monsieurk's - Rented List

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At the close of World War II, a Japanese army regiment in Burma surrenders to the British. Private Mizushima is sent on a lone mission to persuade a trapped Japanese battalion to surrender also.

When the outcome is a failure, he disguises himself in the robes of a Buddhist monk in hope of temporary anonymity as he journeys across the landscape - but he underestimates the power of his assumed role.

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In a small village in Burkina Faso, four young girls have fled the ritual of 'purification' and seek protection - moolaade - with Colle (Fatoumata Coulibaly), a circumcised woman who helped her own daughter escape excision seven years earlier.

In defiance of the traditionalists within the village, Colle grants the girls sanctuary and the scene is set for a tense confrontation between opposing sets of values.

'Tokyo Twilight' is film focused on family disintegration; it is also darkest masterpiece. Two adult sisters return to the family home and discover their long missing mother living with another man, leading to a destructive path of despair and isolation.

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When a bus is violently hijacked in a small Japanese town, only three people survive: the guilt wracked driver Makoto (Koji Yakusho), and young brother and sister, Kozue and Naoki. Two years on, each of them, still traumatised by their ordeal, struggle to reengage with life.

But then one day Makoto impulsively buys a bus, and sets off with Kozue and Naoki on a long journey across Japan, which becomes a cathartic odyssey of spiritual self-discovery. Shinji Aoyama's beautifully shot drama is a serene and resonant mediation on the psychological scars wrought upon the victims of terror and violence and of the courage and inner strength they must find to survive.

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Set in post-war Japan, 'The Lady of Musashino' tells the story of Michiko, a disillusioned young woman trapped in a loveless marriage. She confides in her younger cousin, Tsutomo, and the two become close, but decide not to consummate their affair.

He instead becomes involved with the flirtatious Tomiko, who is also conducting an affair with Michiko's husband. When Michiko finds that her husband has abandoned her, she decides to take fate into her own hands. Kinuyo Tanaka gives an impassioned performance in Mizoguchi's compelling and powerful drama.

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1945, Leningrad. World War II has devastated the city, demolishing its buildings and leaving its citizens in tatters, physically and mentally. Although the siege - one of the worst in history - is finally over, life and death continue their battle in the wreckage that remains.

Two young women, lya (Viktoria Miroshnichenko) and Masha (Vasilisa Perelygina), search for meaning and hope in the struggle to rebuild their lives amongst the ruins.

When a travelling kabuki troupe brings their show to a seaside port, Komajuro (Ganjiro Nakamura), an ageing actor, is reunited with his former lover, sake bar owner Oyoshi (Haruki Sugimura), and his illegitimate son Kiyoshi (Hiroshi Kawaguchi), to the distress of his current mistress Sumiko (Machiko Kyo).

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A woman disappears. Four marriages are drawn into a tangled web of love, deceit, sex and death. Lantna is an intriguing psychological thriller about love, infidelity and mistrust. It's about the mistakes we make, the consequences we suffer and the attempts we make to fix things up.

Detective Leon Zat (Anthony La Paglia) moves through a dark labyrinth of human relationships on his journey to sove the mystery of a woman's disappearance.

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Johan is the head of a family in a Mennonite community in northern Mexico.

However, he goes against the law of both God and men by falling in love with another woman and, although he is honest with his wife about the affair, his actions create conflict in their otherwise serine and tranquil existence.

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Tatsuya Nakadai and Toshiro Mifune star in this story of a wandering samurai who exists in a maelstrom of violence. A gifted swordsman plying his craft during the turbulent final days of shogunate rule in Japan, Ryunosuke (Nakadai) kills without remorse or mercy.

It is a way of life that ultimately leads to madness. Kihachi Okamoto's swordplay classic is the thrilling tale of a man who chooses to devote his life to evil.

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Following a young boy Tori (Pablo Schils) and a teenage girl Lokita (Joely Mbundu) who have left their home countries of Cameroon and Benin to make a new life in Belgium, we follow their journey as they navigate a range of difficult and challenging experiences.

Whether it be finding jobs on the black market or working to send money back to their families, their friendship provides an unbreakable bond that helps them survive. Hoping to get their papers to remain in the country, they soon find that there are an array of forces stacked against them. They must fight for both their friendship and their lives as their world slowly begins to crumble. Clinging to the hope of a better life, their struggle is a gripping testament to the power of the human spirit and the courage of their relationship.

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Machiko (Machiko Ono) is a young nurse who still carries the burden of her young son's death. Shigeki (Shigeki Uda) is an elderly widower and a resident at the nursing home where Machiko works.

After celebrating Shigeki's birthday, Machiko takes him for a drive in the countryside, but their car breaks down and Shigeki absconds into the nearby forest. Machiko has no choice but to follow, and they become lost in the dense woodlands, before their fates eventually become entwined.

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"My heroines are true to life - just look around you at Japanese women. They are strong, and they outlive men", director Shôhei Imamura once observed.

And so an audacious, anthropological approach to filmmaking came into full maturity with the director's vast 1963 chronicle of pre- and post-war Japan, The Insect Woman (Nippon-konchûki, or An Account of Japanese Insects). Comparing his heroine, Tome Matsuki (played by Sachiko Hidari, who won the "Best Actress" award at the 1964 Berlin Film Festival for the role) to the restlessness and survival instincts of worker insects, the film is an unsparing study of working-class female life. Beginning with Tome's birth in 1918, it follows her through five decades of social change, several improvised careers, and male-inflicted cruelty. Elliptically plotted, brimming over with black humour and taboo material, and immaculately staged in crystalline NikkatsuScope, The Insect Woman is arguably Imamura's most radical and emphatic testament to female resilience.

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In a Tokyo brothel named Dreamland - an obvious irony given the faded hopes of those who work there - the lives of five prostitutes intersect.

Each has a very different story for how they entered the profession, but what they share is the struggle to make sense of the red light district and its cycle of exploitation. Filmed shortly before the Japanese government's introduction of an antiprostitution bill, 'Akasen Chitai' is a compelling study of women torn between financial necessity and questions of conscience.

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Life begins beyond the velvet rope. They are young, educated, upwardly mobile...and confused about love and life. You know the type. So does filmmaker Whit Stillman, who follows his "Metropolitan" and "Barcelona" with another witty, character-driven comedy centered on up-and-coming twentysomethings.

"We look really good tonight. I'm sure we're going to get in". The hottest disco-era club in Manhattan is the place friends Charlotte (Kate Beckinsale) and Alice (Chloe Sevigny). It's the place to see and be seen. To dance and desire. To meet and maybe match. Chris Eigeman, Mackenzie Astin, Matt Keeslar and Robert Sean Leonard are among the denizens of Charlotte and Alice's strobe-lit, glitter-ball world - a world where disco's days are ending and real life is beginning. Come on in. Your name's on the list.