Tomoko Tabata Movies

A seedy private detective hatches an ingenious plan to profit off of a photograph depicting a missing salaryman and a pretty club hostess in this mystery-driven comedy from director Kenji Uchida. Upon receiving a photograph depicting a man named Kimura and the unidentified woman cavorting together, down at the heels private dick Kitazawa accepts the offer to make some quick cash by finding the photogenic philanderer. His first move is to track down his old classmate Jinno, now a teacher at the same school they once attended together. As it turns out, Jinno too is searching for Kimura. The day before Kimura's first child was born, he had told his wife that he needed to work late. Kimura was never seen again, leaving Jinno to take help his wife get to the hospital when she went into labor the following day. When Kitazawa discovers that the woman in the photograph is in fact Ayumi, the girlfriend of a feared yakuza boss, he recognizes the opportunity to make a considerable profit with the snapshot. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A Christmas Eve power outage provides a collection of troubled Tokyo denizens the opportunity to come clean on the misdeeds of their past in director Takashi Minamoto's snowbound winter drama. Fourteen year-old Shota (Kanata Hongo) longs to get a better look at the winter sky, but upon peering through the lens the youngster is shocked to see a distraught woman (Yu Kashii) leap from the roof of a nearby hospital. When Shota realizes that the suicide attempt failed and the woman landed safely on a rooftop below, he travels to the hospital in hopes of making contact with the woman. Elsewhere in the hospital, a dying father (Tomoyo Harada) longing to see his true love one last time reveals to his son Saeki (Tomorowo Taguchi) that the boy is the product of a marital indiscretion and that his supposedly dead mother is alive and well and living in Tokyo. Already reeling as his wife (Tomoyo Harada) prepares to divorce him and his lover (Haruka Igawa) refuses to acknowledge that fact that he is no longer interested in her, Saeki prepares to meet his mistress in the very same hotel where Chinese bellboy Dong Dong (Tsuyoshi Abe) is preparing to catch a flight to Shanghai to be with his girlfriend for Christmas. In another part of town, lovelorn bar owner Shinichi (Etsushi Toyogawa) laments the loss of his ex-lover as adoring candle shop manager Nozomi (Tomoko Tabata) admires him from afar, and pregnant Reiko (Shinobu Terajima) nervously awaits the arrival over her one-time lover Ginji (Koji Kikkawa), who has just been released after serving a six-year prison sentence. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Yoichi Sai directs Takeshi "Beat" Kitano in this adaptation of the popular Yang Seok-il novel concerning a violent, ruthless family patriarch whose obsession for money destroys all that surrounds him. In 1923, Kim Shun-pei left his home on a remote island south of Korea in order to seek out his fortune in Osaka, Japan. Upon arriving in Japan, Shun-pei faced relentless discrimination while forced to work hard labor under excruciating conditions. Despite the fact that the odds were stacked against him, however, Shun-pei eventually opened a Kamaboko (steamed fish cake) factory using nothing more than his remarkable personal strength and staunch determination. Shun-pei was a cunning and ruthless businessman, and his incredible tyranny extended to his personal life as well. Yet while Shun-pei's obsession with money was the very reason he eventually found success, it would also be his ultimate downfall. Later, as money and the constant quest for wealth overtook every aspect of his life, Shun-pei transforms himself into a vicious loan shark. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide