Japanese crime film
In Tokyo's Shinjuku district, the lives of a young man prone to theft, a young woman he meets at a bookstore, and a kabuki actor intersect.
Yuki's family is nearly wiped out before she is born due to the machinations of a band of criminals. These criminals kidnap and brutalize her mother but leave her alive. Later her mother ends up in prison with only revenge to keep her alive. She creates an instrument for this revenge by purposefully getting pregnant. Yuki never knows the love of a family but only killing and revenge.
After being excommunicated from the yakuza, Ginya Yabuki returns from the shadows as leader of his own crime syndicate known as the Tokyo Mafia.
Yabuki's old friend returns as a deadly enemy. Blood brothers are driven to bitter hatred as betrayal rips mafia loyalties apart! Only the strong will survive the wrath of The Yakuza.
Shimamura is a violent street thug who joins the yakuza & is merciless & unscrupulous on his rise, lacking any sense of either duty or chivalry. When imprisoned, he is repeatedly transferred from one prison to another, because no one can handle him.
Tells of the childhood of two nine-year-old twins in a rural village in Japan after World War 2. Includes the boys relationships with their schoolteacher mother, civil servant father, elderly landlord, a rough new boy at the school, and three mysterious spirits in the form of old women.
Part 5 in a long running (8+1 films) action/comedy/melodrama series about a pair of short tempered, amoral, but not evil chinpira (Bunta Sugawara and Tamio Kawachi) thinking too big of themselves. After serving four and a half years in prison, Masa and his brother Katsuji leave Kobe to go to Nagoya to help a hostess get her daughter back from her mother. As they arrive in Nagoya, they get into a scuffle with the local yakuza affiliate. Sugawara and Kawaji's chemistry is even more evident here than usual, the storyline is alright if melodramatic. Delightful start with Tatsuo Endo as a nice guy prison guard! How many times have you seen that? And we got Kyosuke Machida (henchman) with cool beard and the always good Tsunehiko Watase (young hood) on board as well. One of the best films in the series.
A crossover between Wakayama's Gokudo and Sugawara Mamushi series. Gokudo runs a restaurant and makes Takuzo Kawatani his kitchen bitch. He tries to do the same for the Mamushi bros. but the boys don't play along, which pisses Gokudo off. Things get worse when he starts helping a young teacher and Bunta has a crush on a pretty girl... and unbeknownst to them it's the same woman! Yes, the film has not one but two romantic subplots! Of course it all ends in bloodshed.
Two young women must come to terms with the fact that a man they're deeply linked to is a murdering rapist.
An ambitious Kansai yakuza don moves in on Tokyo using financial and political tactics, sparking conflict with a local criminal association.
Successful and married with children, paper-mill owner Jihei knows better than to contradict the strict social and moral codes of 18th-century Japan. But when he meets the lovely courtesan Koharu, he becomes a man obsessed. Koharu returns his love, even foregoing other customers while Jihei schemes to somehow buy her freedom. His efforts yield ruinous consequences for his business and his family life, and Koharu is meanwhile purchased by another client.
Ohyaku is a grifter who falls in love with a thief, who recruits her for his plan to rob a shipment of government gold. When this plan goes wrong and Ohyaku ends up in prison, she resolves to do anything to escape and claim revenge on the ones who betrayed her and her lover.
Against the backdrop of the Edo treasury devaluing currency and driving many into poverty, Hanzo Itami enforces the law without regard to status. He shows inadequate respect to the treasurer, who wants him dead.
After being used and betrayed by the detective she had fallen in love with, young Matsu is sent to a female prison full of sadistic guards and disobedient prisoners.
A sex-obsessed woman, a suicidal man she meets on the street, and a gun-crazy wannabe gangster become trapped in an underground hideaway.
The second part of the Gamblers series.
Tsunetaro Asakura AKA "Dynamite Tsune" is a talented gambler, but not infallable. After losing his Boss's money in a dice game he repays his debt by serving as a pit boss for a struggling coal mine in Kyuushu. Quickly there's trouble with the local mining competition, who doesn't always play a fair game. True to his hot-headed nickname, Tsune only gets into deeper trouble.
A 1970 juvenile delinquent drama.
After committing murder, businessman Atsushi is blackmailed into keeping a suitcase of embezzled money. What follows is a descent into lustful, reckless actions and regret.
Stuck doing show-biz schlock, an investigative reporter stumbles on a scheme to swindle pensions through an attractive gold futures scam, a potential news-story.
Set in Aizuwakamatsu, where resort development is progressing, the sixth installment of the gangster action series that depicts the battle between the eastern and western gangsters aiming for national domination.
A high school science teacher is the butt of all his students' jokes, until their bus is hijacked on a school trip. But something more sinister lurks beneath the surface: he's building an atomic bomb in his apartment.
A Korean man is sentenced to death in Japan but somehow survives his execution, sending the authorities into a panic about what to do next.
Following the journey of a caterpillar along the Japanese islands from Nagasaki to Hokkaido, this allegorical and oblique first feature film by Kuroki depicts in exquisite images a series of encounters and life's turning points.
A yakuza leader must balance his violent tactics necessary for the rough streets of 1960s Tokyo with the domestic needs of his daughters.
Three students spend their holidays at the seaside where they are mistaken for Koreans, a minority which is looked down on in Japan. The action develops into a crime story.
An upscale Japanese hotel hires Mahiru Inoue, a lawyer adept at dealing with the Yakuza, to help them rid their hotel of the local gangsters so they can get a contract for a meeting of important foreign officials.
Rena and Yuko, the two sexually-adventurous high school girl friends from Pink Tush Girl (1978) get part-time jobs at a hostess bar in order to earn money for an abortion for Yuko. At the end of the school year the two must part as Yuko prepares to depart for acting school in Hokkaido, and Rena gets ready for college.
After the enactment of the Anti-Prostitution Law, the red-light district in Shinjuku lost its allure. Even the gambling den of the Ryūzaki family was always deserted. Ryūzaki, the boss, declared his retirement in response to the changing times. It was thought that Igarashi, who valued righteousness and principles and had the respect of others, would become the second-in-command. However, he was an annoying presence to Ryūzaki...
After three consecutive days of heavy rain, the water level at Sumida River rises and the newly built Eitai Bridge collapses just two years after its completion. Among the 20 victims is Okou, the lover of Yokichi, a member of the theatrical entertainment district controlled by Samon Kamiyama. A body of a bridge carpenter is also found in the debris causing Samon to suspect the construction, which prompts him to launch an investigation. The superintendent, Horitome Tamba rules that the bridge collapse is due to a natural disaster and cleared the wrongdoing of master carpenter Jinbe, who was responsible for building the bridge. Yotaro, who is filled with grief and anger surrenders his jitte and joins forces with his former gambling buddies Juzaburo and Onami to abduct Tamb’s Daughter O-Sono to extract revenge…
Okoto is blind since childhood. Her young servant Sasuke is in love of her. One day Koto is badly scarred on her face. In order to preserve the memory of her once beautiful face, Sasuke takes away his own sight.
Helen and her associates stage a confession play in order to remedy stuttering, but things go amiss.
A man and a little girl meet in a bicycle parking in Tokyo. The little girl says she wants to watch the sea, and their travel begins. The man does not intend to be a kidnapper – he asks the girl to phone her mother and tell her she's with him. During their trip they meet various people, but they always must continue on, lest the man be arrested.
An erotic comedy depicting the sex adventures of young wives living in an apartment complex, that are not satisfied with just having sex with their husbands.
Three female college students become involved with a land developer. When a rich client and his sons tries to take advantage of him the women hatch a plan for revenge.
Two boys and two girls become acquainted and fall in love.
Akira and Hiroshi are two lowlives who work at a pachinko parlour. Hiroshi is a ladies' man but always loses at pachinko. Akira is a virgin at 25 but always wins. Hiroshi tries to get Akira laid with little success but things change when Akira is informed of a 88 million yen inheritance. But only if he can get married.
Pinku from 1975.
In Osaka's slum, capricious folks without futures engage in pilfering, assault and robbery, prostitution, and the trading of ID cards and blood.
Inspired by a street interview about married sex life a TV food show host accidentally finds a way to help his little problem in bed.
A free spirited woman signs a contract with her boss to be his mistress but finds she needs more satisfaction than he can give.
During the Taisho Period (early 1920's) a monastery of warrior monks was split apart between two factions. One of these factions was led by the Chief Abbot and his protege, Shinkai. When Shinkai intercedes in a fight between a rival priest and some ruffians it leads to his expulsion from the order. This story introduced us to the character of Shinkai, a "Karate Priest" and his long running feud with Ryotatsu, his greatest rival. There are touches of humor as Shinkai breaks all the commandments of a priest, including fighting, gambling, and running after women. All this leads to an awesome conclusion as he must destroy a gang of yakuza aided by corrupt priests. The fighting is fast and furious as Ryotatsu waits to see if Shinkai can live long enough to face him in the ultimate test! /Winterheart of CG
After serving his sentence, Yakuza family member Toshin-gumi Umebayashi is released from prison. Toshin-gumi was already headed by the boss in the second generation of Shotaro, but Shotaro fell into a trap, he is manipulated by his sworn enemy Kanzaki-gumi. Kanzaki-gumi captures the Toshin-gumi oil fields mined by the first boss. Umebayashi explodes in anger and attacks Kanzaki-gumi, but...
The son of an assassinated feudal lord, in the Muromachi period, attempts to avenge his father's death and meets Kagemaru, a renegade ninja helping peasants and farmers rebel against Oda Nobunaga's regime, all depicted through an experimental form of filming pages from the original manga set to sound.
In the 12th century, Buddhism was still a relatively new religion in Japan. At that time, one school (Shingon) offered extensive training in complex and very demanding practices which might eventually bring about spiritual purification and realization. Various Zen schools offered students a lengthy path, literally composed of a blank wall and unceasing meditation. Yet another school (Tendai) emphasized complex metaphysics and the study of philosophical systems. Basically, all of them were designed to cater to the few who were able to give up everything else in their lives and focus on liberation, such as scholars and noblemen. In this historical and biographical drama, this is the situation that the young Shinran (1173-1263) discovered when he began exploring Buddhism as an alternative to the violence and ceaseless civil wars that racked Japan at the time.
A 1970 crime film.
In the early Meiji era, two contrasting craftsmen, who had been bound by a ten-year strong friendship, suddenly hated each other and face many obstacles. Adapted from Shugoro Yamamoto novel.
Toei yakuza film.
Kunihiko Date (Hiroshi Fujioka), a young criminal genius, puts a perfect crime plan into action to take revenge on the men who once drove his father to ruin.
After his own gang sets him up to kill a rival mobster, a hit man is forced to flee with his younger brother.
The services of a wandering gambler, Seiji, are called upon to protect the turf of his loyal friend Risaburo.
Seeking revenge against the guard who tormented him, a young man returns to the island where he was imprisoned in reform school. But his plans for vengeance are disturbed when he encounters a strange and beautiful young woman
"Mary Shelley's bizarre creature comes to colorful life in this fabulous animated feature of the gruesome monster who tries to live in the human world. In an ill-fated attempt to harness the forces of nature, Dr. Frankenstein creates the FRANKENSTEIN monster. The gentle giant roams the countryside in search of a peaceful life, but is finally overcome with loneliness and despair as his fearsome visage strikes terror in the minds of young and old alike. A horrible monster, pitted against a prejudiced populace - this is the timeless horror and classic struggle of FRANKENSTEIN!" - US VHS Back Cover Write Up
The first of many movies featuring the lighthearted adventures of two truck drivers. Momojiro and his best friend Kinzo take to the road on their cargo trucks impressing each other with their skills in driving fast and evading the police while transporting commodities throughout the country. Chance encounters with people along the way help them to come to terms with events clouding their past and offer them a shot at redemption.
Three young boys drunkenly rape a woman named Emiko, the wife of a man they've developed a friendship with. She dies of heart failure during the attack. Her chicken farmer husband, incapable of dealing with her death tends to her corpse as though it were still alive completely unable to accept her demise.
A surreal, isolated village sees its inhabitants gradually leave behind their mutual traditions and superstitions as they leave for the city. Among them are two cousins who love each other and who get into a quarrel with other villagers.
14-year-old Sunaoko travels from Tokyo to Naha, Okinawa, with her father’s young fiancée Momoko in search of her half-brother whom she has never met. Their guide, a beer-guzzling ex-soldier, takes them to the locale’s tourist attractions, quickly delving into the underlying scars of the island’s wartime history.
In 1940, Kubota Shoten, which has been in business for generations, goes bankrupt due to the debauched lifestyle of its president, Kunimitsu Kubota. Subsequently, Kunimitsu moves back to his hometown and his children are sent to live with other relatives.
Michio Yamada, a recent school graduate, is sent to Tokyo to work as a fruit-packer in a department store as part of a government programme. He takes a gun from a house on an American base and uses it to kill several people. The scene changes to Yamada's childhood. Yamada is born the child of a reprobate and a weak-willed woman. As a boy Yamada, experiences poverty and the rape of his sister at first hand.
Musical actress Noriko feels frustrated by the futility of her affair with a married man. Then she is offered a role in a new production that appears to mirror her own private life... An excellent work that stylishly depicts its gradually evolving heroine.
13th in the 17 film Daiei "Woman Gambler" series
After handing in a report on the treatment of Chinese colonial labor, Kaji is offered the post of labor chief at a large mining operation in Manchuria, which also grants him exemption from military service. He accepts, and moves to Manchuria with his newly-wed wife Michiko, but when he tries to put his ideas of more humane treatment into practice, he finds himself at odds with scheming officials, cruel foremen, and the military police.
1973 Toei movie.
Eiji lives a quiet life running a small Izakaya with his wife. He spends his days cooking for and serving the lively residents of his small hometown.
A high-school student rescues his baseball team. Live-action adaptation of Shinji Mizushima's manga "Dokaben".
Horror TV-Special broadcast at the 21th August, 1992.
Three cute, sexy ninjas, around the age of 20, have been in training, building their powers for some vague future threat. Their destined mission becomes apparent when a handsome ninja from 400 years past drops from the sky into the hot tub of on of the girls. He comes with news of a grave threat: an evil industrialist has apparently joined forces with UFOs to take over Japan. The only solution, it seems, lies in the special talents of the three girls - notable as much for their martial arts as their skimpy costumes.
Personal tale of Okita Soji who fights to survive in a world without pity in the merciless era of the downfall of the Tokugawa Shogunate.
Set in the time of steam locomotives and covering a period of almost 30 years, this sensitive film tells the story of the wife of a railroad worker in the northern part of Japan. The ferocious local class restrictions work to keep her husband in his place, as does his lack of education.
In the exotic location of Los Angeles, California a business woman enjoys all the men in her life whether it’s her older husband, a younger relative or a former fiancé.
Japanese drama film.
A young and newly-married couple in Tokyo lives a hard life moving repeatedly because of their unfamiliar relationships with their surroundings.
A private detective is hired to find a missing man by his wife. While his search is unsuccessful, the detective's own life begins to resemble the man for whom he is searching.
A fierce succession battle ignites at a newspaper company when the president passes away.
The desires and pretensions of woman of the Ginza are depicted.
A down-on-his luck writer meets a movie producer, who asks him to write a screenplay on the condition that he visit locations for the film. Chaos ensues.
Based on the manga of the same name. Originally published in the Japanese magazine Weekly Playboy. It follows Ippei Yasuda, son of a prominent family, who is immensely gifted in nearly everything he does.
The long awaited second film in the Wicked Priest series is a masterpiece of sword swinging fury as Shinkai is asked by a man on the run to bring his young son to live with his grandfather, the master of a ju-jitsu dojo during the Taisho period of the early 20th century. Shinkai then runs afoul of a gangster group using strong-arm tactics to take over the profits from local gambling. When he proves to be more than they can handle, they hire the one man who has the ability to kill Shinkai and exact revenge, Ryotatsu, the karate priest whom Shinkai blinded in the first film. This ultra-violent entry has long been considered the best movie in the series and never made its way to home video before. See a spectacular display of Wakayama Tomisaburo’s martial art expertise in this action packed film. The Holy Grail of sword movies has arrived at last! /Winterheart of CG
Sequel to "Guys Who Never Learn".
Comedy about a car salesman who invents a condom against premature ejaculation.
The third installment of the Emperor series, starring Tatsuo Umemiya as the man who rules the night world. Hiroshi rose through the ranks in Tokyo by fighting with women. However, when he returned to his hometown in Kyushu for his father's memorial service, his gambling partner Masa not only confiscated Hiroshi's store and bankbook, but was also saddled with debts in Hiroshi's name. Although Hiroshi was angry, he made a decision and decided to start over using his body. Starting with a female designer, he battles an antique art dealer, Master Nagauta, a female doctor, and many others, and finally battles a rich man's widow.
The story of a high school boy (Toshiyuki Nagashima) in Tokyo returning to his home town of Nagano upon the death of his father.
Eleventh film in the long-running series Daiei Studio's Woman Gambler with Kyoko Enami starring where she plays the woman gambler Ogin.
It takes place in the sunset days of the yakuza in the 1970s. The postwar turmoil that created the black market and lubricated illegal business opportunities was giving way to Japan Inc. A young Bunta Sugawara takes over as the oyabun of a crime syndicate in Yokohama, where he is struggling to keep operations at the port there alive. As his syndicate is eroding quickly, a major heavy industries company offers his gang the chance to chase some vagrants out of a shantytown where they are squatting on land where a factory is to be built. The job would secure steady profits for Bunta's crime ring for years to come. However, Bunta and other members of his outfit grew up in the shanty, and they would be muscling their friends and neighbors. This sets the stage for an internal struggle that complicates the violent struggle with a rival mafia organization in Tokyo.
The men who surround and torment the young protagonist (demanding teacher, owner of the company that rapes his own daughter, despotic and uncompromising father) are opposed to women (victims of men) as embodiment of salvation.
Based on the comic by Tatsu Kariya. Featuring journalist Shiro Yamaoka who works for Touzai Shimbun. He is a cynical food critic who is tasked by the newspaper's owner, along with the young Yuko Kurita, to provide recipes for the "ultimate menu".
Minoru visits his home on Okinoerabu island for the first time in thirty years. Seeing the old man who used to be in love with his mother, Minoru recalls the old days spent on the island with his young, beautiful mother.
Sawaki is released from prison after serving eight years for murdering a rival gang leader in order to obtain the land rights to a landfill for the Kotaki clan and he discovers that the world has changed significantly in that time. The police have forced the disbanding of all yakuza groups in and around Tokyo and most of the former yakuza have moved on to legitimate jobs. Sawaki is disgusted that his yakuza brothers have abandoned their codes of honor and are abusing their newfound power in the legitimate business world to exploit the poor. Sawaki feels partly responsible for making them so powerful and enabling their corruption, so he decides to follow his traditional code of honor to save the residents of a small town where his former lover lives.
Ando on the run, stopping in to service all the women in his life, with a bit of the old ultra-violence.
Set in Shibuya in 1949, this is another film based on real life former yakuza boss Noboru Ando's memoirs.
Repeatedly beat to a pulp by gamblers, cops, and gangsters, lone wolf Shoji Yamanaka finally finds a home as a Muraoka family hitman and falls in love with boss Muraoka's niece. Meanwhile, the ambitions of mad dog Katsutoshi Otomo draws our series' hero, Shozo Hirono, and the other yakuza into a new round of bloodshed.
Three men vs. gangsters in a fight involving smuggled gold.
One of the nuns at Senjuan is Sister Shunko (Michiyo Yasuda). Unlike the usual nun, however, she often goes out to see the world, being of the opinion that nuns should not lead cloistered lives but should see something of modern life. She makes the acquaintance of a young girl named lkuko (Kayo Mikimoto) and saves her from the advances of a gangster named Goro (lchiro Nakatani). In the meantime she turns down several propositions and, in revenge, one of her admirers denounces her to the Mother Superior (Kuniko Miyake). This lady is of liberal views, however, and refuses to do anything about it. Then Shunko is visited by Goro's gang boss who wants lkuko back and says he will blackmail Shunko unless she agrees.
The girl students of rival junior high schools stage duels and show a curious interest in sexual pastimes.
Drama is afoot at Shirobara Middle School when the bold Henmi Ryoko transfers into Class A, 9th Grade. She immediately picks a fight with, Masuda, the head of the preparation committee. The girls' battle for control of the gang soon grows out of control as it sweeps up the entire school. Brawls. Seduction. Yazuka. And more!
An Osaka gangster Shimamura just got married. His new bride, Mineko is also involved in drug trafficking. When she goes to China to make a deal, things get botched pretty badly. Shimamura must travel to save her and recoup his employers’ losses.
Japan, 1948: Hiroki Matsukata stars as a man facing a nine year prison sentence. He incites prisoners of Shimane Prison to the biggest riot in jail history. A fighter by heart, he sees a way out of any situation, but will he survive this, the gutsiest assault ever attempted?
There is an ongoing war between two Girl Gangs, the Akabane 100 Club and the Ikebukuro Cavalry. Yukiko, the "Bankaku," or chief bodyguard of the Akabane, is released from reform school and sets about to finish an ongoing one-on-one grudge match with the Arab Falcon and the whole Cavalry gang. With a theme song by 1970s Japanese "Group Sounds" band Carol, and live performance. Rock and Sukeban unite for an extraordinary and cool piece of filmmaking.
After the war, Kijima (Bunta Sugawara) returns to Tokyo where he meets Ôba (Noboru Andô), an Ex-Kamikaze pilot, and the two ruffians gather hooligans to join their group. In Ginza, the Togawa gang have taken over Sakurada's territory. After several fights Kijima and Ôba gain control of the territory by chasing out the notorious Togawa Group in the name of Sakurada. But Kijima is arrested for assaulting an American soldier. A few years pass. Kijima has served his prison term and the sears of war have been erased from Ginza. Ôba is now president of a company specializing in collection of bad debts, cheque frauds and everything that means money. People call their organization the “Private Police,” and Kijima begins to work for Ôba. Now the Takegami gang waits a chance to seize the Ginza territory.
After the bankruptcy of her foster-father's condom factory, Tamae sets out to make a living on her own and ends up working as a geisha at a hot spring resort. After rising in popularity, a climactic sex battle is held to decide who gets to lay claim to her.
Detective Kikuchi is sent to Okinawa to investigate why a girl jumped from a window after shooting heroin. There, he encounters the usual assortment of addicts, dealers, pimps and sleazy American GIs.
The industrual revolution comes to Japan with the introduction of the railroad system. This led to clashes between boatmen, who livihoods are threatened, and the railroad construction workers. Oryu the Red Peony returns to her home in Kumamoto to accept her position as second generation leader of the Yano Family. But the ceremony is interrupted by fighting between local boatmen and railroad works. And it seems a rival family is pulling the strings behind the clashes.
A karate master played by Sonny Chiba is attacked and left crippled and blinded in one eye. He trains his daughter (Etsuko Shihomi) with the intention of her avenging not only himself but a murdered friend.
Two yakuza, one of whom frequently reflects on an uncomfortable past taking advantage of Korean women, meet a stowaway on Japanese soil from across the Genkai Sea.
A simple diamond heist leads Lupin into the machinations of a bizarre cult based around the prophecies of Nostradamus. They kidnap Julia, the daughter of Douglas, a wealthy American who is seeking the presidency, along with Lupin's diamond. At stake is the lost book of prophecy Douglas holds in the vault at the top of his skyscraper.
A young intellectual conscientious objector is forced to serve with the Japanese army in Manchuria. He joins with a dim-witted former gangster in an effort to desert by stealing a train.
Convicted of murder, Masayuki Ueda is sent to Hiroshima Prison along with his accomplice. But for a man like him, breaking out of prison is easy.
After over 50 years of wandering up and down Japan, finally in the 1970s, the rough-hewn blind shamisen player and folk-song collector named Takahashi Chikuzan became a musical sensation. This biographical drama chronicles his wanderings and his life, with a particular focus on his humble beginnings as a peasant on a remote and arid island.
A war breaks out on the streets between rivaling Yakuza clans.
A man from Osaka comes up to Tokyo to fight gangsterism.
A former soldier is caught working the black market and sent to prison while his partner escapes and goes on to become a gangster, but their paths cross again as they both fall in love with the same woman.
Hanjiro, a one eyed vagrant arrives in Okinoshima to save the town from a violent Yakuza group with the help of six handicapped guys.
A story of friendship between a lone wolf judo expert and a youth.
Taken out of the pages of history itself, this is the story of the sizzling love between Kenreimon-in of the Taira Clan and Yoshitsuné of the Minamoto Clan. When the Taira Clan had met ignominious defeat at the hands of Yoshitsuné, Kenreimon-in had jumped into the sea with her son, the infant Emperor, but only she had been rescued by Yoshitsuné. A rough-hewn warrior, Yoshitsuné had taken her by force until he awakened an answering love in the Empress with his chamber techniques.
A ruffian joins the ranks of the emperor’s guards.
When the Shogun Tokugawa III is in bed with a girl, she turns into a monster. The court believes she is Ninja Magic, used to frighten the lord off women so that there will be no heir. Tôma, a famous swordsman, is called in and exposes the Ninja, even discovering their leader, a beautiful young girl named Kagiroi. Guessing that she is the daughter of some ousted daimyo anxious to get back into favor, he is about to unmask her when he is taken prisoner...
Amidst Japan's postwar economic boom, yakuza factions in Osaka fight for survival when Japan's largest crime syndicate plans a hostile takeover.
Two Kyushu based yakuza groups are desperate for domaination of the area. When more powerful yakuza groups get involved in their power struggle, a group of childhood friends, belonging to different yakuza families, are caught in the middle. Lies, deceit, and backstabbing are in play resulting in a bloodbath and a quest for revenge...
A professional lone-wolf hitman comes to his blood brother's aid when his boss is brutally murdered by an unknown yakuza faction.
A single woman starts receiving obscene phone calls at home. Feeling fearful she stays at the apartment of her best friend but somehow the pervert starts calling her there too. Feeling hopeless she gives in and agrees to meet at a restaurant. But when the woman and her friend arrive they discover it is managed by the man they both had relationships with. This was why they were let go from their previous jobs. They both decide it’s time for a little payback.
As a child, Okin the one-armed one-eyed swordswoman was disfigured by Lord Daizen-dayu, who was after her family's most treasured possession, the famed Drenched Swallow sword. As an adult, she has become a skilled swordswoman and lives a carefree life with her adopted family. One day, Okin saves a girl from a group of yakuza, and in doing so, gets involved in a grand conspiracy involving religious leaders, government officials, the yakuza and Lord Daizen-dayu, the man who killed her father and mutilated her body...
Everybody's chasing a diamond in Sadao Nakajima's crime/action/drama. It was a based on a novel by Tsusai Sugawara, who was a Japanese writer and political figure campaigning against drugs, prostitution and sexually transmitted diseases.
A man Tetsuo (Kosuke Toyohara) met at a racetrack offered him a job of 100,000 yen per diem, and although he was suspicious, he was urged by the amount of money and decided to take over. What's more, all he has to do is carry a huge cardboard box to the man's apartment. The contents of the cardboard are 1 billion yen in cash. It is said that this will be used to make a back loan. In front of the apartment, men line up for the money. Who on earth is Ginji Hirai and what is his motive? And what kind of fate will Tetsuo be involved in from now on ...?
Oshima’s magisterial epic, centering on the ambivalent surviving heir of the Sakurada clan, uses ritual and the microcosm of the traditional family to trace the rise and fall of militaristic Japan across several decades.
Based on the novel of the same name by Seichô Matsumoto.
Tane, a female clerk of a rubber company in a corner of an industrial area facing Tokyo Bay is a quirky woman, also living on the second floor of the company warehouse.
Comedy of high school where students and teachers run wild, based on a popular comic strip.
This ethereal montage of still images with darkly somber undertones, Yunbogi’s Diary is based on photographs that Oshima took during his two-month research trip to South Korea in 1965 during which he was haunted by his encounters with impoverished street children in Seoul. The voice-over comprises diary entries from a six-year-old Korean boy and Oshima’s own reflections on Japanese-Korean relations, a controversial subject that he revisited in his later films Sing a Song of Sex and Death by Hanging.
Movie based on a book by Kakou Senda about the use of women as sexual slaves by the Japanese Army during WW2.
The story of the silk industry and the young girls who worked as silk spinners in the early 1900s in Japan. The silk mills were located in Okaya which lies just beyond the Nomugi Pass. The women and girls worked in a hot, humid atmosphere without rest, and endured those conditions and sexual harassment to earn money for their poor families. Across the ocean, it was the great depression in America.
After a highly successful raid on Singapore Harbour, soldiers of Z Special Unit lead a new expedition in Singapore, with disastrous results.
A violent upstart forms an alliance with the powerful Tensei-kai syndicate to fight on the front lines of an underworld war and take over all of Japan.
Suehiro Katsuji, a prisoner of Abashiri, is sent to Shikoku to work at a dock where a fierce turf battle takes place between a local gang and the dock operator.
An office lady follows his boss, whose work affairs had been discovered inside the company and he has been ordered to be transferred to another workplace.
Three closely associated gamblers have adventures in Yokohama, Hokkaido, and Macao. Gambling trio endure hardships to rescue Naojiro’s family.
Mid 50s: the trials and tribulations of Shinsuke Ibuki, freshly arrived in Tokyo from Kyushu.
Based on the life of Japanese serial killer and thief Kiyotaka Katsuta.
Ryōko Itakura returns as the tough-as-nails government taxing agent. This time she must figure out a way to expose a fanatical religious cult lead by a corrupt sociopath.
When a lucrative waterfront development becomes available, the Kawade gang quickly use their political connections to secure the land. However, the acting boss of the Ohara gang also has his eyes on the property and recruits crooked detective Tokumatsu Kuno to help him hijack the deal. With relations between the rival gangs at breaking point, it's not long before all-out war breaks out as the gangsters, police and local politicians battle for control of the city.
A new high school teacher is secretly given a mysterious floppy disk. It leads her into danger at a local porno theater.
The first film in the 2 part series about Ryuzen, a renegade martial-arts priest who, in addition to breaking all the commandments against sex and gambling, opens his own gambling den in direct defiance of the local yakuza boss. Exciting action and a twisty plot this movie breaks new barriers in Japanese cinema. Katsu Shintaro is superb in one of his better non-Zato Ichi roles as he fights off the advances of a love-lorn woman and risks his life to defeat the powerful gambling boss who has a stranglehold on the town.
A young doujinshi writer doesn't win the literary prize award, and ends up killing the selection committee.
Zatoichi runs afoul of some evil fugitives, working for a corrupt law official.
A story of manly life and the beauty of conjugal love. A story about a man and a woman establishing a family of longshoreman, centering on their love and struggle.
Film with Junko Miyazono.
A horny college student is spotted peeping and is chased into a dark tunnel. He mysteriously emerges into a topsy turvy erotic dreamland.
Wicked woman Ogin is a concubine of a powerful feudal lord Tayu. At first Ogin gains power by poisoning lawful wife of Tayu. To gain more power Ogin let her lover Isogai Iori, kill whoever interrupts her. Film it is based on Jun'ichirō Tanizaki's novel "Kyofu Jidai".
The seventh chapter of the stunning Hibotan Bakuto series. Many years have passed since Oryu the Red Peony began her soul-searching journey after her father was killed. In her travels, she meets villagers whose crops and livelihoods are being destroyed by pollution from a local factory. They seem to work out an agreement, but Oryu must help the poor villagers when the greedy factory owner and corrupt politicians betray them…
Up in Heaven, Yuki’s grandparents decide that, having turned thirteen years old, she must go down to Earth to a village that is torn by bandits and intervene to save its people. However if she does not succeed within one year she will become as insubstantial as the wind. Down in the village, Yuki is befriended by a group of orphans whose parents have all been killed by the bandits and who now subsist by begging. Yuki amazes them by taming the wild horse Blizzard. She is instrumental in getting the orphans and farmers to stand up to first the warring bandits and then Goemon, the greedy lord that owns the region. But Yuki must face her greatest challenge yet when the displeased Demon God that lives in the volcano emerges to destroy those who live beneath.
A disgraced yakuza member, framed for the murder of his boss, emerges from prison eight years later with revenge on his mind.
Sumi Muraoka, nicknamed "Sumi Banten", due to the fact that her back is decorated with a tattoo of the goddess Banten, the woman who heads the Banten Yakuza family. She comes into confrontation with a powerful of Yakuza group Mutsumi-kai, seeking to capture all power in their hands.
Oshima exposes the fact that many wounded soldiers cannot receive compensation from the Japanese government because of their Korean nationality, while questioning if this is a just way for the Japanese to act. The documentary uses TV to problematize the apathy of the Japanese people. According to Oshima’s 'The Idea of Evil and Cruelty' and Sato Tadao’s 'History of Japanese Documentary Film', the actual situation was much more serious and harsher than the documentary depicts.
Tadashi Iki returns to Japan from a Soviet gulag 11 years after being captured during the invasion of Manchuria. He is offered a position in the expansive Kinki Corporation, but rival corporations are competing for a government contract to produce fighter planes.
Kensho Yamashita's directorial debut.
University student Arima Yasuhiro becomes acquainted with Ishihama, the president of a pharmaceutical company with a dark past, slowly but surely getting more embroiled in his dirty dealings.
An exciting tale of action on the distant northern island of Hokkaido around the beginning of the 20th Century starring two of the biggest names in Yakuza film history, Fuji Junko and Takakura Ken. Since the death of death of her father, Yuki who has traveled from her home in the southernmost part of Japan must fight corrupt local officials seeking to fill her late father's post. As her life is in danger a mysterious rifleman, played by Takakura Ken watches from the shadows. Can she finish the work her dear departed father started in an untamed land?
Reiko Ike stars as the daughter of a man who has been pushed into drug dealing by the local Yakuza mob. Having outlived his usefulness to the gang he is murdered and Reiko is gang raped, leading her to attempt a knife attack on the Yakuza boss (Ryoji Hayama) at a swank nightclub. Failing to kill him she ends up in prison, where she befriends a crew of other malcontents (including Yumiko Katayama and Chiyoko Kazama) and meets the Yakuza boss's girlfriend (Miki Sugimoto). Upon release Reiko reassembles her mob and launches a Machiavellian scheme to engineer a gang war between Hayama's Oba Industries and the formerly dominant Hamayasu Clan. The rival gangs begin killing each other off and Reiko works her way closer to her ultimate vengeance.
There is a man, who always win a mahjong game... His name is Ryu the Caller.
Action drama about a Japanese gangster in Manchuria circa 1932, who finally joins some Chinese mountain bandits.
Television production of I Want to Be a Shellfish. On a post-war peaceful day in Japan, Toyomatsu Shimizu, a barber as well as a good father and husband, is suddenly arrested by the Prefectural Police as a war criminal and sued for murder. According to the accusation by GHQ, Toyomatsu "attemped to kill a US prisoner", which was nothing but an order by his superior and failed after all with hurting the prisoner by weak Toyomatsu. Also, Toyomatsu was driven to corner at the trial by the fact that he fed the US prisoner some burdock roots to nourish him. Toyomatsu believes nothing but being not guilty, but he is sentenced to death by hanging. Prior to the execution, Toyomatsu writes a long farewell letter to his family, the wife and the only son: "If I ever incarnate, I hate to be a human being any more.... Oh yes, I would like to be...a shellfish living on the rock-bottom of the sea."
Tokyo engineer Kariya arrives on a primitive tropical island, where he interacts with the Futori clan, to drill a well to power a sugar mill.
A young geisha/prostitute working in Tokyo's entertainment district earns a measure of reknown through her powerful vaginal muscles. This newfound fame, however, also earns her the enmity of a rival geisha house. The two houses choose to settle the dispute through a series of athletic contests between the young star and the rival house's main attraction, with the backing of the houses' wealthy patrons as the prize.
"When human beings venture too far along a trail made by wild beasts, it is said, they quite often discover themselves on a road of no return." Based on the novel of the same name by Seichô Matsumoto.
The wife of a company president is 29 years old and in the prime of her life. Her husband is a powerful man in the financial world, so they are much older than her. As a result, she is always sexually unsatisfied and has affairs with one man after another, first a middle-aged man, then her golf coach, a host, and a sumo wrestler. This film is a film adaptation of Koichiro Uno 's bestselling novel, "A Busy Wife."
Ninth installment in the "Gokudo" series. Depicts the activities of Shimamura Seikichi and his henchmen.
This is a film about a real person. Sanada Yukimura fought a war against Tokugawa Ieyasu.
When a mob boss retires under political pressure, his successor and yakuza family are tested to their limits as new alliances and enemies are formed.
A drama film based on Ken Domon's photography of the children around the Chikuho coal mines.
Set in 13th century Kyoto, where the Imperial court is under control of the clergy. Shijo was a peasant girl sold to a powerful daima as a concubine. Bored by her life in seclusion she starts an affair with State Councillor and the brother of a retired Emperor. Realising that she is only a plaything of the court, she becomes a nun and wanders the country.
A reporter is framed for murder while investigating organized crime. Upon being released from prison the plan for his revenge unravels.
Towards the end of WWII, a black American pilot is captured and imprisoned by rural Japanese villagers, who await official instructions as to how to proceed with their 'catch'.
Mr. Soh, a righteous man with a cold stare and fists of steel, returns to a lawless post-war Japan in 1946. He protects the weak, defends the poor and knocks some good sense into friends and enemies alike. Rapists and gangsters get the worst of it, as Mr. Soh builds up his school on the island of Shikoku.
In 1960s Tokyo, Gonda owns a bar in which the gay, cross-dresser, and trans scenes meet. Gonda is in a relationship with the madam of the bar, Leda. As the younger Eddie starts a passionate affair with Gonda, she ignites the jealousy of Leda, unaware of another kind of history between them.
Coming-of-age comedy set in Yokosuka.
One of Japan's favorite sword stars, Fujita Makoto, returns as the legendary Tange Sazen, the one-eyed, one-armed samurai who is a champion for the common people. Unflappable, except with the ladies, he fights evil in Shogun Yoshimune's Edo. The kokezaru no tsubo (earless monkey jar) has gone missing with a secret hidden inside that could change the course of history. All of Edo's top swordsmen, including Yagyu Genzaburo and Ooka Echizen are involved as villains pursue their evil quest! Superb swordplay highlights this exciting all-star extravaganza!
taiwan film
The story of a man and a wolf-dog in East Siberia during the early 1900s.