Movies: Takashi Sasano

Two estranged brothers inherit Marukin Hot Springs, a small-town bathhouse. One sees it as an homage to their late father; the other—a struggling architect—as lucrative real estate for condos. Their eclectic collection of townsfolk customers show the...

In the aftermath of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, a journalist arrives in Nagaoka, a city decimated during a WWII air raid and by the 2004 Chūetsu earthquakes, to report on the disaster; there, she learns about the experiences of its inhabi...

A hard-working section chief, fast approaching retirement and beset by stress from all directions, joins a jazz band and reignites his youthful passion for the music, giving him a chance to set things right in his life....

A woman finds out her father is not her real one after her mother falls into a coma while searching for a mythical creature. She decides to meet her real father who happens to be an off-beat antique shopkeeper....

...

In 16th century Japan, a young man has to choose between becoming a master steel maker like his father and grandfather before him, or becoming a samurai so that he can help protect his village from attacks by the various clans which want the high-qua...

Densuke Hamazaki is an office worker at Suzuki Construction and gets transferred to the main Tokyo office. After settling in to his surrounding along with his wife Eri, Densuke befriends an elderly man named Ichinosuke Suzuki. Ichinosuke is a lonely ...

A hardened gangster encounters by chance a woman he hasn't seen since childhood. They are both engulfed in the underground world of intergang warfare....

Toichi is a boatman who ferries the villagers to a town on the other side of the river. Besides rowing a boat for the villagers all day long, he barely communicates with anyone except Genzo, a young neighbour. Upstream, a large bridge is being constr...

Sequel to The Rainbow Seeker where Ryo meets Katsu on a small island in the south of Japan. There, he falls in love for a single mother....

The Ninningers come across a new enemy, Dark Doctor Mavro, a remnant of the Shadow Line, who created his own, evil version of Aka Ninger serving under him by stealing the real Aka Ninger's Nintality, and because of it, Takaharu's life is now in dange...

In ancient Rome, bathhouse architect Lucius (Hiroshi Abe) becomes famous with designing the original "thermae" (bathhouse). He receives an order to build a thermae in the colosseum to help gladiators recover from their wounds, but faces difficulties....

When Su-san invites his late friend's daughter to come along on a fishing trip, she falls in love with Hama-chan's fishing protégé....

A lonely young man moves in a 50-year-old apartment building. When he meets the cheerful residents, he finds himself surrounded by small happiness....

At the Hirata home, three generations of their family live together. A crisis ensues when one afternoon, housewife Fumie falls asleep and wakes up to find a thief has stolen her secret money she kept hidden in the refrigerator....

A celebration of the ancient art of Japanese rakugo, roughly translated as “comic storytelling”. The film is interspersed with numerous funerals and wakes, songs, dances, and often disgustingly crude jokes....

Bored with school, 15-year-old Daisuke Kawashima embarks on a pilgrimage to visit the 7,000-year-old cedar tree on distant Yakushima Island. Through his journey, Daisuke meets a number of interesting people, including friendly truck driver Sumire and...

Hama-chan goes to Okayama to look for Su-san when he goes missing a few days after freezing up during his inaugural speech as the company chairman....

Island villagers find a young woman and young man swept ashore near their remote village in northeastern Japan. The two have tried to escape the girl's enforced marriage to another man, in order that they may marry themselves. The ancient custom of t...

A playboy-gambler friend of Tora-san’s dies and, abandoned by his mother, his little boy suddenly turns up in Shibamata. Searching for the boy’s mother, Tora-san meets a cosmetics saleslady and the three become a surrogate family, with Tora-san as “d...