Maiko Yamada

Sky High

Sky High is a live-action, supernatural Japanese television drama series, starring actress and model, Yumiko Shaku. It aired in Japan, first run, from 2003 to 2004, and was popular enough to spawn the 2003 feature film of the same name. Both are based on the Japanese manga, Skyhigh. Shaku stars as Izuko, the Guardian of the Gate to the afterlife. The basic premise of the television series is somewhat similar in concept to the American series, Ghost Whisperer, in which the protagonist must use her powers to guide the dead on their journey to the afterlife by helping them determine the meaning or circumstance of their death. However, in Izuko's case, no matter how hard she tries, her guidance does not always result in a happy ending.

Forbidden Love

Jun Kinoshita

Michi, a 26 year old high school math teacher, tentatively accepts her boyfriend’s proposal of marriage, uncertain of her love for him but feeling pressure from her father and society to do what is expected of her. Hikaru, a 17 year old boy frustrated by his home life with his single mother and having been expelled from many high schools for bad behavior, enters Michi’s class as a new transfer student. As their relationship grows they realize that they both feel that they have lost themselves to the pressures of those around them, and it is this common bond that draws them dangerously close. What follows is a heart-wrenching story of forbidden love where Michi must face society’s judgement for corrupting a minor, abandoning her fiance, and disappointing her parents and co-workers.

Kaidan Horror Classics

Four renowned Japanese directors each adapt a supernatural short story by Japanese literary masters for the KAIDAN HORROR CLASSICS omnibus series. In his adaptation of Yasunari Kawabata's THE ARM, Masayuki Ochiai reveals the inner world of fetishists in an eerily unsettling tale of a man who convinces a woman to let him borrow her arm for a night. Meanwhile, Shinya Tsukamoto explores death and unrequited love in Osamu Dazai's THE WHISTLER, about a woman who spies on her dying sister's secret love life after her own romance is dashed by her father. After VILLAIN, Lee Sang-Il looks at social outcasts once again in Ryunosuke Akutagawa's THE NOSE. The story follows a priest with a hideous nose who kills a young local boy in a moment of blinding anger. Meanwhile, Hirokazu Kore-eda creates a gentler ghost tale with Saisei Muro's THE DAYS AFTER, about a married couple who thinks the young boy who visits their house daily may be the ghost of their dead infant son.

Blue Bird

A tale of tragic love between Yoshimori, a station employee at a quiet, rural station, and Kahori, the wife of the heir to a family fortune. When Kahori's husband uncovers their affair, the star-crossed lovers try to flee with Kahori's daughter. Their search for safety and happiness takes them across the nation, from Hokkaido to Kagoshima. Filmed on location, this is an unforgettable story of romance told against the backdrop of some of the most beautiful scenery in Japan. --TBS

Merry Christmas in Summer

Ryo is a former professional boxer who becomes a collector for a loan shark. He grew up in an orphanage in Okinawa Prefecture with heroine Haru, Natsumi, an aspiring actress, and two others. One of them is now a lawyer who has had to bail Ryo out and the other a lucky young woman adopted by a rich family. Haru, too, was adopted and has never once left the island where she grew up. When her adopted mother dies, she decides to go to Tokyo to find the old group. Being naive to the ways of the modern urban world, she almost ends up being sold off into the sex industry as soon as she sets foot on Tokyo's fair shores, but Ryo comes to her rescue.

Sky High

Maya Ito

A serial-murderer is on the loose who just so happens to also be removing the hearts of his victims and taking them with him. His victims however, are not merely random humans as thought by the police. They are in fact, the past and present guardians of the gateway of the afterlife.On the day he is to be married, Detective Kanzaki, who happens to be on the case, discovers that his fiancé Mina has been murdered with her heart also missing. He also learns that the killers are Kudo, a geneticist, and his evil secretary Rei. The two are trying to obtain six hearts from the guardians so that they may call forth a horde of demons from the Gate of Rage and have their every desire granted. Only problem is, once they open the gate the entire world will be covered in darkness.

Princess in an Iron Helmet

Tamako

Tamako is 20 years old, lives at home with her mother (Kishimoto Kayoko) and teenaged brother, and simply refuses to grow up. Ever since her father left the family, she's stopped trusting people, and now lounges around in her own small, claustrophobic world. Wearing an iron helmet whenever she steps outside, she ventures only to her mom's beauty salon, the mechanic shop, and the bakery - the source of her greatest joy in life, sweet buns. Her world is static, insular, and safe, and there's no need to change - that is until her cat runs away, the bakery closes, and her mom falls in love with another man.

Present for You

Shigeru Kajiwara (Joe Odagiri) works part-time at a company that sells mysterious health food. One day, the other employees run off with the company's money.

A Girl in the Sunset

(segment "Musume Gokoro")

Based on four early novellas by Noble Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata, this omnibus of four short films are by emerging directors from the second graduating class of the new Graduate School of Film and New Media at Japan’s top art school, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music (Tokyo Geidai), where famed directors Takeshi Kitano and Kiyoshi Kurosawa teach.

Tenshi wa Mop wo Motte

Kiriko (Kie Kitano) is a professional cleaner who solves cases and "cleans" hearts at the office building she works in. She uses her innate deductive reasoning, keen observational skills, and position that allows her to infiltrate any situation.