Iwao Ôtani

A short documentary visiting some of Rashômon’s key locations, featuring interviews with former staff from the Daiei-Kyoto Studios.

In this documentary, script supervisor Teruyo Nogami, who first worked with Akira Kurosawa on RASHOMON, catches up with many members of the crew, including cowriter Shinobu Hashimoto and assistant director Tokuzo Tanaka. They talk about the screenplay’s evolution, difficulties during the shooting of the film, and Kurosawa’s working methods.

Rin Jyoshima lost her father to death-by-gambling; years later, she's grown up in the Kosugi household and has fallen victim to gambling herself.

The Man Who Assassinated Ryoma is a movie about a haunted blood-thirsty Bakufu officer who might have killed Ryoma Sakamoto.

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.

Vigésimo segunda de las veintiséis películas basadas en el personaje de Zatoichi interpretado por Shintarô Katsu. Un luchador manco chino llamado Wang Kong se encuentra con otra familia también china. Debido a que el hijo de la familia entorpece sin querer una procesión de ofrenda al shogunato, se inicia una reyerta en la que mueren el padre y la madre del niño. Zatoichi más tarde se encuentra al niño, y se queda con él momentáneamente hasta que después, se va con Wang Kong. Zatoichi decide ayudarlos a escapar, pero las cosas no salen como habían previsto.

The Shinobi-no-Mono series was so successful that Daiei Studios dipped into the well one more time, making the best 60′s B&W ninja movie ever seen in the otherwise color-dominated year of 1970. Issei Mori directs Hiroki Matsukata as the reluctant leader of a small band of spies charged with kidnapping a noblewoman from a heavily ninja-proofed castle. The finality of the air slowly began to fill like smoke, and in all that had become dark the loyalty of the Ninja who dared to go shone like light as they entered a world shrouded in mystery. Things do not go as planned in what is possibly the darkest and most fatalistic of the already noir-ish 60′s fare. Both the decade and it’s distinctive style of shinobi cinema went out on a high note with Mission Iron Castle.

Lord Oda Nobunaga gains control of nearly all of Japan and tries to enlist the aid of Magoichi and his 3.000 gunners.

An abandoned temple in the mountains outside of the old capital city of Kyoto is the scene of a fated meeting between a traveling priest, two women, and a vicious killer. Bloody violence erupts whenever strangers approach the temple. Can the traveling priest bring his belief in the Buddha and rid the three temple residents of the devils that hold their souls?

Just when you think Kyoshiro's life can't get any stranger, someone starts running around raping and murdering, and leaving notes proudly proclaiming that he did it. Tracking down the real culprit willtake him along a twisted trail that involves the Shogun's harem, hidden christians, and positively pregnant politics!

Zatoichi runs afoul of some evil fugitives, working for a corrupt law official.

Decimoséptima de las veintiséis películas basadas en el personaje de Zatoichi interpretado por Shintarô Katsu. Zatoichi comparte habitación en una posada con una mujer moribunda junto a su joven hijo. Como última voluntad antes de morir, le pide a Zatoichi que lleve a su hijo junto a su padre, Shokichi, al cual no ve desde hace muchos años.

In the 19th century Edo period, sisters Oshizu and Otaka have sacrificed their personal happiness to work and care for their ailing father. Otaka falls in love, but can’t accept a marriage proposal since her older sister needs to marry first. When Oshizu learns of this decision, she takes matters in her own hands.

The Son of the Black Mass returns in this ninth installment in Daiei's longstanding Nemuri Kyoshiro series. This time Raizo Ichikawa as Nemuri is called to see that a gold statuette of the Virgin Mary gets safe passage to Kyoto from the prying hands of a sect of murderous Christian ronin that call themselves the Black Finger Group.

A Japanese film

Un malvado guerrero invade un pueblo durante una fiesta. El guerrero quema las casas y asesina sin piedad a civiles indefensos. También roba todo lo que puede y sus hombres destruyen la estatua de su dios, que está en medio del pueblo y lanzan sus restos al lago. Todo parece perdido, pero de repente una extraña fuerza surge del lago, matando a los soldados...

Zatoichi's trek through 88 temples to atone for his violent past is interrupted as he stumbles into a village terrorized by a violent yakuza boss.

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.

In the mountain regions of Hida, the dreams of a peasant named Kyonosuke, who longed to be a samurai, come true when he becomes one of three doubles, of shadows, of Lord Yasutaka. After months of intense and cruel training, he faces his destiny when the Lord and the other two shadows are killed in battle and he must take on the role of Lord Yasutaka....

Mientras representa una obra de kabuki haciendo un tour con su compañía teatral, un actor descubre a los tres hombres que empujaron al suicidio a sus padres veinte años atrás. Planeará una tranquila venganza. (FILMAFFINITY)

The Fencing Master tells the story of a man trying to survive as the only world he knows is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Danpei Ichikawa lives for swordfighting – he was once a renowned kabuki swordfight choreographer, and as the Chairman of the New National Theatre Company, he wants nothing more than to choreograph the swordfights for the modern plays put on by the company.

Primera de las veintiséis películas basadas en el personaje de Zatoichi interpretado por Shintarô Katsu. En esta primera película se presenta al personaje de Zatoichi como un masajista ciego extremadamente hábil luchando con la espada, el cual se encontrará en medio de la lucha de dos clanes yakuza rivales (Lioka y Sasagawa).

Basada en la novela THE GREAT BUDDHA PASS (la fuente de SWORD OF DOOM), esta versión de la clásica historia va más acorde con la novela original. La historia de un asesino a sangre fría, Tsuke Ryunosuke y sus desventuras en Japón durante la década de 1860. Como telón de fondo de la agitación política de la época. Esta es la primera de la trilogía.

This is the story of a blind masseur who tricks people, steals, and kills; he is the anti-Zatoichi

Once upon a time, Okuro (Ayako Wakao), a young female racoon, lived poorly with her drunken father. One day after they disguised themselves as parasols, they were wrongly brought to the Racoon Palace, where the young racoon princess (also Ayako Wakao) made a mess of her arranged marriage with the beautiful racoon prince (Raizô Ichikawa). Pretty princess ran away. In order not to spoil the promising marriage, people tried to make use of resemblances between Okuro and the princess. Before long, Okuro and the Prince fell in love with each other...

In one of Japan's most frequently-told ghost stories, a murdered wife returns in an act of vengeance.

During the 1200's, legendary Buddhist monk Nichiren returns from his studies to lead Japan out of moral crisis and prepare to fight Mongol invaders by creating a new form of Buddhism. He runs afoul of the existing Buddhist sects and their government supporters and is persecuted. Can Nichiren persevere before the Mogol fleet reaches Japanese shores?

En el Japón feudal del siglo XII, los Taira y los Fujiwara son clanes que luchan por la supremacía. Mientras tanto, en el palacio imperial hay dos cortes: la del emperador en funciones y la de su predecesor.

Adaptación de una obra de teatro (kabuki) del siglo XVII de Chikamatsu Monzaemon. Osan vive en Kioto y está casada con Ishun, un rico y tacaño funcionario. Cuando Osan es acusada falsamente de tener una relación con Mohei, ambos huyen rápidamente de la ciudad. Ishun, por su parte, ordena a sus hombres que los encuentren y los separen para evitar el escándalo.

The Great White Tiger Platoon was part of the Aizu clan's last ditch efforts to stop the advance of Imperial troops after the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Meant to be a reserve unit as it was made of the young, 16-17 year old sons of Aizu samurai. Their story is one of the great tragedies of the Boshin War (1868-1869) as they were called into action. Getting cut off from the main body of their platoon, a group of 20 from the 2nd squad retreated to Iimori Hill, where they looked down upon fires surrounding Aizu Castle and thinking that the castle has fallen and all is lost, they choose to die as samurai by committing seppuku. A superb rendition of this true story that shows the true honor of the samurai.

A finales de la Era Heian en el siglo XII, el gobernador de un pueblo es enviado al exilio. A pesar de que su familia quiere ir con él, ninguno podrá acompañarle, pues, engañados por una vieja que se hace pasar por sacerdotisa, son vendidos como esclavos por separado: la madre por un lado y los hijos por otro.

La joven y bella Eiko ha ido a refugiarse a un barrio de Kioto, a casa de Miyoharu, una geisha con muy buena reputación de la que Eiko quiere aprender. Ambas se hacen inseparables, pero una noche Eiko muerde a un cliente y las dos deben abandonar el barrio.

En el Japón del siglo XVI, los campesinos Genjuro y Tobei venden sus vasijas de barro a un grupo de soldados en un pueblo cercano, desafiando la advertencia de un sabio local contra la búsqueda de ganancias en la guerra. La búsqueda de riquezas de Genjuro y de la misteriosa Lady Wakasa, así como el deseo de Tobei de convertirse en samurái, corren el riesgo de destruirlos a ellos mismos y a sus esposas, Miyagi y Ohama.

An intellectual couple in a staid and tedious marriage are surprised when the wife’s niece, who has run away from home, turns up unexpectedly to stay with them. Their mundane lives are sent into disarray by the emotional and energetic Ako.

Shinnosuke acepta casarse con Shizu con tal de poder estar cerca de su hermana Oyu, viuda y madre de un hijo. Las costumbres japonesas prohíben que Oyu se case porque su deber es educar a su hijo para que llegue a ser el jefe de la familia de su marido. Entre los tres se creará un extraño vínculo. (FILMAFFINITY)

Japón, siglo XII. En Kioto, bajo las puertas del derruido templo de Rashomon, se guarecen de la torrencial lluvia un leñador, un sacerdote budista y un peregrino. Los tres discuten sobre el juicio a un bandido, acusado de haber dado muerte a un señor feudal y violado a su esposa. Los detalles del crimen son narrados desde el punto de vista del bandido, de la mujer, del señor feudal -con la ayuda de un médium- y del leñador, único testigo de los hechos.

La hija mayor de los Takamatsu, Atsuko, viuda, vuelve a la casa paterna porque no congenia con su familia política. Por su parte, la hija menor, Yukiko, está enamorada de un profesor mayor que ella y no duda en salir de excursión con él pese al disgusto de su padre. Todo ello, unido a que Yukiko y Atusko se llevan bastante mal, va a sacudir los cimientos de la familia Takamatsu.