Movies and TvShows featuring "japanese-society" theme.

Host Peter Barakan delves into various aspects of Japanese culture; exploring practices, history, and modern innovations in such areas as ramen, rice, sushi, geisha, bonsai, and so much more. Local experts discuss their passions at fascinating length, and American Japanophile Matt Alt experiences the food, practices, and cultures in each episode in depth. Viewers will finish each half hour episode with a new understanding of an area of Japanese life through demonstrative videos and explanations, all delivered respectfully and true to the Japanese way of life.

Bob, a still famous actor, arrives in Tokyo to shoot a commercial but feels oblivious and bored. He meets Charlotte, a lonely young woman accompanying her busy photographer husband. Over the next few days, Bob and Charlotte connect, sharing their emotions and fears. They have a great time together at a party and their understanding deepens. Bob has a brief affair with a singer but Charlotte is disappointed. On their last night together, they admit their wish to stay in Tokyo but know it's just a fantasy. They share a gentle goodbye and embrace before parting ways.

In the early Showa era, Japan’s first women’s law school opens, and the protagonist, Inotsume Tomoko (Ito Sairi), gains nationwide attention as one of the first female lawyers in the country. However, after facing wartime Japan’s harsh realities and losing everything, she becomes a judge with her legal knowledge and dedicates herself to establishing the family court. She stands passionately for the hardships that politics and economics cannot solve.

Miss Oyu is a film set in post-war Japan, where a young widow falls in love with her sister's husband. The story explores the complexities of love, tradition, and sacrifice in a society bound by restrictive norms and traditions.

Intimately following 1st and 6th graders at a public elementary school in Tokyo, we observe kids learning the traits necessary to become part of Japanese society.

Ines, who wants to change who she is and become someone else in order to cover up her insecurities. When she accompanies her boyfriend Lucas on a business trip to Norway, Ines meets a half-Japanese tourist, Maria, who instantly fascinates her. Suddenly Maria disappears, and Ines seizes the opportunity to replace her – she declares herself dead and travels to Japan in order to take over Maria's identity. There, she will get a job at Miss Osaka, the same nightclub where Maria used to work. A game of broken boundaries, lost identities and the dangerous balance between reality and the past has begun, and Ines must abide by the new rules by avoiding the more obscure paths.

Japan’s Secret Shame is a powerful documentary that sheds light on the pervasive issue of sexual violence in Japan. Through survivor testimonies and shocking CCTV footage, the film brings to the forefront the alarming prevalence of male violence against women, including cases of rape of unconscious persons and victims drugged into memory loss. The documentary explores the deeply rooted traditional sex roles and objectification of women in Japanese society that contribute to the persistence of unpunished sex crimes. It also delves into the flaws in the justice system and challenges faced by rape victims in seeking justice. Japan’s Secret Shame is a compelling social documentary that exposes the taboo subject of sexual violence against women in Japan.

A film on exile, revolution, landscapes and memory, Anabasis brings forth the remarkable parallel stories of Adachi and May, one a filmmaker who gave up images, the other a young woman whose identity-less existence forbade keeping images of her own life. Fittingly returning the image to their lives, director Eric Baudelaire places Adachi and May’s revelatory voiceover reminiscences against warm, fragile Super-8mm footage of their split milieus, Tokyo and Beirut. Grounding their wide-ranging reflections in a solid yet complex reality, Anabasis provides a richly rewarding look at a fascinating, now nearly forgotten era (in politics and cinema), reminding us of film’s own ability to portray—and influence—its landscape.