Baron Meier Link is of a dying race, but the vampire doesn't intend to remain lonely much longer. Abducting women in the night is common for his kind, so what's one more? But Charlotte's father has plenty of money, and there's no price he won't pay to get his daughter back. That's why he hires D.
D is a Dunpeal, a breed rarer than that of the vampires - after all, he's half of one. When it comes to hunting those with fangs like his own, he's the best in the business. But that doesn't mean he's the only game in town. The Markus Brothers are on the vampire's trail as well, and they're not about to lose. It's a race, not only between the rival Hunters, but for the vampire and his bride-to-be. But it might be more than just a job to D. Is Charlotte really a captive? Or will another Dunpeal be born to this world?
In an underwater city, a young girl takes care of a large egg she holds carefully in her arms. A boy with a gun arrives in search of a bird he saw in his dream. At first, it seems as if feelings of sympathy are developing between the two.
Forty years after the film’s original release, Anime Limited is proud to present an all-new 4K restoration of the film, supervised by director Mamoru Oshii, in cinemas nationwide for the very first time.
The film is a creative collaboration between acclaimed director Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell), who wrote and directed the feature, and revered artist Yoshitaka Amano (Final Fantasy, Vampire Hunter D). The film beautifully intertwines Oshii’s thematic reflections on philosophy and theology with Amano’s distinctive ink painting style, culminating in an arrestingly beautiful hand-drawn allegorical fantasy.
Brand new 4K restoration from Anime Ltd.
Three back-to-back anime films by three different directors make up this sci-fi trilogy three years in the making. In the chilling "Magnetic Rose," engineers on a spacecraft board an abandoned space station and encounter disturbing paranormal forces. A young lab worker accidentally swallows a chemical weapon and becomes a walking killing machine in "Stink Bomb." In "Cannon Fodder," a young boy and his father fight for survival in a city functioning on paranoia.
Second part of a trilogy. Conscientious objector Kaji, now forced to serve in the Japanese army during the Second World War, helps a friend defect to the Russians and nearly goes with him. But despite his opposition to war, Kaji does his best to serve as help and guide to the men in his charge, most of whom are doomed to fall to the relentless attack of Russian armored divisions.
Iconic and game-changing, AKIRA is the definitive anime masterpiece! Katsuhiro Otomo's landmark cyberpunk classic obliterated the boundaries of Japanese animation and forced the world to look into the future. AKIRA's arrival shattered traditional thinking, creating space for future generations of ground-breaking movies.
July, 1988 - World War III breaks loose. Then, in 2019, in megalopolis Tokyo...As the leader of a group of young robust delinquents, Kaneda spent his nights tearing through the urban wastes, racing his motorbike against rival groups. One night while riding with his gang, his friend Tetsuo suddenly encounters a strange boy - the product of human experimentation and is injured in the ensuing crash. Shortly thereafter, a military squadron appears on the scene to take the boy and Tetsuo away to an army research facility. Determined to free Tetsuo from capture, Kaneda sneaks into the army research lab. However, a regimen of extreme experimental procedures has awakened a new power in his friend, and now he is consumed by madness..
In a seaside village of Japan during the 1920s, married professor Aochi (Fujita Toshiya) meets up with old friend Nakasono (Yoshio Harada), who's now a drifter accused of murder. Aochi manages to fight off the suspicion surrounding his buddy, but complications arise when they meet bereaved geisha Koine (Naoko Otani). Nakasono is immediately smitten. Aochi is attracted, but wants to stay faithful to his wife. Yet, over time, the mind games between all three escalate in a violently sexual way.
When infertility threatens mankind with extinction and the last child born has perished, a disillusioned bureaucrat (Clive Owen) becomes the unlikely champion in the fight for the survival of Earth's population; He must face down his own demons and protect the planet's last remaining hope from danger.
A detective starts spiraling out of control when a wave of gruesome murders with seemingly similar bizarre circumstances are sweeping Tokyo.
For kids around the world, music is often the only salvation when the pain and anxiety of teenage life becomes too much to bear. Yuichi (Hayato Ichihara) is in the 8th grade and he worships Lily Chou-Chou, a Bjork-like chanteuse whose epic music is lush and transcendent. Yuichi only lives for Lily Chou-Chou's big Tokyo concert, where the lies and violence can be washed away by the presence of his goddess and her powerful music. But fate has yet another obstacle in store for Lily's devoted fan.
When a machine that allows therapists to enter their patients' dreams is stolen, all hell breaks loose. Only a young female therapist, Paprika, can stop it.
At the age of seventy, after years of consolidating his empire, the Great Lord Hidetora Ichimonji (Tatsuya Nakadai) decides to abdicate and divide his domain amongst his three sons. Taro (Akira Terao), the eldest, will rule. Jiro (Jinpachi Nezu), his second son, and Saburo (Daisuke Ryu) will take command of the Second and Third Castles but are expected to obey and support their elder brother. Saburo defies the pledge of obedience and is banished.
Part three of a trilogy. After the Japanese defeat to the Russians in the last episode, Kaji, the Japanese soldier and humanistic protagonist, leads the last remaining men through Manchuria. Intent on returning to his dear wife and his old life, Kaji faces great odds in a variety of different harrowing circumstances as he and his fellow men sneak behind enemy lines.
"THE COLOUR OF ILLUSION IS PERFECT BLUE"
A young Japanese singer is encouraged by her agent to quit singing and pursue an acting career, beginning with a role in a murder mystery TV show.
Two teenagers share a profound, magical connection upon discovering they are swapping bodies. Things manage to become even more complicated when the boy and girl decide to meet in person.
The tale of an eccentric band of culinary ronin who guide the widow of a noodle-shop owner on her quest for the perfect recipe, this rapturous “ramen western” by Japanese director Juzo Itami is an entertaining, genre-bending adventure underpinned by a deft satire of the way social conventions distort the most natural of human urges—our appetites. Interspersing the efforts of Tampopo (Nobuko Miyamoto) and friends to make her café a success with the erotic exploits of a gastronome gangster and glimpses of food culture both high and low, the sweet, sexy, and surreal Tampopo is a lavishly inclusive paean to the sensual joys of nourishment, and one of the most mouthwatering examples of food on film ever made.
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.
In this Japanese animation, cyborg federal agent Maj. Motoko Kusanagi (Mimi Woods) trails "The Puppet Master" (Abe Lasser), who illegally hacks into the computerized minds of cyborg-human hybrids. Her pursuit of a man who can modify the identity of strangers leaves Motoko pondering her own makeup and what life might be like if she had more human traits. With her partner (Richard George), she corners the hacker, but her curiosity about her identity sends the case in an unforeseen direction.
The legendary midnight movie sensation that firmly embedded samurai mythology within American pop culture consciousness, this English-dubbed reedit of the first two films in the classic Japanese chanbaraseries Lone Wolf and Cub is a giddily entertaining, mesmerizingly gory classic of East-meets-West grindhouse mayhem. Following the murder of his wife at the hands of an evil shogun, an avenging ronin (Tomisaburo Wakayama) roams the countryside with his young son—and the boy's sword-shooting baby carriage—in tow, dispatching ninja assassins with steely resolve in operatically stylized flurries of hallucinatory violence. With its pulsing synth soundtrack (cowritten by Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere & the Raiders) and delirious action set pieces—kinetically edited whirlwinds of flashing blades, spurting blood, and severed limbs—Shogun Assassin proved an instant cult favorite that has bubbled its way up from the underground to the mainstream thanks to its influence on artists ranging from the Wu-Tang Clan to Quentin Tarantino.
Farmers from a village exploited by bandits hire a veteran samurai for protection, who gathers six other samurai to join him.
The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, a doctor, and their daughter, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.
Hirayama is content with his life as a toilet cleaner in Tokyo. Outside of his structured routine, he cherishes music on cassette tapes, books, and taking photos of trees. Through unexpected encounters, he reflects on finding beauty in the world.
A 1920s playwright meets a beautiful woman who may be the ghost of his patron's deceased wife.
It's death, Japanese style, in the rollicking and wistful first feature from maverick writer-director Juzo Itami. In the wake of her lascivious father's sudden passing, a successful actor (Itami's wife and frequent collaborator, Nobuko Miyamoto) and her husband (Tsutomu Yamazaki) leave Tokyo and return to their family house to oversee a traditional funeral. Over the course of three days of mourning that bring illicit escapades in the woods, a surprisingly materialistic priest (Yasujiro Ozu regular Chishu Ryu), and cinema's most epic sandwich handoff, the tensions between public propriety and private hypocrisy are laid bare. Deftly weaving dark comedy with poignant family drama, The Funeral is a fearless satire of the clash between old and new in Japanese society in which nothing, not even the finality of death, is off-limits.
A future society, where humans and robots co-exist. Amidst the chaos created by anti-robot factions, detective Shunsaku Ban and his sidekick Ken-ichi are searching for rebel scientist Dr. Laughton, to arrest him and seize his latest creation, a beautiful young girl named Tima. When they locate them, Shunsaku soon realizes that the eccentric scientist is protected by a powerful man and his fierce desire to reclaim a tragic figure from his past and therefore is beyond their reach.
This imaginative Japanese production presents a series of short films by lauded director Akira Kurosawa. In one chapter, a young boy spies on foxes that are holding a wedding ceremony; the following installment features another youth, who witnesses a magical moment in an orchard. In the segment "Crows," an aspiring artist enters the world of a painting and encounters Vincent van Gogh (Martin Scorsese). Many of the films in this inventive movie are tied together by an environmental theme.
As bass guitarist for a garage-rock band, Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) has never had trouble getting a girlfriend; usually, the problem is getting rid of them. But when Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) skates into his heart, he finds she has the most troublesome baggage of all: an army of ex-boyfriends who will stop at nothing to eliminate him from her list of suitors.
Following the life of Japanese artist and poet Yumeji Takehisa through the imagining of an encounter with a beautiful widow with a dark past.
Set in feudal Japan, this film presents an intriguing tale of violent crime in the woods, told from the perspective of four different characters -- a bandit, a woman, her husband and a woodcutter. Only two things about the incident seem to be clear -- the woman was raped and her husband is now dead. However, the other elements radically differ as the four participants and/or witnesses relate their own stories (with the dead man, eerily enough, speaking through a medium). As each account is revealed, what seemed black-and-white turns to various hues of gray, leading to surprising -- and confounding -- revelations.
World Premiere of New 4K Restoration, courtesy of Third Window Films
Five bizarre stories with no apparent connection to one another eventually become intertwined, resulting in surreal circumstances.
A salaryman wins tickets to the latest stage sensation, the hypnosis show VIVA FRIENDS!
In the middle of the act, an assassin shows up and kills the hypnotist, leaving the salaryman stranded and convinced he is a bird!
A gang of burglars roam the suburbs while simultaneously dealing with their budding lust for one another!
Meanwhile, a man kills and buries his wife, only to have her claw her way out of the grave and go after him with missile arms and fire breath, over and over again.
Acclaimed commercial director Gen Sekiguchi pulls all these strands together into a movie that is thrillingly original. Survive Style 5+ jettisons traditional movie tricks and aims for something more, a movie where love means never having to kill your wife more than five or six times.
Celebrate this beloved coming-of-age story from the legendary Studio Ghibli, creators of Spirited Away, and Academy Award®-winning director Hayao Miyazaki, about a resourceful young witch who uses her broom to create a delivery service, only to lose her gift of flight in a moment of self-doubt. It is a tradition for all young witches to leave their families on the night of a full moon and fly off into the wide world to learn their craft. When that night comes for Kiki, she embarks on her new journey with her sarcastic black cat, Jiji, landing the next morning in a seaside town, where her unique skills make her an instant sensation.
Godzilla is the roaring granddaddy of all monster movies. It’s also a remarkably humane and melancholy drama, made in Japan at a time when the country was reeling from nuclear attack and H-bomb testing in the Pacific. Its rampaging radioactive beast, the poignant embodiment of an entire population’s fears, became a beloved international icon of destruction, spawning almost thirty sequels.
Thought to be the first depiction of the post-WWII yakuza, Drunken Angel is Akira Kurosawa’s first critical success and first directorial collaboration with Kurosawa regulars Toshirō Mifune and Takashi Shimura. Set in a snapshot of poverty-stricken post-war Tokyo, an uneasy bond is forged when alcoholic doctor Sanada (Shimura) diagnoses low-level yakuza Matsunaga (Mifune) with tuberculosis, nursing his health whilst reflecting on his own internal demons. Their relationship is thrown into turmoil when Matsunaga’s oath-sworn brother returns from prison, turning both men down a path of self-destruction and adversity.
Drunken Angel is featured as part of Gangsters Have Feelings Too, a season exploring the sensitive gangster film. The season is presented with the National Film and Television School’s Film Studies, Programming and Curation MA.
Gen. Bison (Raul Julia), the evil dictator of Shadaloo, captures a busload of relief workers and holds them for ransom. Col. Guile (Jean-Claude Van Damme) leads an international strike force to invade Shadaloo and rescue the hostages. Along the way, Guile recruits Chun-Li (Ming-Na Wen), a reporter and martial-arts expert whose father was killed by Bison years ago, two young con men (Damian Chapa, Byron Mann) and a sumo wrestler (Peter Navy Tuiasosopo).
Nine original animated short films delve into the backstory, characters and reality-shifting world of the 1999 film "The Matrix."
In the 17th century, two Portuguese Jesuit priests travel to Japan in an attempt to locate their mentor, who is rumoured to have committed apostasy, and to propagate Catholicism.
Filmmaker Genya Tachibana begins work on a documentary about famed Japanese actress Chiyoko Fujiwara. Now well into old age, Chiyoko has become reclusive and shy about any publicity, but she eventually warms up to Tachibana and starts to relate her life story. As the decades pass, Chiyoko is transformed from a teen with big dreams into a full-blown celebrity, while her cinematic characters span various eras, from ancient Japan to the distant future.
Scientist Shane Brown (Vincent Gallo) neglects his new bride (Tricia Vessey), instead spending their honeymoon searching for an old colleague who disappeared after a research paper he had written was discredited by the medical community. It turns out that Dr. Semeneau is living in obscurity in order to protect his wife (Béatrice Dalle), whom he keeps prisoner in a room with boards nailed across the doorway. The narrative unfolds the dark secret that drives each party.
Legendary comedian and TV host turned director Takeshi Kitano writes, directs, and stars in his first and only American co-production. Disgraced yakuza Yamamoto (Kitano) seeks refuge in Los Angeles, reconnecting with his younger half-brother Ken (Claude Maki) after his clan suffered defeat at the hands of a rival gang back in Tokyo. Cool and detached, Brother marries Japanese and American disillusionment in Kitano’s signature violent minimalist style through the growing bonds between Yamamoto and the multinational gang that he cultivates in L.A.
Brother is featured as part of Gangsters Have Feelings Too, a season exploring the sensitive gangster film. The season is presented with the National Film and Television School’s Film Studies, Programming and Curation MA.