Mitsuko Baisho

Academy Award-winning director Akira Kurosawa, whose cinematic geniushas inspired such classic films as "Star Wars" and "The MagnificentSeven," presents his 28th and most personal film.

Throughout the 1980s, Shohei Imamura (The Pornographers, Profound Desires of the Gods), a leading figure of the Japanese New Wave era of the 1960s, cemented his international reputation as one of the most important directors of his generation with a series of films that all competed at Cannes to great critical acclaim. Making its HD debut, Zegen (1987) takes a satirical look at Japan's pre-war colonial expansion through the unscrupulous eyes of its flesh-peddler antihero as he establishes a prostitution enterprise across Southeast Asia. This work epitomises the director's almost documentary style of filmmaking, exposing the vulgar yet vibrant and instinctive underbelly of Japanese society through a sympathetic focus on peasants, prostitutes, criminal lowlife and other marginalised figures to explore the schism between the country's timeless pre-modern traditions and the modern face it projects to the world.

Iwao Enokizu, a remorseless thief and killer from a devout Catholic family, goes on a 78-day killing spree while fleeing from the police.

Brimming with magical realism, sensuality, and ribald humor, revered auteur Shohei Imamura's final film tells the story of a down-and-out businessman who travels to a seaside town following a rumor of hidden treasure. On his quest he meets a woman with unusual sexual powers that turns his life hilariously upside down.

Based on Eiji Yoshikawa's novel, the drama follows Musashi's journey from hardship to mastery after Sekigahara and Takuan's guidance.

After causing a major incident, police officer Daigo Agawa takes his wife Yuki and daughter Mashiro to live in the remote mountain village of Kuge. It seems the perfect place for the family to recover from the ordeal, despite the mysterious disappearance of a previous officer posted there. The village thrives on forestry, with the residents making their living from cypress timber. In charge of this whole operation is the Goto family, who own most of the village. One day, the body of an old woman is found on the mountain. The Goto family says she was attacked by a bear, but Daigo notices a human bite mark on the arm. Daigo begins to suspect something is not quite right with the village.