Acting
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This is James Miki's first directorial work, and he is also the original writer and scriptwriter. Noritaka Sakamoto was in charge of photography, and Kentaro Haneda was in charge of music direction. It depicts how an honest candidate aiming for a clean election campaign gradually collapses in the face of various realities. Kiyokawa, the mayor of Higurashi City, died at his lover's house. Yoshihiko announces that he will conduct a clean election campaign, but his sponsors and backers are reluctant.
A cantankerous but loveable high school teacher teaches a night school in a poor neighborhood for adult students on the fringes of Japanese society.
"A School Behind Bars" centers around Asahi Junior High School, which is located within Nagano Matsumoto Boy's prison in Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture - the only public school in Japan that is located inside a prison. The school's students are all prisoners ranging in age from 20-70. The students are carefully selected after taking an entrance exam and being selected by the school's admission board.
Mugiko, an 18-year-old attempts to escape her unhappiness with village life by going to Tokyo to live and work in the geisha house run by her aunt. The daughter of a once great geisha, Mugiko is entitled by blood to train in the geishas' ancient art of classical Japanese song and dance.
Kaido is a professional pickpocket who works the Tokyo subway with his young foster-daughter, Rei: She lets herself be groped while Kaido relieves the groper of his wallet. More often than not they're observed by a middle-aged cop, who generally lets Kaido go free. Rei is unsettled when Kaido takes on a young street punk, Kazuki, as an apprentice -- with instructions to make Kaido stop drinking. Kazuki, however, would like to go into business with Rei.
A young man fails his company entrance exams and leaves home to work at a run-down cinema in Tokushima, whose owner lives to bring entertaining films to the residents of his small town.
Furuta Oribe is ordered to become tea master under Toyotomi Hideyoshi after his teacher Sen no Rikyū, the former tea master, was ordered to commit suicide. Princess Goh, daughter of the lord but adopted by Hideyoshi, is outraged when Rikyū's severed head is thrown in the Nijo River. She sends Usu, Oribe's servant, to retrieve the head and deliver it to Rikyū's adopted daughter.
In the near future of a Japan, the ancient 'Act of Vengeance' is revived and professional executioners are permitted to kill criminals by the requests from their victims. People who are to be executed are notified of the execution time and date in advance and they are allowed to have their own guard.
A hulking man from the country pursues his beloved to the underworld of Tokyo nightclubs, where he finds work as a sideshow wrestler and becomes involved with a faded opera singer.
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.