Momotaro carries this sword into battle against injustice in shogunate Japan. Aided by ninja he must now wage a furious battle against the terrible “Ran” clan, villains in league with Ohara Ukon, a bitter samurai nursing a grudge against the shogunate. Together the ruthless conspirators will threaten the foundations of shogunate rule over Japan. Only the relentless slashing sword of Momotaro may save the nation from the Ran clan's army of killers.
Momotaro carries this sword into battle against injustice in shogunate Japan. Aided by ninja he must now wage a furious battle against the terrible “Ran” clan, villains in league with Ohara Ukon, a bitter samurai nursing a grudge against the shogunate. Together the ruthless conspirators will threaten the foundations of shogunate rule over Japan. Only the relentless slashing sword of Momotaro may save the nation from the Ran clan's army of killers.
1994-03-31
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A humble page fathers a child by the daughter of a clan official and is banished. Years later, the child, now a stable boy, is reunited with his father, but feudal codes threaten their happiness. Uchida’s poignant masterpiece condemns the inflexible class system and launches an indictment of values that favor symbolic objects over human life. The film’s focus is on character rather than swordplay, and charged performances - especially child actor Motoharu Ueki - add to the emotional power.
1953 jidaigeki directed by Nobuo Nakagawa of Jigoku and Ghost of Yotsuya fame.
Even though Gennosuke and Oboro are from rival ninja villages, they are secretly in love. At an annual conference with the Lord, it is dictated that a competition--a fight to the death--will take place between the five best shinobi from each village. Gennosuke and Oboro's love is made even more impossible when they each got picked as the leader of the five to represent their respective villages.
Ryotatsu, the wayward Priest blinded by Shinkai, the Wicked Priest, has his own story in this ultra-violent tale from the era of the Meiji Reconstruction. When a woman leaves her blind son at the Monastery, Ryotatsu is forced to teach the boy how to cope as a blind person in old Japan. When he takes the child with him on the road to find the boy's mother, they run afoul of not only yakuza gangsters, but some corrupt army officers have been trying to sway public opinion against the Satsuma rebels by posing as members of Saigo Takamori's group. It's a bloody mistake for them to underestimate the strength of the Blind Priest, and he'll make them pay with their lives!
Genjiro was a samurai in the past, but he became a Yakuza, a dandy with a tattoo of red peonies, he helps his younger brother who is caught up in a conflict with Hatamoto.
The film is set in Kyoto at the end of the Tokugawa period, when there is a fierce clash between the supporters of the Emperor, who are fighting for the overthrow of the Shogunate, and the Shinsengumi squad, who are chasing them. Suddenly, a mysterious masked warrior appears, on a white horse he is called Tengu from Mount Kurama and he opposes the Shinsengumi.
One of the great stories from Japan’s rich history comes to life in this true tale of the bloody showdown between two rival yakuza gangs in the 1840’s. The battle between Boss Sukegoro of Iioka and Boss Shigezo of Sasagawa has been portrayed many times, most notably in the first Zatoichi film, where the blind man befriends the tubercular ronin Hirate Miki, before cutting him down in one of the great duels in cinema history. This all-star extravaganza pulls out all the stops, with appearances by virtually all of the great actors and actresses from Toei’s studio at the time. Ichikawa Utaemon’s portrayal of the kind-hearted, noble yakuza boss Shigezo of Sasagawa contrasts sharply with the devious Sukegoro of Iioka. Corrupt as he may have been, his men were all willing to give up their lives for him.
Orphaned Kiku was raised at a Buddhist temple and learned theatrical arts and martial arts as a child, which were used to put on stage productions to raise money for the temple, but also to display young lads who were essentially for sale to the highest bidder. When Kiku gets fed up with how the temple uses the orphans and wants to leave he gets accused of a double murder and has to flee for his life and liberty.
A group of ruthless gangsters, an unknown woman and an escaped convict have met, in The Forest of Resurrection, the 444th portal to the other side. Their troubles start when those once killed and buried in the forest come back from the dead.
In the early 1990s, a Japanese samurai detective series was aired in Australia and became a cult success. Titled in Japan Ronin Suiri Tentai (meaning roughly Deductive Reasoning Ronin), it was soon known in the West as Top Knot Detective. The original series was legendary in Japan, a cultural train wreck led by Takashi Tawagoto, a crazy writer, producer, director and lead actor; one who could not act, fight or write at all.
Vladica lost the only thing that mattered to him - an amateur karate championship. Now he's back in his home town looking for a job, love and redemption.
A warrior-in-training and his bumbling friends go in pursuit of a stolen sword.
During the ultra-violent era of the downfall of the Tokugawa Shogunate one man rose above the rest with his ideas of how to overthrow the corrupt government and end the bloodshed between the Choshu and Satsuma clans which would ultimately lead to the alliance of these 2 clans and restoration of the emperor to full power. Based on the play that made Sawada Shojiro famous, this is the story of Tsukigata Hanpeita, a forward looking samurai from Choshu, who along with Katsura Kogoro and Sakamoto Ryoma of Tosa worked to bring their dream of a new era in Japan.
With Ran, legendary director Akira Kurosawa reimagines Shakespeare's King Lear as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan. Majestic in scope, the film is Kurosawa's late-life masterpiece, a profound examination of the folly of war and the crumbling of one family under the weight of betrayal, greed, and the insatiable thirst for power.
Toshiro Mifune swaggers and snarls to brilliant comic effect in Kurosawa's tightly paced, beautifully composed "Sanjuro." In this companion piece and sequel to "Yojimbo," jaded samurai Sanjuro helps an idealistic group of young warriors weed out their clan's evil influences, and in the process turns their image of a proper samurai on its ear.
Izo is an assassin in the service of a Tosa lord and Imperial supporter. After killing dozens of the Shogun's men, Izo is captured and crucified. Instead of being extinguished, his rage propels him through the space-time continuum to present-day Tokyo. Here Izo transforms himself into a new, improved killing machine.
A samurai is struggling to make ends meet at the end of the Edo period. He has students and, among other things, teaches them about the evils of the government. A member of the yakuza thugs has fallen in love with the samurai's daughter and conspires to report the father to the authorities in order to snatch the girl. The samurai's daughter has a boyfriend who hides the father and daughter from the thug.
Seibei Iguchi leads a difficult life as a low ranking samurai at the turn of the nineteenth century. A widower with a meager income, Seibei struggles to take care of his two daughters and senile mother. New prospects seem to open up when the beautiful Tomoe, a childhood friend, comes back into he and his daughters' life, but as the Japanese feudal system unravels, Seibei is still bound by the code of honor of the samurai and by his own sense of social precedence. How can he find a way to do what is best for those he loves?
Akira Kurosawa's lauded feudal epic presents the tale of a petty thief who is recruited to impersonate Shingen, an aging warlord, in order to avoid attacks by competing clans. When Shingen dies, his generals reluctantly agree to have the impostor take over as the powerful ruler. He soon begins to appreciate life as Shingen, but his commitment to the role is tested when he must lead his troops into battle against the forces of a rival warlord.
Pursued by formidable Chinese assassins, young Kotaro and his dog run into No Name, a mysterious stranger who gets pulled into the chase. The unlikely companions form a bond over saving the dog from a poison attack, but chaos erupts when the assassins find Kotaro, and No Name must face his past before a horrible fate is met again.