The stormy tale of the Shinsengumi is told from its birth by master filmmaker Sasaki Yasushi, with an all-star cast based on the original story by Shirai Kyoji. The battles between the royalists and Shogunate supporters come to a fever pitch during the Gion Festival as the exclusionists plot to burn Kyoto and kidnap the Emperor. From its earliest beginnings as a group of ronin brought from Edo to protect the Shogun when he is in Kyoto to see His Imperial Highness, the group had to face difficulties both from within and without. Commander Serizawa Kamo's corrupt practices threaten the group's very existence, as they try to recover from the bad reputation he left them with. Their redemption comes when they learn of Katsura Kogoro plans to gather men at Kyoto's Ikedaya Inn for his attack on the city. Along with Hijikata Toshizo and Okita Soji, Kondo leads the group in an attempt to save Japan from the rebels.
Two lost souls visiting Tokyo -- the young, neglected wife of a photographer and a washed-up movie star shooting a TV commercial -- find an odd solace and pensive freedom to be real in each other's company, away from their lives in America.
Nathan Algren is an American hired to instruct the Japanese army in the ways of modern warfare, which finds him learning to respect the samurai and the honorable principles that rule them.
A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food.
Two New York cops get involved in a gang war between members of the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia. They arrest one of their killers and are ordered to escort him back to Japan.
At the end of the Heian period, Musashibo Benkei, a warrior monk who hated the Heike clan, was humiliated by his fellow monks and left the mountain monastery.
The advertising director of Pacific Pharmaceuticals, frustrated with the low ratings of their sponsored TV program, seeks a more sensationalist approach.
A member of an elite paramilitary counter-terrorism unit becomes traumatized after witnessing the suicide bombing of a young girl and is forced to undergo retraining.
A kindhearted wandering gambler named Hajiro gets involved in a crisis of a village as he passes through and decides to lend a sword in hopes to rescue them.
Two plays by William Saroyan portraying writers stymied, inspired, frustrated, excited, listful, wistful, slothful, awed, unnerved, perhaps corrupted and perplexed by the promise and let-down writing holds for them.
