(archive footage)
A narrative feature made from a collage of clips from various films around the world.
Self (voice)
Documentary made by Toho for the Masterworks reissue of all of its Kurosawa films. This one focuses on "The Bad Sleep Well" (1960).
Based on the manga by Sadao Jouji which has been running in the magazine Shukan Gendai since 1969.
Kon Ichikawa's retelling of the classic true story of Samurai honor. When a young clan lord is forced to commit seppuku (ritual suicide), his loyal followers (now Ronin, masterless Samurai) dedicate their lives to avenging his death.
Approached by a friend about a matchmaking arrangement, Su-san goes to Hama-chan's home seeking help. Hama-chan is away on a business trip, but Michiko entertains Su-san late into the night. When he gets drunk and ends up spending the night, Hama-chan, begins to question his boss's relationship with Michiko.
Hama-chan and his wife are ecstatic about their long-awaited pregnancy. Meanwhile, Su-san's nephew joins Hama-chan's department at the company.
This remake of the classic film features the addition of Chiba Shinichi and Natsuyagi Isao as political intrigue reigns supreme. Tadanaga, the younger son of Shogun Hidetada has signed a dangerous pact with the intention of preventing his older brother Iemitsu from taking his rightful place as heir to the shogun's seat. During the early years of the Tokugawa shogunate highly skilled ninja groups carried out secret missions, and it falls upon Iga Jigoza's force of 17 ninja to infiltrate the enemy's stronghold and steal the pact from Negoro leader Saiga Magokuro.
Eiji Tsuburaya
A biographical dramatization about the production of the original Ultraman, the beloved classic special effects fantasy series from Eiji Tsuburaya.
Makoto Nishimura
The reincarnation of a 10th century Japanese general haunts 1920's Tokyo.
After returning from the Burmese front in WWII, a man finds trouble brewing back home.
Senkichi Otsubo
Detective Muramatsu's wife, Fusae, is killed by a drug addict. After the criminal climbs to the roof of the house with a hostage, Muramatsu shoots him dead in order to rescue the hostage, but the public denounces his actions as stemming from the personal grudge of a detective whose wife was just murdered, and he is demoted.
The life and times of Kûkai, a Japanese monk who studies Esoteric Buddhism in the far reaches of India, China and Tibet, then uses their combined influence to establish the Shingon school during the Heian period in early 9th Century AD.
Kentaro Hatanaka
Adaptation of "The Lady Killer" by Masako Togawa.
Adaptation of Shiro Ozaki's novel.
A re-make of the classic story made for television in 1982.
Heizo Sekiguchi
After an old man is attacked by a bear in the snowy mountains of northern Japan, he vows to hunt down the marauder.
A horse-riding samurai fights villains.
Based on a mystery by Taiwanese-Japanese author Chin Shun-shin. After two elderly men in Yokohama quarrel over a Yang dynasty artifact, one of the men turns up dead with mysterious claw marks across his face. A detective takes up the case, and uncovers secrets dating back to war crimes committed during Japan’s invasion of China in WWII.
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.
Yasuzo Kariba
The men who surround and torment the young protagonist (demanding teacher, owner of the company that rapes his own daughter, despotic and uncompromising father) are opposed to women (victims of men) as embodiment of salvation.
Glass-Eating Mime
In pre-war Japan, two members of a large yakuza syndicate instigate a turf war that embroils the highest echelons of Tokyo's underworld.
Uncle / Street Singer / Puppeteer / Watchmaker (voice)
Based off of the novel, "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" and the ballet, "The Nutcracker", Sanrio shows their take on the classic story in a stop-motion animated film.
Mamo (voice)
The world's most wanted master thief, Lupin the Third, is dead! Despite a coroner's report, Interpol Inspector Zenigata is sceptical and discovers that Lupin is actually alive and well and stealing. But who had set up Lupin's death and why?
Shigetomi Katta
The three-film saga comes to a conclusion as three leaders of the underworld battle it out to determine who will become Don of Japan.
The body of Sakai Hatsuko, a woman of 23 who has been slain with a knife, has been found in a forest. Some days later, Ueda Hiroshi, a 19-year-old shipyard worker, is arrested and charged with the murder. At Ueda's trial, a complex story unfolds.
Sojin Kamiya
Sen Rikyu is a ceremonial tea master who advises warlord Hideyoshi in sixteenth-century feudal Japan. His daughter, the beautiful Lady Ogin, has an unrequited love for Lord Ukon, who has angered Hideyoshi by becoming a Christian convert. Ogin's father Rikyu also displeases Hideyoshi by opposing the warlord's plan to invade China and Korea. When the animalistic Hideyoshi is rejected by Ogin, he threatens her and her father with arrest and worse.
This is a story of love between a society girl and a yakuza boy. Mami lives an ordinary life in Tokyo, being with her friends and studying. Her biggest interest is ladies hats. She is rather well off, as her father is the ambassador of Japan in Spain. One day when she is out driving, she is attacked by a group of yakuza, but is saved by the honorable yakuza Jiro. This will change her life forever.
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.
Kahe Shimabara
A yakuza leader must balance his violent tactics necessary for the rough streets of 1960s Tokyo with the domestic needs of his daughters.
Death stalks a towering hotel under construction in Tokyo and love brings the guilty parties to a justice of their own choice. The motives are control of the hotel, blackmail and jealousy. The principals involved are two business partners, a political string puller and his son, lovers carrying on an illicit affair and a secretary turned blackmailer.
Nagaoka Ryokai
A tough prosecutor is falsely accused of theft and goes on the run to clear his name. He is assisted by the beautiful daughter of a rich man.
Tokuji Owada
The seventh in the shocking "Jingi Naki Tatakai" movie series, which exposes the true lives of the yakuza that is hidden by a mask of "jingi". The next stage of this continuing drama is the Kanmon Channel where the Owada and the Kyoei groups are battling for territorial rights and drug smuggling. The Owada sends their man, Tetsu, and his friend Shuji to kill the Kyoei boss. With the promise of fame and riches, Shuji takes the fall and goes to jail for 7 years. But when he's released, he discovers that he and Tetsu have been all but forgotten by the Owada. Feeling betrayed, Shuji takes natters into his own hands and becomes an unsuspecting pawn in an internal conflict and an assassination attempt on the Owada boss. And now angered, Shuji seeks revenge...
When bribe money from a rigged election funnels into a dam construction project, collusion, lust, greed and even murder are on the ballot.
A mountain man beheads his many wives to prove his love to an alluring woman he meets in an enchanted forest.
Based on the novel of the same name by Seichô Matsumoto.
Convicted of murder, Masayuki Ueda is sent to Hiroshima Prison along with his accomplice. But for a man like him, breaking out of prison is easy.
Magohei 'Snake' Ohnishi
Hanzo extracts a confession from a ghost using his assaulting methods, foils thieves, connects with Heisuke Takei a friend from his youth, offers protection to a forward-thinking physician Genan Sugino who has defamed his ruler, discovers a pleasure ring of young wives and a blind music teacher, and cuckolds a corrupt official under his very nose.
Sentaro Watanuki
Adaptation of the novel by Toyoko Yamasaki.
Tamezo Tsukamoto
A young girl is being asked about a man with whom she was keeping company, as her grandmother plays a lament on a shamisen. Then the focus changes to a couple arriving from Tokyo - the woman returning to her home, the man an escapee from the yakuza. The man doesn't seem to mind when the woman sells her favours to tourists at the local bar, just as she seems to take his attentions to Yuki, a blind girl, with equanimity.
Priest Dokai
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.
Set in Tsukuda Island, Tokyo, this drama SP depicts a misunderstanding between an old man with old-fashioned spirit and a young tenant.
Magobei "Snake" Onishi
Against the backdrop of the Edo treasury devaluing currency and driving many into poverty, Hanzo Itami enforces the law without regard to status. He shows inadequate respect to the treasurer, who wants him dead.
Magobei 'Snake' Onishi
Fearless Edo-period police inspector Hanzo Itami, nicknamed The Razor, has developed his own unique way of extracting information for his inquiries. His first adventure sees him investigating his superior officer's mistress, whom he suspects of having ties with a reputed criminal on the loose.
By going to the Philippines, Imamura comes to meet people living in an extreme poverty. He discovers very quickly that some communities are under the control of cruel & armed pirates. Imamura will come to meet those men in order to understand their position.
Soft-Boiled Goro is a 1970 film directed by Kazuo Ikehiro
Based on Shinichi Mori song
Migi
Zatoichi is mentored by the blind leader of a secret organization as he contends with both the Yakuza and a jealous husband.
Kada
This Japanese melodrama chronicles the exploits of a geisha's beautiful daughter. The daughter is the geisha's pride and she spares nothing to insure that she has a bright future. But the hard-working young woman's dreams of becoming a dressmaker are shattered.... She then becomes a nightclub hostess who plays cards with male patrons using her body as the prize.
Yanosuke Hashimoto
Takeshi Nanjo, a junior lieutenant in the navy whose father, the head of the Nanjo-gumi yakuza family, was killed, is forced to leave the army and become the head of the Nanjo-gumi in the second generation. He brutally chivalrously avenges the death of his father by a vicious yakuza linked to extremists within the army through the courage and swordsmanship of naval training!
Munekata
Yoji Kitami, a fisherman's son, is a student in Tokyo. His father had died at sea and Taichiro, his brother, is sending him to the university. But the outbreak of violence by radical students and blockade of classrooms make studying impossible and Yoji goes home. Fortunately, he meets Katsuyuki Shinoda, a childhood friend, who works on a whaling vessel. Yoji decides to join him and rediscover a meaning in life. But finding sidework on a whaler is not so easy and Ogaki, a veteran harpooner, curtly turns him down. But finally, deeply touched by Yoji's earnestness, Ogaki reluctantly agrees to take him with them. Rules are very strict, for even one slight slip-up may jeopardize the safety of the entire ship. For a long time, it seems like a living hell, but with patience and courage, he begins to learn the ropes. And the day they sight their first whale, Yoji comes into his own and finds the real meaning of life.
Two men succeed in opening a joint restaurant after hilarious troubles.
Ex-husband
A feverishly perverse 1969 film noir oddity starring female impersonator Akihiro Maruyama. When wealthy Kyohei hires singer "Black Rose" to perform in his exclusive men's club, he gets more than he bargains for when she attracts scores of homicidal past lovers. The film takes a bizarre twist when Kyohei's son falls victim to the femme fatale's unique charm.
Printer
A lovely female thief, and disguise artist, has a great passion for her next big job which she sets up with her right-hand man: She intends to steal 500 million yen of ill-gotten money from the safe at Nitto Textiles
A timid salaryman is the subject of this black comedy.
A guilt-haunted samurai warrior attempts to stop a massacre taking place.
Makabe
This film focuses on Okatsu; the adopted daughter of a master swordsman. She is a master with a sword herself and her talents far overshadow that of her brother, and real child of the man who adopted her. Her brother unfortunately has a gambling habit, and it plunges the family into trouble when he loses a lot of money in a crooked dice game. After releasing he is unable to pay the debt he owes; the blame is shouldered by the father, who is killed, leading Okatsu on a path of revenge.
Sosuke Saruya
Zatoichi is forced to kill a young man who owes a debt to a yakuza boss. Moments later, his sister Osode arrives with the money she earned (prostituting herself) to pay his debts. The bosses true motives are revealed and he attempts to steal Osode even though the debt is paid. Zatoichi realizes his grievous error and protects the girl from the gang. Osode and Zatoichi are caught in a dilemma as she must rely on her brother's killer for protection and Zatoichi wrestles with the injustice he has caused.
A local yakuza boss of a silk farming town shows kindness to the wandering gambler Oryu by letting her stay at his residence. When a rival yakuza gang, who wants to take over the town's businesses, murders him, Oryu is obliged to protect his children and business.
Nishizato
A ship is attacked at sea for its cargo by a group of thieves who murder a newlywed doctor and rape his wife. Three years later her twin sister is kidnapped by the same pirates, who begin to die strange deaths...
Detective Matoba
A detective tries to outwit a jewel thief who has kidnapped the daughter of a jeweler to get to an exquisite diamond.
Yasuke
An old man dies of heartbreak when a cruel landlord is about to repossess his land. The old man haunts the landlord from the grave. Since the man died in debt, his wife and daughter are indentured servants and are forced to work in the landlord's factory.
Banzou
On the night of the summer Obon festival, Hagiwara Shinzaburo meets a beautiful courtesan named Otsuyu. Not knowing she's a ghost, he becomes infatuated by her.
A comedy about a good-natured train conductor Shinsaku helping his old friend Miwako find her missing brother.
Errant samurai Daijuro
The lord of the Oshi fief is killed by his trespassing neighbour, the cruel and despotic Nariatsu, son of the former Shogun. After an investigation, the Oshi clan is blamed for what happened and sentenced to be disbanded. Eleven of the best samurai of the clan refuse the sentence and are willing to give their life for justice.
Yasujiro Endo
Raizô Ichikawa reprises his role as the restaurant-cook-turned-contract-killer in this sequel to Kazuo Mori's stylish 1967 thriller A Certain Killer.
Man
Itakura
In the year 1786, Shogun Ieharu Tokugawa selected beautiful Ochisa to be his concubine. It causes other concubines to become very jealous and mean. When the Shogun passes away, his concubines are forced to become nuns, which they are not happy to be. The subject is life inside a shogun's harem, and the treatment is again more restrained than in most of the historical pinku eiga films being produced by independents at the time, but the tone of this middle installment in the trilogy is decidedly more grim than that of its predecessor. There's a good deal of abuse and violence on display, as the shogun dies and his concubines are sent to a remote convent to become buddhist nuns. the hysterical nuns are being punished for their transgressions and committing suicide in grand exploitation fashion.
Uneshiro Suga
When a local gambling house kidnaps some peasants because they failed to pay their debts, a rival gambling house pays their debts and sets them free.
Atsumi Kiyoshi, famous for his role in Torasan, stars as Aoki Goichi, a veteran train conductor who dedicates himself in providing quality service to his passengers. With his many years of experience, he never fails to find solutions for any troubles that occur along the way. A comedic drama revolving around the lives of those who ride the express train.
Hanada
A story of young students trained to become Kamikaze pilots in World War II.
Magobe
Kiba Okaminosuke finds himself entangled with a group of prisoners being transported to their executions, one of whom oddly looks exactly like his dead father. There are crooked gold miners, a beautiful girl who is unfortunately a complete lunatic and a dojo master who is obsessed with killing Kiba just to prove that his school's sword style is the best.
An absolutely astonishing art house ninkyo yakuza film. Wandering gambler runs into a young swindler woman working with old man. They are both arrested by detective. A year later gambler is staying with gangster boss when he comes across that woman and her partner again. Boss lusts for both her and his own daughter, while the boss's crazy yakuza brother loves his daughter, who, in turn, watches the player and wants to destroy the people standing in her way. And here lies one of the film's remarkable departures from the standard ninkyo efforts: it doesn't have a third party villain, nor a clear distinction between good and evil. It's bursting with romantic emotion and wrenched with gritty realism, shot with striking black and white compositions, and explodes into shocking carnage. It has lengthier, more detailed gambling scenes than any other yakuza film I've seen. And it has a heartbreakingly beautiful score. You could call it the Ashes of Time of ninkyo yakuza films. A masterpiece!
Etanba
Farmer Abare Goemon is confronted by brigand-like samurai. He raises an army of farmers to fight them and does so brilliantly. When Lord Asakura sees the success Goemon has achieved, he attempts to recruit him to fight in a conflict between Asakura and another clan. Goemon refuses, and Lord Asakura sets out to destroy him.
Tanzo Koide
A lone wolf tries to eliminate a drug-smuggling operation.
Hanjiro, a one eyed vagrant arrives in Okinoshima to save the town from a violent Yakuza group with the help of six handicapped guys.
Detective Sanada
Subu makes pornographic films. He sees nothing wrong with it. They are an aid to a repressed society, and he uses the money to support his landlady, Haru, and her family. From time to time, Haru shares her bed with Subu, though she believes her dead husband, reincarnated as a carp, disapproves. Director Shohei Imamura has always delighted in the kinky exploits of lowlifes, and in this 1966 classic, he finds subversive humor in the bizarre dynamics of Haru, her Oedipal son, and her daughter, the true object of her pornographer-boyfriend’s obsession. Imamura’s comic treatment of such taboos as voyeurism and incest sparked controversy when the film was released, but The Pornographers has outlasted its critics, and now seems frankly ahead of its time.
Shichibei, Omatsu's 'uncle'
Ryunosuke, a gifted swordsman plying his trade during the turbulent final days of Shogunate rule, has no moral code and kills without remorse. It’s a way of life that leads to madness.
Kawanishi
Japanese horror film directed by Tsuneo Kobayashi.
Staff Officer
In 1943, the Aleutian island of Kiska was fortified by a small contingent of Japanese soldiers. When word arrived of an impending attack by an overwhelming force of Americans, the Japanese Navy attempted one of the most daring and unlikely evacuations in military history. This is that story.
Gisuke Hayashida is an illegal dentist during the day and a burglar by night. One night during a burglary he witnesses a train derailment. Some communists are found guilty of causing the incident, but he knows it wasn't them. He can save innocent people but for that he must confess his own crime.
Chief retainer
Aspiring to an easy job as personal physician to a wealthy family, Noboru Yasumoto is disappointed when his first post after medical school takes him to a small country clinic under the gruff doctor Red Beard. Yasumoto rebels in numerous ways, but Red Beard proves a wise and patient teacher. He gradually introduces his student to the unglamorous side of the profession, ultimately assigning him to care for a prostitute rescued from a local brothel.
Chisaka Hyobu
Mumyo Tsunataro killed his betrayed fiance Orie and He flees to Utsunomiya. On his way he happens to saves Chisaka Hyobu's daughter Oyu (She is exactly like Orie) be attacked by ninja. Thus he stays Chisaka's residence in Yonezawa. Chisaka was just trying to stop Forty-seven ronin's revenge against Kira Kozukenosuke by female ninja's sexual entrapment. Chisaka asks Tsunataro to lead female ninja. Tsunataro accepts the request on condition of marriage to Oyu.
Tahei Narumiya
Fifth film in the series. When Kyoshiro, in a moment of weakness, saves the life of a woman being attacked on the road, he quickly finds himself entangled in a conspiracy involving a corrupt chamberlain, a wily merchant, the survivors of a pirate gang, and a missing treasure trove.
In turbulent 16th-century Japan, the leaders of a minor fief have their child taken from them as a political hostage. His mother and his clan endure years of tribulations until he can return.
Baron Tominaga / The Hunchback
A hunchbacked caretaker presides over a forlorn mansion inhabited by the ghosts of his previous masters. An unbelieving trio (a doctor, his assistant and his niece) fail to heed the caretaker's warnings and are slaughtered horribly by the jealous occupants.
Second part of the series where sex magic skills of female and Iga ninjas clash over enourmous treasure of the Toyotomi family, discovered in connection with the plot to overthrow the shogunate.
A headstrong young man seeks to join the Shinsengumi, but while his determination impresses his superiors, questions begin to arise as to his true identity and intentions.
Sakichi
A young woman begins murdering all those responsible for her ailing father's condition. Because the girl is so outwardly sweet and innocent, the detective looking into the deaths does not suspect her.
Hiroshi Asami
Based on the novel by Naoki Prize-nominated author Taro Takeshita, a thriller full of black humor. A jealous husband murders his adulterous wife, then embarks on a crusade to extort all the wealthy men whom she had affairs with.
In this gritty tale of gamblers battling in the samurai era, Okawa Hashizo gives perhaps his greatest performance as a gambler returning to his home town. Swearing allegiance to his fiancée’s father, a decent boss, he had taken to the road after a gang fight until things cooled down. While honing his sword skills in his travels, everything in the town had changed and he descended into a virtual hell of violence. Opponents were being slaughtered by a former samurai ‘Bodyguard’ played by Tanba Tetsuro at the height of his amazing career. While these two master swordsmen are fated to meet, before that can even happen they must survive one of the longest, bloodiest swordfights in movie history!
Koichi Takahashi
Sadako, cursed by generations before her and neglected by her common-law husband, falls prey to a brutal home intruder. But rather than become a victim, she forges a path to her own awakening.
Naomasa, the former lord of Okayama Castle and the head of the Iseda family, takes a strange boy, Kirihito, under his wing. However, Naomasa is sent to Europe for his rather too liberal lifestyle…
Mizuno Izumi
A suspenseful Ninja fantasy based on Shiba Ryotaro's novel, woven with the mysterious fate and romance of Shinzo and a beautiful Princess who find themselves at the center of an intrigue surrounding the legendary land of Yasurai in the mountains of Kumano. Hidden gold, the love of a beautiful Princess, and the approaching evil sword all contribute in bringing you a Ninja action thriller that only the legendary actor Okawa Hashizo and the genius director Kato Tai could produce!
Killer (voice)
An animated collaboration between Osamu Tezuka and Toei Animation.
Kujuro Hirayama
A sadistic Daimyo (feudal lord) rapes a woman and murders both her and her husband, but even when one of his own vassals commits suicide to bring attention to the crime, the matter is quickly hushed up. Not only will there be no punishment, but because the Daimyo is the Shogun's younger brother, he will soon be appointed to a high political position from which he could wreak even more havoc. Convinced that the fate of the Shogunate hangs in the balance, a plot is hatched to assassinate the Daimyo. The two most brilliant strategic minds of their generation find themselves pitted against each other; one is tasked to defend a man he despises, and has a small army at his disposal. The other is given a suicide mission, and has 12 brave men. They are the 13 Assassins.
Chubei
Based on a novel by Tsutomu Mizukami, this haunting melodrama focuses on a young bamboo worker who takes his father's prostitute as his wife.
A laid-back man tries to become a member of the yakuza.
Hokkaido at the end of the Taisho era is Kitami. On the day his wife died of a dystocia, Bakuro Yonetaro fell asleep after being kicked by a sick woman Yuki at a vague shop after violence.
Nine maids serve the household of a writer and his wife. The couple treat their maids like daughters and marry them off to eligible men. So, they are forever looking for new maids. As the years go by maid servants become hired help and more bossy and independent, so Chikura and his wife find themselves adjusting their lives to keep up with changing times.
Kameoka, Zenji
Director Jun'ya Satô's debut film focuses on the inhuman training of recruits, the brutal drill system that reigned in the Japanese army during World War II, where in the first two years of training, ordinary people were turned into inhuman killers. For his first film, the director was awarded the Blue Ribbon Awards in the Debutant of the Year nomination.
Yamaoka
After a salary-man's fiancée attempts suicide, he recounts his gruesome family history which saw generations of his ancestors suffer and sacrifice themselves for the sake of their cruel lords.
Third Creditor
An executive of a shoe company becomes a victim of extortion when his chauffeur's son is kidnapped and held for ransom.
Heiroku
This suspense drama set in the mid 1700's depicts the plan of the Tokugawa rulers to send a number of homeless men to a remote island Sado to perform forced labor. Living conditions on the island are terrible and the men soon become rebellious. Based on a short story by Seichō Matsumoto.
Kizaru
Warlord Oda Nobunaga seeks to unite a fractured Japan. A young man trained in the arts of ninjitsu is manipulated by a ninja master into attempting to assassinate the warlord before he completes his task.
Japanese drama.
The plot opens with the hero (Tsuruta) leaving prison, having served time through taking the blame for a fellow gang member’s crime. However, his former gang boss seems to have gone to seed, with people now killing each other and dealing in drugs. The hero then teams up with a lone operator (Tamba) who specialises in shaking down gangsters.
Michiharu Mitsumine
A story about the lives of four sisters and their manipulative mother who must come to terms with each of their decisions in life.
Yoshida’s first big-budget production and colour film is a haunting tale of unrequited love and postwar disillusion. The story of the fatal attraction between a spineless intellectual and a strong woman is conventional, but its enactment is radically new.
Noboru Sumikawa
An investigation into a drug smuggler who is assassinated in front of an insurance building sets two detectives, Sumikawa and Akine, into a sprawling investigation through Tokyo's underworld.
Murata - Secretary of Space
In 1980, a giant planetoid named Gorath is discovered to be on a collision course with Earth. Even though it is smaller than Earth, its mass is huge enough to crush the Earth and destroy it. A mission sent to observe Gorath is destroyed after all the orbiting ships are drawn into the planetoid. A later mission is sent to observe and the crew barely leaves before suffering the same fate. However Astronaut Tatsuo Kanai is left in a catatonic state due to his near death experience. The Earth's scientists then come up with a desperate plan to build giant rockets at the South Pole to move Earth out of Gorath's path before it is too late.
Story of romance and rivalry between two ad agencies vying for the same account with a pharmaceutical firm.
Mokudô Kida
Satoko is a mistress by trade or fate: when her master, the silkscreen artist of the Kohoan Temple in Kyoto, dies, she is given to the temple's lascivious head priest Kikuchi. She is drawn to a melancholy young acolyte, Jinen, who has observed the profligacy of his cruel master and Satoko's utter dependence on the man. Jinen is both fascinated and disturbed by Satoko's interest in him; he is similarly caught between loathing of Kikuchi and of the dark circumstances of his birth and his own moral weakness. The story unfolds in a dreamlike manner—a flashback inspired by a now-infamous image on a silkscreen in the souvenir shop at the so-called Temple of the Wild Geese.
Hanada
A story about the nature of office workers today.
Japanese soldiers stranded in Manokwari, New Guinea, improvise a theater play to keep their spirits up and endure the extremely difficult conditions.
Takashi, who took the blame when his father shot a gangster, returns home after serving a four-year sentence, only to find it infested with yakuza running a dope ring. Battling gangsters all the way, Takashi searches for his former girlfriend, now a drug addict.
One night, three wives, Matsuyo, Keiko and Mari, receive a mysterious telephone call. The voice tells them that she has their husbands with her and invites them to " P " Hotel to see for themselves. They have been married for many years and are bored with their husbands, and are about to secretly carry on affairs with the other's mates.
Japanese comedy film.
Kuma
A nameless ronin, or samurai with no master, enters a small village in feudal Japan where two rival businessmen are struggling for control of the local gambling trade. Taking the name Sanjuro Kuwabatake, the ronin convinces both silk merchant Tazaemon and sake merchant Tokuemon to hire him as a personal bodyguard, then artfully sets in motion a full-scale gang war between the two ambitious and unscrupulous men.
Sotaro Uhara
One week into newlywed Teiko Uhara's marriage, her husband, Kenichi, leaves on a short business trip and never returns. Teiko travels across Japan to search for him, and along the way discovers some surprising facts about her husband's past. With only a pair of old photographs among his belongings to go off of, Teiko tries to figure out what has happened to him.
Denroku
Late romance by acclaimed filmmaker Kinugasa Teinosuke.
Sai
Eye-popping visuals and black humor mark this wild New Wave masterpiece about a vengeful contractor who hires a series of young killers to target a woman muckraker. Trouble brews when an amateur marksman shows up his eclectic competition.
Yajima
In the city of Yokosuka, Kinta and his lover Haruko, both involved with yakuza, brave the post-occupation period with a goal to be together.
Uno
Kohei Misugi works in a vegetable market, but his ambition is to be a photographer. He is given his first opportunity to demonstrate his talent by the Sakura Film Company which offers him an assignment to "Cover Tokyo" with a camera. But he is disillusioned when he is told he must work together with Miharu, a good looking girl in the film company's publicity department. Then the fun begins.
A semi-documentary story about the vicissitudes in the life of an elderly fisherman.
Contract Officer Shirai
In this loose adaptation of "Hamlet," illegitimate son Kôichi Nishi climbs to a high position within a Japanese corporation and marries the crippled daughter of company vice president Iwabuchi. At the reception, the wedding cake is a replica of their corporate headquarters, but an aspect of the design reminds the party of the hushed-up death of Nishi's father. It is then that Nishi unleashes his plan to avenge his father's death.
When a middle aged salaryman is unknowingly used by drug traffickers he is dishonored and fires back at the Yakuza bosses, with destructive consequences.
Matakichi Nakaike
Koreyoshi Kurahara’s ingeniously plotted, pocket-size noir concerns the intertwined fates of a desperate bank manager, blackmailed for book-cooking, and his resentful but timid underling, passed over for a promotion. The marvelously moody Intimidation (Aru kyouhaku) is an elegantly stripped-down and carefully paced crime drama.
Okudaira
Suspense drama about a married salaryman whose affair with one of his co-workers is compromised when, returning from a clandestine meeting with his lover, he runs into a neighbor who is later accused of murder. Questioned by police about the neighbor, and blackmailed by his lover's neighbor, the salaryman's lies lead him on a path to destruction.
When Ryuji - the Gun Slinger, a drug addict leaves hospital to which he was taken after a gunfight by a notorious killer named Gin of Colt, he is employed as a bodyguard by Yo Sangen, chief of a narcotics smuggling ring.
Japanese crime film
Goro Mitamura
The film tells the story of four orphans living in an impoverished mining town. An adaptation of a best-selling book based on the diary of a ten-year-old zainichi (ethnic Korean Japanese) girl, it was one of the first films to deal with the subject of zainichi identity and struggles in Japan.
Ryu Konei
Seven years ago, Ishimatsu Toshio, a talented radio producer at Zen Nihon Hōsō, witnessed a crazed drug addict murder his wife and then commit suicide, though Toshio was able to save the lives of their two children. Just transferred from Shimizu to Tokyo, Toshio hopes to produce a program that will expose the drug trade in Tokyo. One day, Toshio stops into a noodle shop where he is mistaken for a drug dealer and passed a bagful of drugs. The real dealer arrives in time to follow Toshio home. That night Toshio is attacked by the dealer, who turns out to be Kenji, one of the children Toshio had saved. Kenji can't bring himself to kill Toshio, so he runs away and goes into hiding from the mafia. While continuing to investigate the drug trade, Toshio searches for Kenji to get Kenji's testimony for his program.
Story of an ex-con trying to go straight, but of course the old ways die hard.
A man is wrongfully accused of murder.
A lifetime story of a woman who stubbornly lives in a poor mountain village in post-war Japan.
Tetsuji Mizutani
At about the same time as lwami, president of a Tokyo company is murdered by an unknown assailant, it happens that an urgent call has been received from an airline company's office on remote Hachijo Island for a special serum. A Cessna aircraft which has been chartered by a man named Ohashi takes off for the island with the serum piloted by Ishida. But when airborne, Ohashi, who is the murderer of lwami, holds up Ishida at gunpoint and orders him to land on a small island west of Hachijo where a ship is waiting to take him to Hong Kong...
Pharmacist
Set in post-war Japan, a group of five, four men and one woman, gathers in the basement of a butcher shop to dig up a cache of morphine buried during the war. A grimly humorous tale of twisted relationships as one by one each of the group is eliminated.
A unique action drama in which a ruthless yakuza encounters a woman and realizes his true love as the conflict between the yakuza intensifies.
Tominaga
Former boxer Daishiro lost his wife, and his only son, Kaoru, went missing, it was a heavy blow for Daishiro. One day, Daishiro got a call from his relative Morihiko. He said he forgot the winning lottery ticket of 2 million yen at the hotel, so he wants Daishiro to go and pick it up. Morihiko used the hotel for secret meetings, so he said he couldn't go there himself because he was afraid it would become public. When Daishiro entered the hotel, the Yakuza, who learned about the lottery from the newspaper, threaten the hotel maid Noriko, and want to rob her. Daishiro helps Noriko and safely picks up the lottery, but a message arrives from his relative Seikichi from Osaka. His missing son Kaoru is said to be a boxer in Osaka. "My son... He has the blood of a boxer in him..." Daishiro is heading to Osaka in a hurry...
This short comedy concerns the extramarital affair of a drugstore owner. It is based on a popular song by the star of the film, Frank Nagai.
Reporter
A family is slowly falling apart: the father is absent from the start, the mother a kept woman thanks to her children, the son is being cheated on by his wife, one daughter is forced to marry an older man against her will, while the other has retreated into smug moral superiority.
Japanese comedy film.
Kanji Takada
A rumbunctious and ribald tale of a troupe of travelling actors who alternate highlights of kabuki theatre with strip shows.
Japanese crime film
A young doctor discovers that the city hall of records has a record of his death. He and some friends try to seek out the person who reported it, and uncover a shady group of criminals with a sinister plot.
Acupressurist
A woman who grew up in a prestigious household, begins to have an affair outside the marriage.
Hikobei
In a warehouse area at night, a drunk chief engineer is stabbed to death by someone who whistles. After the break of dawn, two seamen join the crew of a rusty cargo ship Kaiyo Maru. One is a troublemaker with bad attitudes, Senkichi Nomura, who pursues an enemy in order to take revenge for his father's death. The other is Keizo Sasaki, a buff, eagle-eyed man on board for a certain mission.
A scrap iron carrier arrived at Tokyo bay. The ship swarmed with the stevedores, the souvenir seller and the hookers. The crews of ship were oppressed by arrogant captain and his officers. The crews caused an uprising. A manager of stevedore ordered his employee leader to suppress an uprising...
Peasant
Nominated for Golden Berlin Bear.
Kiyami no Shinko
Saheji, a man-about-town, gets stuck at a high-class brothel when he can’t pay the bill. He makes the best of his situation by performing various tasks amidst the tumult of the end of the shogunate—but always by making sure to get a “commission” for his troubles.
Nakagawa
Harsh film about a car dealer who gets into financial trouble.
A narrative depicting the appearance of soldiers scattered in Rabaul during the Pacific War. The original work of Yoshinori Matsuura was dramatized by Toyama Tetsu of “Smuggling of the Body”, also directed by Yutaka Abe, and Shigeyoshi Mine of “Densuke's Propaganda” was in charge of the shooting. The main performers are Michitaro Mizushima of “Smuggling of the Body”, Ryoji Hayama of “The Sorrowful Garden”, Shoji Yasui of “The People of Okino”, Shiro Osaka of “Lonely Man”, “Tetsuji Kawakami Story 16” In addition to Hiroshi Nihonyanagi, Shinsuke Maki, Isamu Kosugi of the "Hunger Soul", Ko Mishima, Satoshi Nishimura, Saburo Hiromatsu, Hiroshi Kondo and others.
Tax Collector
Roppeita is big in size, clumsy and full of energy. When his grandfather orders him to move out to Tokyo to save a sinking milk delivery business a distant relative of his runs, he encounters the most strangest of clientele.
Dotanba - Last Minute
Japanese drama film.
The story is a dramatization of the Japanese folklore legend of Momotaro, the Peach Boy, who with his trusted companions of dog, monkey and pheasant fought against evil in olden times.
Japanese film.
Kasuya
A botanist woos the secretary of an industrialist whose company threatens the local water supply.
Baba
In the War's closing days, when a conscience-driven Japanese soldier fails to get his countrymen to surrender to overwhelming force, he adopts the lifestyle of a Buddhist monk.
An ethical, young tax collector new to his area encounters increasingly absurd individuals and groups coping with their post-war woes.
Extraordinary detective
A movie that depicts the tragic fate of many Yokaren flight-academy pilots.
1959 Japanese movie
