Pinocchio: A Man Without Nationality (1997)
Genre : Crime
Runtime : 1H 34M
Director : Rokuro Mochizuki
Writer : Shoichi Maruyama
Synopsis
A yakuza search for his past
An exploration of underground Japanese counter-culture including the Yakuza, the nationalists, the gay and lesbian community, the bikers and the homeless.
Motorcycles, drugs, and gangs terrorize Japan. The man who dreamed of a life of peace has instead been transformed into an angel of death!
A young yakuza in love with the girl who's to marry his clan oyabun, kidnaps the girl before fleeing with her. In Tokyo, he hides under the identity of a worker while the young woman becomes a waitress in a restaurant.
Three high-school students tangle with indulgent yakuza and lackadaisical police as they set out in search of the class bully, who has been kidnapped.
When the boss of a yakuza clan in 1920s Osaka is assassinated, Oryu, his mistress, vows revenge. Her search for the killer takes her out of the city. The old boss' son proves a poor leader, only interested in Omitsu, his high-class girlfriend. Yajima, the second-in-command, is taking advantage of the situation to accumulate power for himself...
In 1870's Tokyo, Den steals to support the daughter of her first marriage and her consumptive second husband. She falls in love with a young policeman, but is coerced into becoming the mistress of and procurer for a vice boss.
Biwako is a vain, middle-aged actress who witnesses a brutal murder. Realizing that the very public life of the woman makes their sole witness vulnerable to the killers, the police assign two officers to safeguard her until the trial. In the interim, the lives of Biwako and everyone around her are changed in unexpected ways.
Kazu attacks a bar in Kabukicho, a Tokyo red-light district, and flees to his hometown with abducts Machiko, a pole dancer he's been stuck on. They begin living together, but their happiness is short lived as their pasts torment them both.
A wandering gambler strolls into a village searching for his father's killer, unaware that the village is run by criminals who sell the poorest peasants into slavery.
Machida (Shintaro Katsu) is in constant trouble because of his instincts to do right every time, even when it endangers his life. A gang hires him for his "forceful personality," and assigns him to kill evil people, a president of a loan company and a drug baron.
Thomas Hoshino (Willson) is a tough Japanese detective, who lost his partner by a deadly Yakuza killer Jaho (Lew). He tracks down the killer and his master to Los Angeles, where he teams up with Det. Karen Ryder (Farrell). Soon they discover that Yakuza prepares a gang war and weapon smuggling. Hoshino must find a way to defeat the killer who posses mystical ninja powers.
Yuki Onozaki, who was studying at a Women's College in Tokyo, was originally a young and ignorant girl, but her life changed completely in the summer of a certain year. During the summer vacation, Yuki returned to her hometown of Kyoto, only to be raped by the lover of her mother. Yuki then abandoned her studies and chose a depraved life. She met the gang leader Kiyoshi Oba and factory industrialists. Although these men could give her more or less physical comfort, they could not open Yuki's locked heart. It was not until the appearance of the young architect Yoichiro Honma that Yuki's love flower gradually bloomed. Soon, Yoichiro's first love while studying in France, Sandra, finds her, which makes Yuki's heart surge. After several twists and turns, Yoichiro decided to marry Yuki, but the trials never stopped...
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.
Akiko is the heir to a yakuza clan. Hitoshi, who has been kicked out of the rival Hono Clan after attempting to seduce Akiko, kidnaps her at the behest of Hanamura. Hanamura has formed a new gang and intends to use Akiko as a hostage to take over her clan's territory. During the torture and abuse sessions which follow, Akiko comes to enjoy the treatment and forsakes her gangland empire.
An ex-naval intelligence officer is forced to assassinate a CEO when his daughter is kidnapped by the Yakuza.
While her husband is in prison doing time, Tamaki, the wife of a yakuza capo, runs her spouse’s gang with an iron hand. Meanwhile, Makoto, her younger sister, marries a member of a rival band after being raped by him. The two sisters, united by blood ties but married to enemy yakuzas, will ultimately have to decide whose side they’re on.
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?
Two years before they collaborated on the immortal Stray Cat Rock series, director Yasuharu Hasebe and soon-to-be-superstar Meiko Kaji teamed up for this potent gangster flick that also stars the great Joe Shishido (Branded to Kill) and Akira Kobayashi, who would shortly thereafter star in Kinji Fukasaku's epic yakuza series Battles Without Honor and Humanity. Emerging from a stint in prison, yakuza lieutenant Sumukawa (Kobayashi) discovers that his gang has disintegrated while he was in the pen. An ambitious type, he quickly hooks up with another gang (led by Shishido) who promise him a prominent position if he helps them deal with a rival family. But bonds are made to be broken, and pledges of loyalty soon give way to competition, betrayal and — naturally — retaliation. Tough, cynical and violent, Retaliation cheerfully overturns romanticized notions of underworld honour, paving the way for Fukusaku's revisionist yakuza pictures of the 1970s.
In Japan, gonzo filmmakers hatch a three-pronged plan to save an actress's career, end a yakuza war and make a hit movie.
Arriving in the town of Hakodate, a wandering musician, Shinji Taki, is soon recruited by the local gang as a hired hand. However, with the arrival of a sinister gunman, Taki's mysterious past catches up with him.