Set during the 19th-century social upheaval that helped bring three centuries of shogunate rule to its knees, The Last Samurai follows Toranosuke (a physically and dramatically impressive Takahashi, former star of Seijun Suzuki's Fighting Elegy and Tattooed Life), a paragon of the valiant samurai who is confused by the changes happening around him. His codes tell him to defend the shogunate on the side of the Shinsengumi militia, but his teacher (Tamura of Yasuzo Masumura's Hoodlum Soldier series) has already defected to the other side and tells him it's time to lay down the sword and look toward the future. When the latter stealthily arranges for Toranosuke to meet the beautiful Reiko (Matsuzaka), the warrior's doubt begin to grow.

Sadako is a young girl in love with Takashi. She's waiting for him to come back from war. When Heibei, the son of the wealthiest man in the village, comes back from war, crippled, she's forced to marry him instead.

A retired special agent named John Matrix led an elite unit and has left the armed forces to live in a secluded mountain home with his daughter Jenny.

Beautiful young Oriko (Mariko Okada) has an unhappy marriage. Her husband Takashi (Tadahiko Sugano), owner of a securities company, has been having an affair and comes home only once in a week at most. In a poetry party, Oriko meets sculptor Mitsuharu (Isao Kimura), who was one of the lovers of Oriko’s deceased poetess mother…

Benny's a hipster, moving in and out of Manhattan's beat scene, aimless, maybe close to trouble. His sister Lelia, who looks less African-American than White, is vulnerable and about to fall in love. Hugh, their older brother, is a struggling singer whose agent, Rupert, may be the only person with faith in his talent. The story moves back and forth, like jazz, among the three of them and what seems at first to be separate lives. Lelia meets Tony, and lets herself hope this is true love. Then he meets Hugh and prejudice gives Tony an excuse to cut and run. Can family and friendship bring solace for her hurt, purpose for Benny, and belief in Hugh? Is life more than shadows?

First-time director Ronald Bronstein describes his extraordinary film as "a rotten egg lobbed with spazmo aim at the spotless surface of the silver screen." Be forewarned: audience response has been intensely divided. Frownland has garnered both passionate raves and scathing denunciation, while festival screenings have ended in screaming matches between patrons. It is strong stuff, yes, but none of its notorious reputation does justice to its savage dark humor, emotional heft and stylistic audacity.

Any event which the two librettists deem inappropriate is rewound, like a film reel, and then replayed in pink hues, and, if even this does not do the trick, they call on Hanna Honthy, the ageless operetta prima donna, to come to their aid to preserve the rose-tinted illusion at the Lake of Happiness.