Kota Mizutani, a 10-year-old boy whose health worsened after he saw a murder, is brought to Akiko's clinic by his mother Mariko. Kota says that two months ago, he witnessed a man in a park strangling a woman with a cord and was chased by the man afterwards. Hamada, who listens to his story along with Akiko, immediately performs an investigation but cannot find any traces of the crime. However, Kota's testimony gains credence when the body of a woman killed two months before is discovered on a construction site in Kawagoe. Acting on a tip from a citizen who says she had been wearing the same clothes as the victim, the police search the house of Kazuko Shimazaki, a photographer who is often absent. But when Kazuko returns from her trip with her assistant Hirano, it becomes clear the victim is a different person.
Business is a game! A theatrical version of the TV drama that became a social phenomenon starring Teruhiko Saigo. Set in a wholesaler town in Osaka, it depicts the activities of the main character Takezo Yamashita who repels adversity with a man's stubbornness and guts.
President of the territorial yakuza organization is being manipulated by a crooked leader in the military and some capitalists Ishikiri. The plan is to get multiple family of the organized crime groups based in Osaka to war it out and order the Shima to the Onishi group of the branch to expand the territory. Now members of the same yakuza gang are forced to fight each other over territory and honor.
Zatoichi is a blind massage therapist and swordsman who finds out that something troubling is taking place on the outskirts of town. After discovering who the guilty parties are -- an accomplished Chinese martial artist named Wang Kang and his youthful attendant -- Zatoichi finds them and discovers that the pair's mixed up with a dangerous bunch of terrorist samurai who murdered the boy's parents. Now, Zatoichi must step in to save the day.
Part 7 in the Gambling Den series. This time Koji Tsuruta is a gambler who feels sympathetic towards a woman whose naive husband is driven to a debt trap by a rotten gambling den owner (Tatsuo Endo) and his dishonest card dealer (Isamu Nagato). The plot is standard stuff and features too much talk, but there's also a decent balance between melodrama and lyricism in the form and storytelling. Tsuruta was a perfect fit for these kind of roles, with the stoic and emotional sides nicely mixed in his screen persona.
