About 1786 the doings of a demented lord results in many masterless samurai, including Iyemon (Kei Sato) who is used to luxury and cannot adjust to the hand-to-mouth conditions & piecework of umbrella making. Having hired ruffians to make him look like a superior swordsman, he arranges for himself the opportunity of a profitable marriage. He hires the half-blind masseur Takuetsu (Sawamura Sounosuke) to seduce or rape his wife (Kyoko Mikage), so that she can be divorced or killed for adultery. But the masseur takes pity & informs Oiwa of her husband's horrid plot. Assisted by the merchant's daughter he intends to marry, Iyemon disfigures his wife attempting to poison her so he can marry higher. There's a lovingly gruesome sequence as she combs blad patches into her hair, kneeling deformed at her mirror, weeping with bitterness. She eventually cuts her own throat, swearing revenge.

Osen, a dance teacher who hates men, refuses to become the concubine of a rich merchant, but falls in love with the thief Sojiro, unaware that he is avenging the death of his brother. Jinzo, who wants to win over a rich merchant, pours boiling water on One's face...

On the night of the summoning ceremony, teacher Hagiwara is visited by his former student, Mirei. Mirei's face was pale, as she had often been ill, but now that she is a married woman, she looks radiantly beautiful in her yukata kimono. Hagiwara is stunned, gazing at her, when Yone, the maid who accompanied him, calls out to him...

Mexican beauty Camilla hopes to rise above her station by marrying a wealthy American. That is complicated by meeting Arturo Bandini, a first-generation Italian hoping to land a writing career and a blue-eyed blonde on his arm.

After a one night stand with Alex, Isabel realizes that she is pregnant and they decide to get married. However, along with the marriage comes compromise of one's own cultural traditions.

In 1850s Louisiana, the willfulness of a tempestuous Southern belle threatens to destroy all who care for her.

Jake Kimble, the sole survivor of the Chicago massacre, is killed while in solitary confinement. His doctor begins investigating the claims he made about a long-haired woman in white, as a mysterious Japanese woman arrives at his old apartment building to help them get rid of the curse.

In a totalitarian future society, a man whose daily work is rewriting history tries to rebel by falling in love.

After being abruptly evicted from his apartment, Mateo returns to his hometown, seeking refuge in a local house-sitting job. But as the house's silence settles in, he begins to sense a presence lurking beneath- something that has chosen Mateo for something much bigger than himself.

Justin Quayle is a low-level British diplomat who has always gone about his work very quietly, not causing any problems. But after his radical wife Tessa is killed he becomes determined to find out why, thrusting himself into the middle of a very dangerous conspiracy.

In 1980, the black Falashas in Ethiopia are recognised as genuine Jews and are secretly carried to Israel. The day before the transport the son of a Jewish mother dies. In his place and with his name (Schlomo) she takes a Christian 9-year-old boy.

Willy Loman, an aging, failing salesman, struggles to accept reality and his failure to achieve the American Dream.