In Edo-era Japan, a ukiyo-e artist languishes in his master’s shadow. Creatively stifled, he finds consolation in the company of a prostitute, and becomes entangled in a love triangle. A mystery emerges involving two portraits and the sudden disappearance of the artist Sharaku. Helmed by Cannes-selected director Tatsuji Yamazaki, the film employs kabuki-inspired sequences and stylised sets.

The tension is palpable, the excitement is mounting and the heady scent of competition is in the air as hundreds of eager contestants from across America prepare to take part in what is undoubtedly one of the greatest events of their lives -- the Mayflower Dog Show. The canine contestants and their owners are as wondrously diverse as the great country that has bred them.

In the years before World War II, a penniless Japanese child is torn from her family to work as a maid in a geisha house.

Famed movie director Paul Robaix breaks with tradition by not casting his actress-comedienne wife, Lucy Dell, in his latest film production, a version of Madame Butterfly. Undaunted, the resourceful Lucy wings her way to Tokyo and, masquerading as a Japanese geisha, lands the coveted role from her unsuspecting husband! But in front of the cameras (and behind the pancake makeup), Lucy faces greater challenges: her lecherous leading man - and a husband who is beginning to realize that his talented new "discovery" seems vaguely familiar...

A teenaged girl witnesses her widowed mother's attempt to sustain her family.

A bravado period action film set at the end of Japan's feudal era in which a group of unemployed samurai are enlisted to bring down a sadistic lord and prevent him from ascending to the throne and plunging the country into a war-torn future.

The best must be the freshest. The best sake also follows the same principle to brew in which it needs the best and freshest raw materials, and also the freshest virgin to make it? Visiting one of a Japanese pub that seems to offer the best warm sake, Mononobe tries to follow the steps to reproduce the same flavor. However, he suddenly found out that those flavors are actually a combination of sake, sweat, and other bodily secretions of a virgin. As his only daughter is not a virgin anymore, the only way to make the best sake without a pure virgin is...

This Traveltalk visit to Japan starts with a look at the country's cherry blossom trees, tulips, and ubiquitous gardens. We then see the proper manner for preparing a woman's hair and wearing a kimono.

Women getting onto a rickshaw.

A young woman in traditional Japanese attire fixes her hair and kimono while her servants assist her.