on his hands, so they decide the perfect way to deal with such hardships is to become fugitive construction workers in northern Japan . And why not?
On his release from prison a young yakuza, along with his brother, decides to turn his back on criminal life instead of taking over the position of his recently deceased father, boss of the Asahina clan. But their exit proves more difficult than planned when their rival clan steps in to exact revenge.
After Kunisada's Yakuza leader and father figure is brutally murdered, he and his best friend go on a two-man mission to avenge his death, killing other Yakuza leaders leading to a final confrontation by the old man's killers..
In 16th-century Russia in the grip of chaos, Ivan the Terrible strongly believes he is vested with a holy mission. Believing he can understand and interpret the signs, he sees the Last Judgment approaching. He establishes absolute power, cruelly destroying anyone who gets in his way. During this reign of terror, Philip, the superior of the monastery on the Solovetsky Islands, a great scholar and Ivan's close friend, dares to oppose the sovereign's mystical tyranny. What follows is a clash between two completely opposite visions of the world, smashing morality and justice, God and men. A grand-scale film with excellent leading roles by Mamonov and Yankovsky. An allegory of Stalinist Russia
Black Sun: The Nanking Massacre, also called Men Behind the Sun 4, is a 1994 Hong Kong film directed by Mou Tun Fei and is in many ways considered to be a follow up to the 1987 shockumentary film, Men Behind the Sun. The movie depicts the events behind the Nanking Massacre committed by the Imperial Japanese army against Chinese citizens and refugees during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Like Men Behind the Sun, the film was both criticized and praised for its brutal portrayal of the Japanese atrocities, such as the notorious contest to kill 100 people using a sword, during the early and late stages of World War II, but at the same time was questioned over historical accuracy and violence which gave the film a more exploitation feel to it.
Three students spend their holidays at the seaside where they are mistaken for Koreans, a minority which is looked down on in Japan. The action develops into a crime story.
In at least 6 movies by director Kinji Fukasaku, Bunta Sugawara played a yakuza thug. This time, he carries a badge but his character hasn't lost his distaste for double-dealing bosses and authority figures who are out to cover their own butts. Detective Kuno is balanced between the law and pragmatism. Cops didn't enforce the law to the point of pushing gangsters over the edge. In return, the gangsters mostly stayed out of the public eye. Some of them even became friends with cops, sharing a mutual desire to keep-down trade unions and leftists. When that balance is upset, Kuno has to decide where his loyalties lie. In this gray world, cops aren't always good and gangsters are thoroughly bad.. although there's no reward for good men who drink from the cup of corruption. "Cops Versus Thugs" has that trademark Fukasaku camera-work.. constantly moving, zooming, and putting you right in the middle of the action, changing loyalties and political maneuvering between cops and criminals.
There are breakpoints in the history, the result of a single event may change the whole course. In 1909, an assassination attempt of a Japanese governor fails. Now, in 2009, Korea is just another state of Japan's Empire & Seoul has become a major city. A Korean resistance group fights for liberty, independence & the restoration of true history. Two cops, Japanese & Korean, investigate the group.
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.
In the War's closing days, when a conscience-driven Japanese soldier fails to get his countrymen to surrender to overwhelming force, he adopts the lifestyle of a Buddhist monk.
Michael Velayudham (Pawan Kalyan) is a chef specialized in Italian cuisine in Cape Town. He falls in love with Meera Sasthri (Trisha) - another Indian staying in Cape Town. Meera is a restoration specialist and she is moving to India. Since it is not possible to continue the relationship across the seas, they bid good bye to each other. Michael finds a local white girl (Danah) in Cape Town and Meera finds a local politician (Sonu Sood) back in India. The rest of the story is all about how their true love unites them despite them being so casual about their relationship. There is also another story dealing with Arjun Palwai (Pawan Kalyan) that runs parallel with a time difference of 30 years in Waranasi.
Osaka Tough Guys stars Kentaro Nakakura and Yoshiyuki Ohmori. It tells the story of two hoods forced to take on paid work when they run out of money for booze, who end up being drawn into the spiderweb of the yakuza. Gaijiro Saito and Sei Hiraizumi co-star. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
Hyeong-gu (Ha Jung-Woo), a young Korean, visits Japan by boat three or four times a month to help with middle-aged Bo-gyungâs smuggling business. It is always Tooru (Satoshi Tsumabuki), a young Japanese man, who welcomes him there. Hyung-gu and Touru sacrifice themselves for the sake of their families, money, and friendship. One day, Bo-gyung orders them to kidnap a woman named Ji-su (Cha Su-Yeon) and take her to Japan, and this changes their future in an unexpected way.
A yakuza gang gets driven out of Yokohama by a big gang from Tokyo. They relocate to Okinawa to violently start over.
A Japanese tourist, Tokio, meets a 15-year-old Hong Kong girl and her grandmother left behind in Hong Kong while their family emmigrates to Canada.
Shin is a Japanese university student living a boring and meaningless life. One day, he spots a book titled Dangerous Ways to Walk the World, in which he finds a page written about hazards in New-York. Eager to get out, he jets off to New-York to find this inspiration.
Tetsu has joined his yakuza boss in going straight, but when a rival gang threatens to bring them back into the gang wars, Tetsu must become a drifter to keep the pressure off his old boss
A woman, Tome, is born to a lower class family in Japan in 1918. The title refers to an insect, repeating its mistakes, as in an infinite circle. Imamura, with this metaphor, introduces the life of Tome, who keeps trying to change her poor life.
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.
In 1980 young George O'Dowd baffles his parents with his love of frocks and make-up and moves into a squat with kindred spirit Peter, who dresses as Marilyn Monroe and calls himself Marilyn. They make a splash at Steve Strange's trendy Blitz Club where George gets a job in the cloakroom but George is unlucky in his relationships with men until he meets wannabe musician Kirk. Through Kirk George meets the handsome drummer Jon Moss, on whom he develops a crush, but sacked by the Blitz and spurned by Kirk, George turns to Sex Pistols' manager Malcolm McLaren to further his music career. George's spell with McLaren's group Bow Wow Wow is short but fan Mikey North is impressed and asks George to sing in a group he is forming, where George again meets Jon. They will have an affair and the group will become the very successful Culture Club. Four years later, however, hounded by the tabloid press amid stories of his drug addiction, an unhappy George turns to Jon for advice on his future.
Near the end of the nineteenth century, as the balance of power shifts from Shogunate towards the Emperor, Japan restlessly awaits the dawning of a new age. But not all are content...The Shinsengumi, a small army of samurai, farmers and peasants, band together to do battle against the tide of history. Their leader, Isami Kondo (Mifune) is a man who rises from farmer to fighter to head the fierce Shinsengumi brigade. Using a stern hand and a heart of gold, he rallies his men in defense of the tottering Shogunate. But bloodshed and treachery lurk around every corner.
The Sun (Russian: СóлнÑе, Solntse) is a 2005 Russian biographical film depicting Japanese Emperor ShÅwa (Hirohito) during the final days of World War II. The film is the third drama in director Aleksandr Sokurov's trilogy, which included Taurus about the Soviet Union's Vladimir Lenin and Moloch about Nazi Germany's Adolf Hitler.
When the mobster Iwaida Nishikawi is executed by the hit man Takeshi, his family chases the killer. Takeshi's brothers Takashi and Hideshi Miwa try to find Takeshi, who is hidden with the nurse Rie Ishibashi, to protect him and Hideshi discovers that Takeshi was secretly sent by their Yakuza boss to eliminate Iwaida. Meanwhile, the mobster Kenmoshi abducts Takashi's wife Mariko and rapes her, trying to force Takashi to deliver his brother to him.
Jo Dae-yeong is a police officer investigating a pickpocket ring with ties to the Yakuza. One day he rescues Baek Jang-mi from danger, only to discover that she is the boss of the gang he has been tracking.
Fresh out of the Israeli army, gay 19-year-old Imri moves to Tel-Aviv, but he's got a bad case of "yellow fever" and dreams of relocating to Japan. When he's not searching for porn, Imri hangs with his friend, works a low-paying job or sleeps around. The work of first-time feature film director Lior Shamriz, this provocative movie offers clever dialogue and strong performances.
"Schöne Frauenâ handelt genau davon: von schönen Frauen. Fünf Schauspielerinnen finden sich nacheinander zum Casting für einen Fernsehfilm ein. Sie schweigen, taxieren sich, begutachten sich und ihre Gegenüber. Und kommen sich mitnichten näher. Das Casting allerdings, das findet einfach nicht statt. Irgendwo hinter einer unheilvoll dräuenden Tür müÃte sich zwar das Filmteam befinden, aber aus unerfindlichen Gründen wird keine der fünf hineingerufen. Die fünf beginnen, sich zu unterhalten. Erst zögernd, dann offener. Tauschen sich über das betreffende Drehbuch aus, über ihre berufliche Situation, über ihr Privatleben. Jede von ihnen hat einleuchtende Gründe, die Rolle bekommen zu müssen. Aber irgendwann stellt sich auch heraus: Keine von ihnen hat Lust, in diesem Film zu spielen. Also folgen sie einem spontanen Impetus - und gehen. Alle bis auf eine.
Unable to cope with the fact that his girlfriend cheated on him with his best friend, a twenty-two year old schizophrenic sets an elaborate revenge plan into motion before taking his own life. Gregorio has been in and out of mental hospitals for years. During Gregario's time away, his girlfriend Tania and their good friend Manuel (Diego Luna) began an illicit affair. Before long Tania and Manuel have fallen in love. Though Gregario and Manuel seem to reconcile after Gregario is discharged from the hospital, everything changes with Gregario commits suicide. Upon Gregario's death, Manuel inherits a box of notes, lyrics, and other curiosities from his old friend. Later, Manuel begins receiving unsigned letters quoting Gregario's writings and starts hearing excerpts from the letters in conversation and in the media, leading the unscrupulous friend to fear for his own sanity.
© Valossa 2015–2024