Browse Movies : Hiroyuki Sanada : Drama

The story of war photographer W. Eugene Smith and how he goes up against a powerful corporation responsible for poisoning the people of Minamata, a Japanese fishing village, in 1971.

Set in the late 1870s, this epic film depicts the beginnings of the modernization of Japan, as the island nation evolved past a feudal society, as symbolized by the eradication of the samurai way of life. We see all this happen from the point of view of an alcoholic Civil War veteran turned Winchester guns spokesman, Captain Woodrow Algren (Tom Cruise), who arrives in Japan to train the troops of the emperor, Meiji, as part of a break away from the long-held tradition of relying on employed samurai warriors to protect territories, as the emperor's new army prepares to wipe out the remaining samurai warriors. When Algren is injured in combat and captured by the samurai, he learns about their warrior honor code from their leader, Katsumoto, which forces him to decide which side of the conflict he actually wants to be on.

After a treacherous warlord kills their master and banishes their kind, 47 leaderless samurai vow to seek vengeance and restore honor to their people. Driven from their homes and dispersed across the land, this band of Ronin must seek the help of Kai (Reeves)—a half-breed they once rejected—as they fight their way across a savage world of mythic beasts, shape-shifting witchcraft and wondrous terrors. As this exiled, enslaved outcast becomes their most deadly weapon, he will transform into the hero who inspires this band of outnumbered rebels to seize eternity.

Set in 1947, a long-retired Sherlock Holmes lives in a sleepy village outside of London with his housekeeper and her amateur-sleuthing son. With his legendary mental powers on the wane and minus his sidekick Watson, Holmes becomes haunted by an unsolved case from 50 years ago where he remembers only fragments: a confrontation with an angry husband and a secret bond with his beautiful but unstable wife.

The capture and torture of Eric Lomax by the Japanese in World War II. Lomax was sent to work on notorious "death railway" in Burma and struggled for the next 30 years to come to terms with the trauma.

Set in Shanghai in the late 1930s, it is the story of the relationship between a disillusioned former US diplomat and a refugee Russian countess reduced to a sordid life in the city's bars.

Todd Jackson (Ralph Feinnes), once an American diplomat filled with idealism, has become bitterly disillusioned by realpolitik and the seemingly unavoidable nature of war and conflict. Moreover, he is deeply bereaved by the deaths of his wife and children, who were victims of violent political events in 1930s China that also robbed Jackson of his sight.

Jackson is trying to retreat into a smaller, more controllable world by creating here, in one of the world's most licentious, glittering and sordid ports, the perfect bar. After countless hours spent critically examining dive after dive in the city's pleasure districts, Jackson has become a connoisseur of decadence. One day, after a chance meeting with Matsuda - a mysterious Japanese man who appears to share his refined eye for the beauty of low-life establishments - Jackson gambles his savings on a horse, wins, and sets about realizing his masterpiece: a bar that will achieve the exquisite balance of romance, tragedy, and political tension.

Matsuda is a decidedly shadowy figure, but that fails to worry Jackson, and they partner to create the perfect bar. When rumors circulate that Matsuda has come to Shanghai to oversee a Japanese invasion of the city, Jackson still willfully refuses to listen.

Sofia (Natasha Richardson) is a White Russian countess in her thirties who fled the Bolshevik Revolution as a child. Her immediate family have perished, and she now lives in a Shanghai slum with members of her late husband's aristocratic family and her ten-year-old daughter, Katya. The household's sole breadwinner, Sofia works as a taxi-dancer in dingy night spots, resorting to prostitution when times are hard. The rest of the household show their gratitude by endlessly ostracizing her for bringing disgrace to the family.

Jackson encounters Sofia one night working at her taxi-dance hall, decides she is the perfect blend of tragedy and sensuality and asks her to become the centerpiece of his perfect bar. Thus begins a relationship that will see Jackson - despite his best efforts - slowly coaxed out of his enclosed world. He gradually comes to concede that Sofia may be more than a beautiful picture, becomes drawn to the spirited young Katya, and ultimately, into the intrigues within the family to separate Sofia from her child.

The story ends as the Japanese invade Shanghai, with the entire world on the brink of World War II. Ironically, it is at this point that Jackson, in acknowledging his love for Sofia and her daughter, finds reawakened his own idealism for a world free from war.

A young psychiatric intern unearths secrets about the mental health facility in which he works.