A restaurant opens at midnight. Both the menu offerings and personality of the owner draw a series of flawed patrons including Tamako, whose boyfriend has passed away, live-in worker Michiru, and ruckus-raising Kenzo.
Social & External
The people behind it
Kaoru Kobayashi
Master
Saki Takaoka
Tamako Kawashima
Mikako Tabe
Michiru Kuriyama
Michitaka Tsutsui
Kenzo Oishi
Tokio Emoto
Hajime Nishida
Kimiko Yo
Chieko Hanawa
Akiko Kikuchi
Akemi Sugita
Yuko Tanaka
Machiko Tsukaguchi
Joe Odagiri
Kogure
Mansaku Fuwa
Tadashi
Tragedy strikes a married couple vacationing in the Moroccan desert, which jumpstarts an interlocking story involving four different families.
Young girl Saori, a cook at a diner, loves cooking. There is a regular customer Kujo, a guy who has never touched the plate of her cooking. Saori decides to give him a bag of sandwiches for him to eat at home, but later she finds that he gave it to a Buddhist monk on a street. She does not know that Kujo only eats what he cooked himself. A tragicomedy of 4 couples suffering about eating.
On their cross-country drive, a married couple, Jeff and Amy Taylor, experience car trouble after their SUV breaks down. Stranded in the New Mexico desert, the two catch a break when a passing truck driver offers Amy a ride to a nearby café to call for help. Meanwhile, Jeff is able to fix the car and make his way to the café, but Amy isn't there. He tracks down the trucker ― who tells the police he's never seen Jeff or his wife before. Jeff then begins a desperate, frenzied search for Amy.
Shiratori Tatsuhiko works as a scout for talent agency Burst in Kabukichō, Shinjuku's red light district, recruiting young girls for the adult entertainment industry. In a business where money means everything, Tatsuhiko finds himself in a constant struggle between rival scouts and the Yakuza.
An insurance investigator visits a small town while looking into the strange disappearance of a popular horror novelist. He soon finds that the impact of the author’s books is far more than inspirational.
Geeky teenager David and his popular twin sister, Jennifer, get sucked into the black-and-white world of a 1950s TV sitcom called "Pleasantville," and find a world where everything is peachy keen all the time. But when Jennifer's modern attitude disrupts Pleasantville's peaceful but boring routine, she literally brings color into its life.
Kitchen Boy is a drama, set within a fine dining restaurant, where a young chef, Robert, is pushed to his breaking point by an infamous head-chef, and restaurateur, Andrea Carter. Learning the hard way what it takes to get to the top. Think Whiplash meets Gordon Ramsay’s Boiling Point
In a small Tokyo apartment, twelve-year-old Akira must care for his younger siblings after their mother leaves them and shows no sign of returning.
Over the course of five social occasions, a committed bachelor must consider the notion that he may have discovered love.
In this loose adaptation of Shakespeare's "Henry IV," Mike Waters is a hustler afflicted with narcolepsy. Scott Favor is the rebellious son of a mayor. Together, the two travel from Portland, Oregon to Idaho and finally to the coast of Italy in a quest to find Mike's estranged mother. Along the way they turn tricks for money and drugs, eventually attracting the attention of a wealthy benefactor and sexual deviant.
A gripping chronicle of three couples over the course of one fateful night in an LA restaurant named Collide. Hunter finds himself on an awkward blind date with the captivating Tamira, while a busboy and his waitress girlfriend hope to score a big payday, and outside, Peter sits in his car observing his wife Angie meet with the restaurant’s manager. Though all strangers, their stories are weaved together as they hurl towards an explosive end.
Sex always gets in the way of friendships between men and women. At least, that's what Harry Burns believes. So when Harry meets Sally Albright and a deep friendship blossoms between them, Harry's determined not to let his attraction to Sally destroy it. But when a night of weakness ends in a morning of panic, can the pair avoid succumbing to Harry's fears by remaining friends and admitting they just might be the perfect match for each other?
The Chuo Line, a cursed line where accidents and suicides often occur. The story centers on a couple who both live along the Chuo Line. When they try to meet accidents occur as if some force is at work. Why can't the two meet anymore, and what is the power lurking in the central line that prevents them?
Wealthy rancher Bick Benedict and dirt-poor cowboy Jett Rink both woo Leslie Lynnton, a beautiful young woman from Maryland who is new to Texas. She marries Benedict, but she is shocked by the racial bigotry of the White Texans against the local people of Mexican descent. Rink discovers oil on a small plot of land, and while he uses his vast, new wealth to buy all the land surrounding the Benedict ranch, the Benedict's disagreement over prejudice fuels conflict that runs across generations.
In the questionable town of Deer Meadow, Washington, FBI Agent Desmond inexplicably disappears while hunting for the man who murdered a teen girl. The killer is never apprehended, and, after experiencing dark visions and supernatural encounters, Agent Dale Cooper chillingly predicts that the culprit will claim another life. Meanwhile, in the more cozy town of Twin Peaks, hedonistic beauty Laura Palmer hangs with lowlifes and seems destined for a grisly fate.
After going down in the fifth round, boxer Bud Gordon bowed out of the limelight. Now residing in a fixer-upper apartment in New Jersey with his girlfriend, Bud longs for his former Manhattan glory. In an effort to get back in the game, he makes a deal with a crooked restaurateur. But quick schemes rarely bring easy pay-offs and as the consequences of his business negotiations unfold, Bud has to make a choice between his integrity and his aspirations.
After the entire flora goes extinct, ecologist Lowell maintains a greenhouse aboard a space station for the future with his android companions. However, he rebels after being ordered to destroy the greenhouse in favor of carrying cargo, a decision that puts him at odds with everyone but his mechanical companions.
Loving but irresponsible dad Daniel Hillard, estranged from his exasperated spouse, is crushed by a court order allowing only weekly visits with his kids. When Daniel learns his ex needs a housekeeper, he gets the job -- disguised as a British nanny. Soon he becomes not only his children's best pal but the kind of parent he should have been from the start.
Psycho Joe loves one thing: fast cars! When he gets a job at a local supermarket, Joe meets fellow "petrol head" Dazey, who quickly becomes his idol and best friend. Soon after, Joe falls for Savina, a goth girl who practices black magic. But Savina has already fallen for Dazey and will do anything to get him -- including using Joe's feelings for her. In true Shakespearean fashion, this trio race down the road to tragedy.
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.
The master of a dorayaki pastry store hires a 76-year-old woman whose talents attract customers from all over. But she's hiding a troubling secret. Life's joys are found in the little details, and no matter what may be weighing you down, everyone loves a good pastry.
Masato is a young ramen chef in Japan. When he finds his late mother's journal after the sudden death of his emotionally distant father, he takes it with him to her native country, Singapore, hoping to piece together the story of his family and his life.
Fleeing heartbreak in the big city, Ichiko returns to Komori, her rural hometown. She battles summer's rain and humidity, bakes her own bread, grows hothouse tomatoes and tills the fields. During autumn, the time for pickling and preserving fish and sweet potatoes, Ichiko begins reaping rice and recalls her departure five years before.
Years of working in the food industry have made Juana, a working-class Latina, a chef of speed and skill. Searching for financial stability, she stumbles into a high-energy, male-dominated Japanese cuisine kitchen. The new atmosphere re-ignites her passions for food and life and makes her hungry to get mixed up in the flavors of this new world.
Ichiko bakes a cake for an end-of-year party with her friends. In the depths of winter, making mochi and curry keeps the people of Komori warm. Later, spring brings thoughts of her absent mother as well as rice planting and sakura, and she begins to think of leaving Komori behind again.
Kiyoha rises from the lowly courtesan ranks to the high class position of Oiran in the steamy red-light district of Yoshiwara. She is determined to stand on her own two feet and live life as she pleased.
Yokohama, 1963. Japan is picking itself up from the devastation of World War II and preparing to host the 1964 Olympics—and the mood is one of both optimism and conflict as the young generation struggles to throw off the shackles of a troubled past. Against this backdrop of hope and change, a friendship begins to blossom between high school students Umi and Shun—but a buried secret from their past emerges to cast a shadow on the future and pull them apart.
A psychotic man opens fire in a diner, murdering numerous people before killing himself. The survivors struggle in different ways following this horrendous event: a doctor doubts his own instincts and elects to use an experimental medical procedure on his wife, while a gambler believes he's on a lucky streak. A waitress begins engaging in promiscuous sex, and a young girl whose father is among the dead gains unexpected fame.
Russ Millings has just been released from prison after serving 21 years for a 3rd strike conviction for possessing an ounce of marijuana. As he tries to adapt to a world he doesn’t recognize – including trying to learn how to use the internet – he finds an abandoned baby in a dumpster behind the fast food restaurant where he works as a dishwasher. Unsure of what to do, and caught between impulses of kindness and panic, Russ soon realizes this could be his chance at redemption.
A hard-working mother inches towards disaster as she divorces her husband and starts a successful restaurant business to support her spoiled daughter.
The arranged marriage between a capricious woman from Tokyo high society and a quiet rustic man is tested by a marital crisis.
An unapologetic former sex worker starts working at a bento stand in a small seaside town, bringing comfort to the lonely souls who come her way.
Hanako is looking for stability with her man. She gets dumped instead. She begins dating. Miki studied and worked hard to get to where she is and is holding down a job. They are introduced through an intermediary man.
Widower Shuhei Hirayama's caretaker is his 24-year-old daughter, Michiko. Gradually, he comes to realize that Michiko should not be obliged to look after him for the rest of his life, so he arranges a marriage for her.
In 2012, Atsuya and his 2 childhood friends do something bad and run into an old general store. They decide to stay there until the morning. Late into the night, Atsuya sees a letter in the mailbox. The letter is addressed to the Namiya General Store and the letter was written by someone to consult about worries. Incredibly, the letter was written 32 years ago. The mailbox is somehow connected to the year 1980. Atsuya and his friends decide to write a reply and place their letter in the mailbox.
Japan, 1943, during World War II. Young Suzu leaves her village near Hiroshima to marry and live with her in-laws in Kure, a military harbor. Her creativity to overcome deprivation quickly makes her indispensable at home. Inhabited by an ancestral wisdom, Suzu impregnates the simple gestures of everyday life with poetry and beauty. The many hardships, the loss of loved ones, the frequent air raids of the enemy, nothing alters her enthusiasm…
In a distinctly contemporary Tokyo that looks backwards to the city’s disappearing past, Yoko is a writer investigating the life of a modernist composer of the 1930s. She is pregnant by a man she does not want to marry and has found a kindred spirit in a used bookstore owner who aids her research.
Shizuku lives a simple life, dominated by her love for stories and writing. One day she notices that all the library books she has have been previously checked out by the same person: "Seiji Amasawa."
The true story of how Ray Kroc, a salesman from Illinois, met Mac and Dick McDonald, who were running a burger operation in 1950s Southern California. Kroc was impressed by the brothers’ speedy system of making the food and saw franchise potential. He maneuvered himself into a position to be able to pull the company from the brothers and create a billion-dollar empire.
Ryota is an unpopular writer although he won a literary award 15 years ago. Now, Ryota works as a private detective. He is divorced from his ex-wife Kyoko and he has an 11-year-old son Shingo. His mother Yoshiko lives alone at her apartment. One day, Ryota, his ex-wife Kyoko, and son Shingo gather at Yoshiko's apartment. A typhoon passes and the family must stay there all night long.