Toshiyuki Tanigawa

"Butoh: Body on the Edge of Crisis" is a visually striking film portrait shot on location in Japan with the participation of the major Butoh choreographers and their companies. Although Butoh is often viewed as Japan's equivalent of modern dance, in actuality it has little to do with the rational principles of modernism. Butoh is a theater of improvisation which places the personal experiences of the dancer on center-stage. By reestablishing the ancient Japanese connection of dance, music, and masks, and by recalling the Buddhist death dances of rural Japan, Butoh incorporates much traditional theater. At the same time, it is a movement of resistance against the abandonment of traditional culture to a highly organized consumer-oriented society.

A girl becomes a pawn in the game between two rival gangs gangster.

A bunch of young hipsters kidnaps a loving couple and keeps them trapped in a barren landscape. To the sounds of free jazz they are performing various experiments with the couple. In the distance is a yakuza gang keeping track of the youths. Who are really experimenting with whom?

A salesman is looking in the city of Tokyo for his lost son. But he becomes increasingly angry at the young and radical hippies, who are not the least helpful.

Shirō raids the office of the organization that attacked his lover, wreaking havoc and escaping with a stolen handgun. In retaliation, the organization hires two killers to get rid of Shirō. The duo begin to develop a strange kinship with their target...

Three high school girls about to take their final exam, secretly plan to ruin the diploma ceremony in order to avenge themselves of that school which treated them as delinquents. Two classmates who discovered their plan decide to join the rebellion. They steal all the graduation certificates, use their charms to get weapons from Jieitai soldiers and establish their base in the mountain.

The film follows a frustrated young man who yearns to be in the company of women. If at first he seems unable to make any kind of meaningful connection with them, he awakens dark feelings that will drive him to commit violent crimes after his first sexual experiences.