His skill and courage were the best in Japan! The life story of Jirocho, a man who protected people on the Tokaido Road. The fearless Kinnosuke Nakamura enthusiastically plays the young Jirocho from Shimizu in this chivalrous story.
His skill and courage were the best in Japan! The life story of Jirocho, a man who protected people on the Tokaido Road. The fearless Kinnosuke Nakamura enthusiastically plays the young Jirocho from Shimizu in this chivalrous story.
1960-12-27
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A Japanese Yakuza gangster's deadly existence in his homeland gets him exiled to Los Angeles, where he is taken in by his little brother and his brother's gang.
Kei Kikuno attends a vocational school as a student. For her part-time job, she works as a contract killer. She is excellent at her job and never gets scared by anyone. One day, she receives the most challenging request.
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
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.
Narumi has decided to retire from the underworld society with which he has been involved for 20 years. He also informs his colleague and attends his final smuggled handgun deal. Suddenly, shows up and the client is shot to death accidentally. That client was an undercover police investigator, so Narumi is now facing a predicament.
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.
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!
Film director and screenwriter Seijun Suzuki (1923-2017), who in the sixties was the great innovator of Japanese cinema; and his collaborator, art director and screenwriter Takeo Kimura (1918-2010), recall how they made their great masterpieces about the Yakuza underworld for the Nikkatsu film company.
GOZEN is a jidageki (period piece) dramas. The word “gozen” refers to a feudal game held in the presence of a Daimyo, described as a match “one must not lose”.
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.
Brimming with action while incisively examining the nature of truth, "Rashomon" is perhaps the finest film ever to investigate the philosophy of justice. Through an ingenious use of camera and flashbacks, Kurosawa reveals the complexities of human nature as four people recount different versions of the story of a man's murder and the rape of his wife.
One night in Tokyo, Leo, a young boxer, meets his first love, Monica, an imprisoned sex worker. Caught up in a drug-smuggling scheme, they find themselves pursued by a corrupt cop, a yakuza, his nemesis, and a female assassin.
An assassin is shot by her ruthless employer, Bill, and other members of their assassination circle – but she lives to plot her vengeance.
Echizen Fukui Domain. Futago Rokubei, who backs down even at the sight of a gecko, is called "Coward Samurai" by others. His sister Kane blames him for not having any marriage proposals. One day, the lord's martial arts instructor, Nito Kouken, kills one of the lord's attendants, Kano, and flees, leading the angry lord to issue an order to kill him. However, there is no one in the domain who can match the swordsmanship of Nito. Rokubei, in order to clear his long-standing dishonor, volunteers to be the one to kill Nito and sets out on the journey, leaving behind Kane who tries to stop him in tears.
In the era of the ninth shogun, Ieshige, the Ooku of Edo Castle was a world of only women, with Tokiwa at the head and numbering up to a thousand. The town girl Otoshi catches the eye of Oitsu-no-kata and is brought into the Ooku. Oitsu receives the favor of Ieshige and is blessed with an heir, but Oko-no-kata resents Oitsu to the point of wanting to curse her to death. At that time, rumors of an evil spirit in the unopened room spread throughout the Ooku.
Tajibee, a cockfighting expert from Kawachi, and Kitahachi, a carpenter from Edo, survive a shipwreck near Beppu. They rescue Sakamoto Ryoma from masked samurai, and he entrusts them with a secret letter for Saigo Takamori of Satsuma. A shogunate spy, Chizou, overhears and pursues them. Along the way, a pickpocket named Okoma steals their wallet and the letter. When they finally deliver the letter in Satsuma, they realize it was a decoy to mislead the enemy.
Geisha Yaeko is approached by a samurai who has just returned to Edo while she is painting a picture of camellia flowers in a temple. The samurai, whom she meets again at a drinking party, is the heir to the castle's daimyo, Yuuki Shinichiro, and the two become romantically involved despite their different social standings. Although he tells her he cannot marry her immediately, Yaeko believes in Shinichiro and continues to wait for the day they can be together. However, Shinichiro's uncle, Kuwajima, tells her to end the relationship.
Shinza is known for his stubborn personality and continues to hold a low-ranking position as a magistrate, despite his colleague Kato becoming the deputy chief retainer. His daughter has feelings for Hachiro, one of her father's subordinates, but she is afraid to express her emotions because of Shinza's intimidating presence. One day, Shinza gets involved in a violent incident within the castle.