

Paradise View(1985)
Go Takamine's first theatrical feature is a pioneering work of Okinawan cinema, filmed almost entirely in Okinawan dialect. Taking place shortly before the resumption of Japanese sovereignty over Okinawa, Takamine’s film tacitly addresses the island prefecture's complicated history of occupation and feelings of dislocation through the story of a small community and its preparations for a wedding between a local girl and a Japanese teacher. On the periphery of these events is Reishu (Kaoru Kobayashi), who quits his job on a US military base and uses the extra time to catch snakes and play with ants – and get the bride-to-be pregnant. Takamine’s leisurely-paced film is full of uniquely Okinawan touches that mix in aspects of the island's folklore, accompanied by Haruomi Hosono’s spare and evocative score.
Movie: Paradise View
Top 5 Billed Cast
Recommendations Movies
5.9Hospitalité(ja)
In this black comedy the lives of a timid small-time printer and his young wife are turned inside out by the arrival of a stranger who moves in and takes over their world. Set in a village-like outpost in the heart of Tokyo, this is a wry commentary on Japanese xenophobia. Kiki Sugino heads a spritely ensemble cast.
7.8Memories of Matsuko(ja)
While combing through the belongings of his recently deceased aunt, Matsuko, nephew Sho pieces together the crucial events that sank Matsuko's life into a despairing tragedy.
6.3Glory to the Filmmaker!(ja)
Takeshi Kitano plays a version of himself in which he's a struggling director cycling through a number of different genres in an effort to complete his latest project.
7.2The Pornographers(ja)
Subu makes pornographic films. He sees nothing wrong with it. They are an aid to a repressed society, and he uses the money to support his landlady, Haru, and her family. From time to time, Haru shares her bed with Subu, though she believes her dead husband, reincarnated as a carp, disapproves. Director Shohei Imamura has always delighted in the kinky exploits of lowlifes, and in this 1966 classic, he finds subversive humor in the bizarre dynamics of Haru, her Oedipal son, and her daughter, the true object of her pornographer-boyfriend’s obsession. Imamura’s comic treatment of such taboos as voyeurism and incest sparked controversy when the film was released, but The Pornographers has outlasted its critics, and now seems frankly ahead of its time.
6.0Tamako in Moratorium(ja)
Tamako graduated from a university in Tokyo, but she now lives with her father back in Kofu. Tamako doesn't help her father or tries to get a job. She spends her time just eating and sleeping throughout the four seasons of the year.
7.0Achilles and the Tortoise(ja)
Machisu is a painter. He never had the success he thinks he is entitled to. Regardless of this, he always remains trying to be successful. His wife Sachiko keeps supporting him, despite all setbacks.
6.1The Middle Man(en)
Frank Farrelli takes on the job as a middle man in the God-forsaken town of Karmack, USA, a community in a depression so deep that they need a middle man to professionally communicate more of the bad news.
6.1Landline(en)
A teenager living with her sister and parents in Manhattan during the 1990s discovers that her father is having an affair.
6.9Golden Kamuy(ja)
On the Hokkaido frontier, a war veteran and Ainu girl race against misfits and military renegades to find treasure mapped out on tattooed outlaws.
6.6In the Soup(en)
An aspiring young filmmaker gets involved with an eccentric gangster for the financing of his first film.
6.9Tokyo!(ja)
Three distinct tales unfold in the bustling city of Tokyo. Merde, a bizarre sewer-dweller, emerges from a manhole and begins terrorizing pedestrians. After his arrest, he stands trial and lashes out at a hostile courtroom. A man who has resigned himself to a life of solitude reconsiders after meeting a charming pizza delivery woman. And finally, a happy young couple find themselves undergoing a series of frightening metamorphoses.
7.3Tokyo Family(ja)
An elderly couple journey to Tokyo to visit their grown children, only to find them preoccupied and self-involved.
6.1...All the Marbles(en)
A two-bit promoter tries to take a women's wrestling team to the top.
6.2Somewhere in Queens(en)
Leo and Angela Russo live a simple life in Queens, surrounded by their overbearing Italian-American family. When their son finds success on his high school basketball team, Leo tears the family apart trying to make it happen.
6.5Radiance(ja)
The story follows the social intercourse between a cameraman, Masaya, with a visual impairment, and Misako who disconnects from the world.
6.2SubUrbia(en)
A group of suburban teenagers try to support each other through the difficult task of becoming adults.
6.2A Dog Year(en)
Jon Katz is close to burnout. He's a writer with writer's block; his wife has left for her sister's because he's emotionally distant; he rarely answers his phone. A kennel sends him a border collie that's undisciplined because of abuse. Despite a series of mishaps, Jon decides to keep trying with the dog, and he rents a dilapidated farm house to give the dog room to run. A local handyman refers Jon to a woman who might be able to help him train the dog. Reluctantly, Jon gives her a try. Is the dog the problem, or the owner?
6.4Don't Think Twice(en)
An improv group deals with several crises, including the loss of their lease and one member hitting the big time.
7.6Love Strikes!(ja)
Set one year after the drama series "Moteki." 31-year-old Yukiyo Fujimoto doesn't have money, dreams or a girlfriend. He has left his job at a staffing firm and is attempting to start a new life by working as a writer for a news site. Suddenly, Yukiyo experiences "moteki" - a period when a man becomes suddenly popular with woman. Cute magazine editor Miyuki, pure and naive office worker Rumiko, beautiful shop assistant Ai and beautiful, but tough co-worker named Motoko all become interested in Yukiyo. He tries to calm down, but is shaken by the interests of these women.
Similar Movies
7.1The Great Okinawa Yakuza War(ja)
Chiba, looking gnarly, and acting as animalistic as ever, stars alongside Matsukata as violent gangsters battling their way through fight after bloody fight with rival yakuza on the streets of Okinawa.
1.5Blue Lagoon: A Summer Experience(ja)
With summer vacation, Chiaki, a high school girl, is just passing each day without getting along well with her boyfriend, Masahiko and her first experience.
7.5Mom's Celestial Robe of Feathers(ja)
"There are many things that I don't like. The traffic jam on the way to Naha, my debt-ridden father, my best friend's boyfriend, milk, and my hometown, Shioya-wan. Why did my beautiful mother marry my father?" Ruri tried to escape from these thoughts as she faced an uncertain future. Then, one day, she learns of her mother's past, but…
6.3The Karate Kid Part II(en)
Summoned by his dying father, Miyagi returns to his homeland of Okinawa, with Daniel, after a 40-year exile. There he must confront Yukie, the love of his youth, and Sato, his former best friend turned vengeful rival. Sato is bent on a fight to the death, even if it means the destruction of their village. Daniel finds his own love in Yukia's niece, Kumiko, and his own enemy in Sato's nephew, the vicious Chozen. Now, far away from the tournaments, cheering crowds and safety of home, Daniel will face his greatest challenge ever when the cost of honor is life itself.
7.2Breathe In, Breathe Out(ja)
Breathe In, Breathe Out centers on six, later seven, individuals who have gotten jobs harvesting sugarcane on a small Okinawa island. Each worker has their own unique personality as well as their own issues as they learn to work together...
6.9Boiling Point(ja)
Masaki, a baseball player and gas-station attendant, gets into trouble with the local Yakuza and goes to Okinawa to get a gun to defend himself. There he meets Uehara, a tough gangster, who is in serious debt to the yakuza and planning revenge.
7.4All About Lily Chou-Chou(ja)
Charts the troubled teenage years of students Yūichi Hasumi and Shūsuke Hoshino, exploring the shifting and complex power dynamics of their relationship against the backdrop of Yūichi's love for the dreamy and abstract music of pop star Lily Chou-Chou.
6.0Okinawa Rendez-vous(cn)
Jimmy Tong is an expert blackmailer and thief who specialises in white-collar crimes. With his side-kick, Jimmy steals a personal diary belonging to a Yakuza leader Ken Sato intending to use its details as a platform for blackmailing and to extort money. Sato agreed to the uneasy deal and made preparations to pay Jimmy his exorbitant demands only for Sato's girlfriend Jenny to betray him and make off with the money to Okinawa.
5.9Flying Leathernecks(en)
Major Daniel Kirby takes command of a squadron of Marine fliers just before they are about to go into combat. While the men are well meaning, he finds them undisciplined and prone to always finding excuses to do what is easy rather than what is necessary. The root of the problem is the second in command, Capt. Carl 'Griff' Griffin. Griff is the best flier in the group but Kirby finds him a poor commander who is not prepared to make the difficult decision that all commanders have to make - to put men in harm's way knowing that they may be killed.
5.2Check It Out, Yo!(ja)
Tomboy Yui (Mao Inoue) brings her 3 male friends along with her to see a live performance of local Okinawan rap group, “Workaholic”. Upon witnessing the crowd reaction, the boys decide to start a rap group of their own to impress chicks—while Toru (Hayato Ichihara) has the added motivation of impressing his older, more sophisticated love interest Nagisa (Ayumi Ito). With only 2 weeks to learn how to play instruments and prepare for their first show, the performance is predictably humiliating. In order to save pride they decide to give it another shot, but this time they ditch the instruments for a sampler and stay truer to themselves. Will Toru be able to capture Nagisa’s heart? Will Yui ever confess her love to Toru or will she just keep practicing her advanced pro wrestling techniques on him instead?
7.0Star Sand(ja)
In the closing days of World War II, Japanese-American Hiromi, a girl age 16, encounters an American deserter, Bob, and a Japanese soldier, Iwabuchi, living together in a cave on a small island in Okinawa. The two men are deserters from their armies; yet both vow never to harm another human being again. Hiromi looks after the deserters until another soldier appears and the peace of the cave is shattered. It leads to the death of three of them and a fascinating mystery that isn't solved until the present day.
0.0Okinawa(ja)
A group of teenagers grow up in Okinawa amid the protests and resistance against the presence of the American base in the island.
8.0The Stranger by the Shore(ja)
Abandoned after coming out, Shun befriends Mio just before he has to move. Years later, Mio returns with a confession. How will Shun feel?
6.2The Teahouse of the August Moon(en)
In post-WWII Japan, an American captain is brought in to help build a school, but the locals want a teahouse instead.
0.0The First Breath of Tengan Rei(en)
An Okinawan woman kidnaps the teenage son of a U.S. Marine convicted of raping her when she was a girl.
0.0Himawari -Okinawa wa Wasurenai, Ano Nichi no Sora o-(ja)
After an American helicopter crashes into a classroom in Okinawa International University, student Ryuichi is compelled to write a report on a similar accident 52 years ago, in 1959, when an American jet fighter crashed into his grandfather's elementary school. He also plans to hold a peace concert.
3.8Untamagiru(ja)
A magical realist story of the legendary Okinawan hero Untamagiru participating in efforts to form an independent Okinawa before the island was returned to Japan in 1972.
7.6Shimamori Tower(ja)
Together with Shimada Akira (Hagiwara Masato), the last appointed governor of Okinawa during the war, Arai Taizo (Murakami Jun), the chief of police of Okinawa Prefecture, goes beyond his duties and strives to protect the lives of the citizens of the prefecture. As the ravages of war intensify, the two, who each carried a heavy cross during the Battle of Okinawa, desperately devote themselves to saving the lives of the Okinawan people, with the belief that "life is precious." A human drama, set in Okinawa at the end of World War II, depicting the preciousness of human life. Directed by Igarashi Sho of One Step on a Mine, It's All Over.
6.0The Catcher On The Shore(ja)
This drama depicts a boy's coming of age against the backdrop of Okinawa's food culture. Director Nakamura Ryugo was born in 1996. He made this film, his feature debut, when he was just fourteen years old. Okinawa has an old tradition of eating a goat for celebratory occasions. But that culture is starting to fade in urban areas. Yuto (Uehara Soji), a sixth grader living in Naha, spends his winter vacation in the countryside town where his grandparents reside. He receives a shock when he sees the goat raised by his grandfather killed by locals.
0.0Paikaji Nankai Sakusen(ja)
Sasaki has had a difficult period, going through a divorce and losing his job. To take a break and start anew, Sasaki decides to visit Iriomote Island. While there, Sasaki's belongings are stolen by four homeless men. Sasaki then lives with three other people: a survivalist, a city man and a girl who speaks Kansai dialect. One day, Sasaki hears news about the four homeless men and decides to get revenge ...




