Takeo Chii

For his first film in fourteen years animation director Isao Takahata embarked on a visually sumptuous adaptation of "The Tale of the Princess Kaguya". A dream project for the director that would hopefully establish the recently formed Ghibli Studio 7, created to meet the demands of a new type of modern animation process. But almost immediately the epic production is faced with difficulties and falls dramatically behind schedule. In this compelling and insightful documentary we follow Isao Takahata and his dedicated team of artists as they frantically strive against adversity to make their vision a reality and bring Studio Ghibli into a new Era.

Found inside a shining stalk of bamboo by an old bamboo cutter and his wife, a tiny girl grows rapidly into an exquisite young lady. The mysterious young princess enthrals all who encounter her. But, ultimately, she must confront her fate.

One hundred years after their deaths, six legendary holy warriors are reborn to seek justice against the former comrade who betrayed them into the hands of an evil god! The six warriors search the feudal province of Edo questing for the last Saint Soldier, Haohmaru, and their sworn nemesis Shirou Amakusa. Will the followers of the divine light triumph over the forces of darkness, or is history destined to repeat itself? Before their hundred-year journey has ended, six samurai will prove that the only thing stronger than their holy blades is the steel of their wills!

In the middle of the Edo period, when the finances of the shogunate were in a desperate situation, the shogunate sent its shadow spies to each clan, who secretly planned the abolition of the clans and the seizure of their territories. The Inami clan has mastered the essence of making weapons, thus breaking the law. To protect the clan, its elders hire three "Shadow Hunters"... TV movie based on the popular manga by Takao Saito.

A heated argument between middle school thugs leads to a fierce war between two rival high schools when Toru's girlfriend, Shoko, gets involved.

With thugs under gang leader Shingo attempting to make a name for themselves, Toru and crew must brace for an all-out war between their two schools.

College student Mayumi takes a mutual interest in Hiroshi, but their happiness is cut short when two thugs expelled from school eye the new couple.

A sly prep school thug uses his girlfriend to lure Hiroshi and Toru to a fight, but the scheme escalates to an all-out war between everyone involved.

Three men sentenced to death are spared and changed into “shadows executioners”, a group of ruthless ninja working for mysterious high ranking officials. During their investigation on some illegal business, one of them, called “Yazuke the Viper”, finds his abandoned daughter, Ocho, who has now become a mistress of Denzo, a smuggler. After Yazuke’s death, Ocho is also recruited as a “shadows executioner”, with the task of completing her father’s mission.

Teen thugs Hiroshi and Toru get caught in a street war when their prized school trousers are forcefully taken from them by punks from a rival school.

An upbeat, action-filled drama that depicts the lives of two obnoxious high school students, Koji and Toru, who are caught in exciting and dangerous adventures involving their fellow students. Based on the best selling comic series, “Be-Bop High School” has gained popularity among the young audience, and become an icon of Japan’s pop culture in the 1980’s.

Drama set in the world of Formula 2 motor racing in Japan.

A remake of the 1953 film of the same name.

Tora-san returns to his family's home to attend an elementary school class reunion. After he embarrasses himself by getting drunk and insulting all his ex-classmates, he resumes his travels. In Kyushu he meets an outspoken 18-year-old girl who becomes enamored of Tora-san and follows him around. One of Tora-san's old friends is terminally ill and makes Tora-san promise him to marry his wife once he is gone.

The Moon Mask Rider is a tokusatsu movie produced by Purumie International/Herald Enterprises and distributed by Nippon Herald Pictures, was released theatrically on March 14, 1981. Considered Japan's answer to the American box-office fiasco, The Legend of the Lone Ranger (released the same year), this updated version of the Moonlight Mask legend bombed at the Japanese box-office. Daisuke Kuwahara (who, like Klinton Spilsbury , disappeared from doing films) plays George Owara (Moon Mask Rider's new alter-ego), and the rest of the cast made up of veteran action starlets: Sue Shihomi, Daijiro Harada and Takayuki Godai.

Ninth movie in the Torakku Yarō series. Momojiro travels to Nagano to take Jonathan's place driving logging freight through the mountains. There he meets the wild and beautiful Natsu.

Whilst researching an article about rape for a magazine article, Nami starts having fantasies of rape as she comes closer to a fate that could be worse than death.

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.

From Hokkaido to Tokyo, hunting dog Goro embarks on a long and grueling journey to reach home. With the loss of his master who held a secret to a weapons smuggling case and the corruptions of those who are involved, Goro's adventure unfolds.

When an American is murdered in a Japanese inn, Tokyo police detective Munesue follows the trail of the killer to New York. There he is joined by a New York City detective named Shuftan and together they sort out the crime.

1977 Shochiku adaptation of Natsume Soseki's novel.

A nurse is framed for her involvement in the hospital murder of a politician who was threatening to expose corrupt practices. She escapes from jail but is captured and sent back, resulting in the rest of the inmates being punished, added to which of a new, tougher, head of security arrives to take up her new job....

In the setting of the Hokuriku region, where the snow and cold winds rage, for the first time in true-life yakuza film history, director Kinji Fukasaku shows battles among yakuza who value land over tradition. Hiroki Matsukata stars as Noboru Kawada, a Hokuriku yakuza who will use any measure for survival, disregarding parents, brothers, and tradition.

A yakuza leader must balance his violent tactics necessary for the rough streets of 1960s Tokyo with the domestic needs of his daughters.

After spending eight years in prison for murder, Hiroshi leaves his yakuza family to start a new life as a labor racketeer.

Though his parents help him run the family business, Jun still feels persecuted by their love; when they bar him from meeting with his girlfriend, tensions increase.

When a tycoon passes away, he unexpectedly leaves the family fortune to outsider Tamayo on the condition that she marries one of the grandsons, pitting blood against blood.

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.

The eighth sequel of the series by the successful “Fukasaku and Bunta” collaboration revolves around the men of a lesser organization that are constantly bullied by the upper organization and “bleed in vain” in gang wars.

Drama about young people in the Japanese rock scene starring the lead singer of Japanese rock band The Tigers (1966-1971, 1981-1983).

Shinta is a sixth grader in Kawasaki City a troublemaker that dreams to become a soccer player. Yoshiko, a classmate who moved to Kawasaki from Iwate Prefecture two years ago, is a gloomy girl who suffers from asthma due to the polluted air in Kawasaki and is ostracized by her class. Shinta is placed next to Yoshiko in class and their stories will take a turn.

Three assassins take on a band of thieves who specialize in murder.

Pinku from 1973.

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.

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.

A group of burglars in black tights breaks into a church to commit robbery and commits outrages upon the pastor's young daughter. After some time, Detective Harada and his squad rush/came back to the church they robbed earlier. In the duty station, the police chief informs Harada that his ex-colleague, Nakamura, has escaped from a mental hospital where he had been hospitalized for insanity. Harada and his partner, Kato, are assigned to pursue Nakamura on the run. If Nakamura's insanity turns out to be false, the cop buddies must terminate him and masquerade it as self-defense.

Based on the comic Gokiburi Deka.

The world of adults seen by a high school girl in the valley between school and home after school, and the sparkling poison that only a daughter of this age has, gradually spreads ripples in the world of adults.

A young outlaw can’t escape his rebellious past despite connections to a well to do family.

The struggle of a young man and boys who try to create the environment where they can speak their minds freely.

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.

Japanese youngsters enduring hard training in Recruit Camp and then going to Iwo Jima in the last days of World War II.

After serving time, a defiant street thug is incensed to find his town overrun by two yakuza factions. He gathers his crew and takes them on.

Pinku from 1971.

This is the Twelfth film in the series. There were seventeen Wolves of the City films between 1968 & 1974, in the main aimed at shock-value & “pinku” soft-core with sex, nudity, violence, gunplay, & a lot of mainly pointless foolishness when the biker gang coopts racist or nazi imagery, inventing a non-existent youth culture void of morality…

Asakura was told he could leave the gang if he killed Takahata, but he failed and was sentenced to two years. When he was released, the Oyane group was crushed, and instead, the emerging gangster Hokuyokai was in charge of the Oyane group's territory.

Several high-school friends spend their final summer together indulging in sex and leisure; their halcyon days are soon coming to an end.

Second part of an epic drama of war and its effects upon human beings, follows the fortunes of the Godai family from 1935 through Japan's invasion of China. Based on the novels by Jumpei Gomikawa, who also penned The Human Condition.

The series swansong, Beat '71, sees Kaji framed and sent to prison by her boyfriend's father and with the help of some hippies she strives to be re-united.

Yūji, fresh out of prison on parole, meets a stranger named Nao that asks for his assistance...

Wild young people kidnap a wealthy woman and she becomes attracted to one of them. When she tells the man that she is the mistress of a religious leader, he and his posse make plans to rob her partner.

The disbandment of the Tanno clan left gang member Tetsu to stray from the crime family's fold. He roamed the streets as a one man band, wearing a denim jacket and long hair with sunglasses to cover his piercing eyes. Befriending a like-minded lone wolf by the name of Gebasaku, Tetsu builds a coalition against higher forces. A graphic portrayal of irrepressible anger and a friendship worth dying for.

A group of teenagers grow up in Okinawa amid the protests and resistance against the presence of the American base in the island.

A pair of down-on-their-luck swordsmen arrive in a dusty, windblown town, where they become involved in a local clan dispute. One, previously a farmer, longs to become a noble samurai. The other, a former samurai haunted by his past, prefers living anonymously with gangsters. But when both men discover the wrongdoings of the nefarious clan leader, they side with a band of rebels who are under siege at a remote mountain cabin.