A young samurai defends townsfolk from evil forces.
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.
Dolls takes puppeteering as its overriding motif, which relates thematically to the action provided by the live characters. Chief among those tales is the story of Matsumoto and Sawako, a young couple whose relationship is about to be broken apart by the former's parents, who have insisted their son take part in an arranged marriage to his boss' daughter.
Takei Goro leaves the gang to quit the yakuza world, but the gang won't allow it and relentlessly pursues Takei. This is Watari Tetsuya's first film to star in Shochiku.
Since they were both five, Ryosuke has been stalked by Momoko - the ugliest girl in the village. Her love for Ryosuke is so boundless that she has her face surgically altered to suit his taste - but still he wants nothing to do with her. Ryosuke goes in for fleeting romance - for example, with the girlfriend of a gangster boss. But when he finds out about their affair, he has Ryosuke's little finger hacked off. Magically, the finger falls into Momoko's hands, and she uses it to clone Ryosuke, so she can finally have him (or almost him) for herself. And this is just the first five minutes of Lisa Takeba's short-but-powerful feature debut. Just like in her previous short films, the director - who cut her teeth in the advertising world and as the writer of a video game - throws a lot of genres and techniques into the mix: from science fiction to gangster films, from hospital eroticism to animation. Hectic and absurd, but with its heart in the right place. © IFFR
Two New York cops get involved in a gang war between members of the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia. They arrest one of their killers and are ordered to escort him back to Japan. However, in Japan he manages to escape, and as they try to track him down, they get deeper and deeper into the Japanese Mafia scene and they have to learn that they can only win by playing the game—the Japanese way.
A young man named Tatsumi Karasawa suddenly rises in the criminal world of Shinjuku, Tokyo, and becomes the leader of a group of amateurs who show no reluctance to face police and gangs alike. His successes in the Tokyo underground make a chief and a yakuza boss plot a conspiracy to eliminate him.
After a major conflict, Kazuma Washio (Hitoshi Ozawa) becomes the 6th boss of Tendokai, Kanto’s largest yakuza group. Wakagashira Date (Hideo Nakano) and Kurata (Yoshiyuki Yamaguchi) secure casino rights from the government, but top officials are soon murdered, and Date is framed. The trail leads to Sanko-kai, a Kansai syndicate forming ties with a Korean underworld led by Myojin Akinari (Noboru Kaneko), brother of Washio’s old rival. Sanko-kai’s boss Onizuka (Hiroshi Fuse), who holds a grudge against Washio, launches a political and violent offensive. As Tendokai fights back to reclaim the casino rights, tragedy strikes—Okita (Yasukaze Motomiya) is targeted. Japan’s largest underworld war erupts again—what awaits at the end?
A year later, Mouri was demoted, and Saiga was expelled from the gang. Engetsu suddenly fell ill, and in Yokohama, where Engetsu's influence waned, drugs began to spread. Amid the unrest, Mouri and Saiga begin to confront each other.
It is the third film in the Gokudo series. In this episode, set in 1937, the main character of the series gang leader Shimamura is drafted into the military and fight in China.
Sabu and his pals hold a pauper's funeral for Sabu's mother. His brother Jiro arrives home, fresh out of jail, and Sabu pointedly states that Jiro is not invited. Jiro meanwhile is planning a big job - steal 40 million in cash and drugs, and he invites Sabu and gang to act as decoys, for 50,000 each. The sting is a success, but the double-crossing starts almost immediately. Sabu discovers how little of the take they were promised and hides the stash. Jiro and his slimy partner pressure the kids to fess up. Meanwhile, their respectable elder brother Ichiro is being leaned on by the town's big boss, whose money it was.
Gokudo Shimamura comes to blows with the Delinquent Boss who rolls into town with his motorcycle gang.
A road movie about three persons traveling in a campervan on their way to Tokyo, Hamamatsu, and Kyoto. The film is based on the story of the heroine, a young girl named Momo, who was a member of the "21 Faces of Kaijin" gang involved in the Glico Morinaga Incident, and the film's ideas are remarkable, including the use of a tape recording of the actual incident.
Part 7 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. Katsuji finds his long lost mother, who is a rich lady of a respectable family. Comedy and melodrama ensue. A thrilling spectacle with an overly violent ending, and a remarkable, Japan's only post-prison rape comedy, Masa is determined to have sex with the female guard, despite the fact that there is a bar between them. Michi Azuma (topless swordswoman from Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in Peril) plays a tomboy who wants to join her brothers.
A brave warrior fights to restore peace to a town riddled by crime, one sword at a time, in this historical action saga.
A side story from the popular knight series Unification of Japan, centered on Yuto Tamura, played by Yoshiyuki Yamaguchi. The situation becomes more complicated when a politician intervenes in a fight between Tamura and Marukami-kai.
The second part of a two-part extravaganza featuring Yuto Tamura, who is played by Yamaguchi Yoshiyuki, one of the central characters of the Unification of Japan series, as the sole protagonist. What awaits Tamura and the lonely girl Yui, and how will everything turn out?
Zatoichi is a blind massage therapist and swordsman who finds out that something troubling is taking place on the outskirts of town. After discovering who the guilty parties are -- an accomplished Chinese martial artist named Wang Kang and his youthful attendant -- Zatoichi finds them and discovers that the pair's mixed up with a dangerous bunch of terrorist samurai who murdered the boy's parents. Now, Zatoichi must step in to save the day.
Kunisada Chuji is a common folk hero who looks out for poor people in the country who are at the mercy of corrupt officials. Intent on fulfilling a dying wish from one of his henchmen, Asataro, to find a decent home for his young nephew, Chuji descends from his hide-out in the mountain, and heads to the city in spite of numerous dangers that await him there.
A former yakuza returns to gangster life after an old enemy threatens his son.