7 Movies Starring Naoto Takenaka

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Yet another tradition in the tradition of "ragtag misfits" in Japanese comedy...Sumo Do, Sumo Don't tells the story of a university sumo club in Japan. In today's Japan, the younger generation is more interested in "Western" sports like baseball and basketball. Professor Anayama, a former university sumo champion, blackmails graduating (and slim) student Shuhei into joining the decimated university team, or he doesn't graduate. Along with a pro wrestler, an unpopular, chubby guy, and a gaijin (white guy), the team begins training for competition, even though none of them cares about sumo at all. Gradually, they develop a love and respect for the traditional sport.

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Edogawa Rampo is a writer whose latest work is censored by the government, deemed too disturbing and injurious to the public to be allowed to be published. However, after burning his drafts, his publisher shows him a newspaper with an account of events just like his forbidden story. As the film progresses, fantasy and reality intermingle in a tale that draws heavily on influences from Poe and Stoker's Dracula. The film's strongly Expressionistic direction skillfully combines a variety of media (animation, computer-generated imagery, grainy black-and-white fast film stock, color negatives) for artistic effect.

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Shohei Sugiyama has attained all that he has wanted in life. But he is still depressed and unhappy. One day, he gathers up the courage to sign up for dancing lessons. He hopes they will rid his depression and help him get his life back together.

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Shohei Sugiyama has attained all that he has wanted in life. But he is still depressed and unhappy. One day, he gathers up the courage to sign up for dancing lessons. He hopes they will rid his depression and help him get his life back together.

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In China, the poor worker Tietou repairs tractors and misses his sweetheart Xiu Xiu, back in Japan, she having never sent any news to her family or him. While illegally emigrating to Japan, Tietou loses his Chinese documents and so cannot return to his country. He is welcomed by his countrymen who lodge and work in Shinjuku where they also help him to find illegal work. While running from a police raid through the sewage system where Chinese are illegally working, Tietou saves Inspector Kitano from drowning in the dirty water. Later, after an incident with his cousin, Joe, and a Taiwan gang, Tietou saves the powerful Yakuza boss Toshinari Eguchi. He is the husband of Xiu Xiu, who is now called Yuko and are parents of a little daughter. The mobster offers a dirty job to Tietou; in retribution, he promises to deliver the quarter dominated by the Taiwan gang to him. Tietou becomes the boss of the Chinese illegal immigrants. But his peaceful methods make him unpopular and Tietou starts to lose control over his men which escalates into a giant gang war.

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An tale of revenge, honor and disgrace, centering on a poverty-stricken samurai who discovers the fate of his ronin son-in-law, setting in motion a tense showdown of vengeance against the house of a feudal lord.

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Yuuichi Okano is a baby boomer born and raised in Nagasaki, Japan. His bald-head looks like a pecoross, a small onion. His Mother, Mitsue has dementia that began soon after her husband, Satoru, passed away 10 years ago... The film depicts their daily life that is full of humor and sweet sorrow. The theme of this film is nursing care and dementia that take up as serious social issue in Japan; the aging of population is advancing rapidly. But the Director, Azuma Morisaki, the age of 85, he is now the oldest active film director in Japan, got through with this film as the light and heart-warming movie.