Ise, a successful entrepreneur, accidentally murders his lunatic wife after he is spotted having an affair with his secretary, Harumi. In his attempt to perfect his crime, he drives to a remote quarry to bury his wife’s body, but along the way, he finds another dead body in the back of his car! Given no choice, Ise dumps both bodies. Meanwhile, Yoshie begins her search for her missing brother, Yoshihiko. After surprising twists and turns, Ise faces his fate.

Traveling salesman Kuruma Torajiro falls in love with an inn manager as New Year's approaches.

An abandoned temple in the mountains outside of the old capital city of Kyoto is the scene of a fated meeting between a traveling priest, two women, and a vicious killer.

During WWII a soldier is beaten so badly by a superior officer he is left deaf. After the war he is an inventor and meets this officer at the patent office. The man is still the bully he was.

Following the detonation of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese military and the government clash over the demand from the Allies for unconditional surrender. Minister of the Army Anami leads the military officers who propose to fight on, even to the death of every Japanese citizen. Emperor Hirohito, however, joins with his ministers in asking the unthinkable, the peaceful surrender of Japan. When the military plots a coup to overthrow the Emperor's civilian government, Anami must face the choice between his desires and loyalty to his Emperor.

Tashiro coincidentally meets his best friend Sugimoto in a bar very close to the apartment in which Sugimoto’s wayward wife is found dead. Although Tashiro is not a suspect in the police investigation, he is racked with guilt and confesses to his wife, Masako. In an effort to further relieve his tortured sense of guilt, he then confesses to Sugimoto. Neither his wife nor his friend can believe that he could have been involved.

Through his unconscionable actions against others, a sociopath samurai builds a trail of vendettas that follow him closely.

Kiriko attempts to hire a well-known lawyer to defend her brother's murder case. The lawyer turns Kiriko down as she cannot afford him. Some time later, Kiriko encounters the lawyer again, but this time it is he who needs her help.

Three stories revolve around independence, a man searching for his wife, and a poor craftsman trying to make money.

Japan, 1860. The men of the Mito clan, victims of the Ansei purge, anxiously prowl around the Sakurada Gate of Edo Castle with the intention of assassinating Naosuke Ii of Hikone, tairō of the Tokugawa shogunate and responsible for their misfortune.

A collection of four Japanese folk tales with supernatural themes.

This comedy portrays the everyday life of an ordinary salary-man who uses himself as a model to write a novella.

After their lord is tricked into committing ritual suicide, forty-seven samurai warriors await the chance to avenge their master and reclaim their honor.

A yakuza man helps attacking a man out of obligation but also promise to take care of his family a he finds out the boss killed the man to get his wife.

His ideals challenged by life as a conscript in war-time Japan's military, a pacifist faces ever greater tests in his fight for survival.

The family of an older man who runs a small sake brewery become concerned with his finances and his health after they discover him visiting an old mistress from his youth.

In this Japanese drama, a village girl goes to Tokyo and becomes a hooker to support her ailing mother. While there she meets an unmarried teacher (at least he says he's unmarried) and falls in love. When she learns that he lied and is married to a woman whose child was fathered by another man, she is crushed. He returns to his wife. The woman becomes more distraught when she learns her uncle has misused the money she has sent. As the final straw, her mother dies, and the girl becomes sick.

On a post-war peaceful day in Japan, Toyomatsu Shimizu, a barber as well as a good father and husband, is suddenly arrested by the Prefectural Police as a war criminal and sued for murder.

As a conscript in war-time Japan's military, a pacifist struggles to maintain his determination to keep his ideals.

A Japanese pacifist, unable to face the dire consequences of conscientious objection, is transformed by his attempts to compromise with the demands of war-time Japan.

Ultra-perky model likes single freedom but feels ryosai kenbo ("good wife, wise mother") pressure, exemplified by her bored-to-tears sister.

A war widow with a young boy manages a farm with her bossy mother-in-law. When a reporter comes to interview her, the two begin an affair. He turns out to be married and won't leave his wife. Her older brother tries to marry off his children and hang on to/ extend his farm through an advantageous marriage in the face of threatened land confiscation and the desire of his children to get comfortable urban jobs instead of the backbreaking work in the paddy fields under parental control.

Learning of his family's collapse, acolyte Goichi, sent to study silently at the Temple of the Golden Pavilion, must endure acute psychological distress.

Haruki Murakami is a successful family man and the head of a camera company. Unbeknownst to Murakami, his arrogant son oscillates between a mistress and a new lover who sings at a nightclub. When Murakami’s disabled daughter befriends the mistress, the affair throws the family into turmoil.

A jobless young couple, Yoshigi and Tsutue, wind up at the outskirts of the Suzaki red-light district in Tokyo. Tsutue talks her way into a job pouring sake for male customers at a small bar run by a sympathetic older woman, while Yoshigi is shunted off into a nearby noodle shop, where he gets a job delivering noodles. Tsutue charms and runs off with one of her clients. Yoshigi, ignoring the attentions of a sweet co-worker, pursues Tsutue.

Sonejiro sacrifices all comfort to devote himself to research. Young housewife Yachiyo is disappointed with her husband Kappei, who is more attracted to mountain climbing and another girl. When Yachiyo’s father is introduced to Sonejiro, good will turns evil, and all happiness is at stake.

At the end of Meiji era a young student befriend an older man who as a proof of trust but also as a kind of exorcism entrust him his secret, a story about jealousy, betrayal, shame and guilt.

Ten years into a marriage, the wife is disappointed by the husband's lack of financial success, meaning she has to work and can't treat herself and the husband finds the wife slovenly and mean-spirited: she neither cooks not cleans particularly well and is generally disagreeable. In turn, he alternately ignores her and treats her as a servant. Neither is particularly happy, not helped by their unsatisfactory lodgers. The husband is easily seduced by an ex-colleague, a widow with a small child who needs some security, and considers leaving his wife.