In the summer of 1947, various men and women gather at a mansion in the countryside at the invitation of Kazuma Utagawa. They are artists, novelists, poets, painters, playwrights, actresses,…
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…
Kizaki kidnaps Yuriko and engages in a rape and torture session with her, which he photographs. With the photos, he blackmails flower arrangement teacher Yumeji, Yuriko’s older sister. Rather than…
A police investigator cracks down on yakuza business, but once he realizes the police are in negotiations with certain factions, he sides with his own syndicate of choice.
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.
A cowardly samurai is sent as an official executioner targeting the clan’s former sword instructor, a man whose sword and spear skills are second to none.
A passionate telling of the story of Sada Abe, a woman whose affair with her master led to an obsessive and ultimately destructive sexual relationship.
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…
Two short stories set in Edo during the Shogun era. The first, during a time when Christians are persecuted vehemently, Iori falls in love with a young Christian girl. When…
Tora-san arrives in Shibamata on Mitsuo’s first day of school only to find that on his account, Mitsuo was embarrassed. After a fight with his family, he goes to a…
A giant sea monster known as Dragonsaurus has emerged from out of nowhere, terrorizing the depths of the oceans. Great Mazinger, Grendizer and the Getter Robo G team join forces…
The story of an orphan girl, brought up in naive, rustic innocence by an elderly relative, who is suddenly exposed to the brutality, greed and deceptiveness of the outside world…
Kiku Nakakawa, the only daughter of an old kimono shop owner in Kyoto, is enthusiastic about karate. To help her friend Michi avenge her brother, she sneaks into a movie…
Alien invaders take over Great Mazinger who is at the entrance of a museum next to Mazinger Z as symbols of peace. Grendizer fights the evil invaders and Great Mazinger…
Akemi is a laboratory technician who spends her evenings spying on her gangster neighbor as he makes love to his stripper girlfriend. The objects of Akemi’s voyeuristic attentions learn of…
Sisterhood is powerful. Before leaving for a mission in Africa, Runa, a nun, visits her sister three years after entering the convent when her sister stole Runa’s boyfriend. Runa comes…
Tora-san is inspired to pursue an education after a visit to the grave of a woman he met years ago. When he returns to Shibamata with the intent to study,…
Akira and Hiroshi are two lowlives who work at a pachinko parlour. Hiroshi is a ladies’ man but always loses at pachinko. Akira is a virgin at 25 but always…
A young shepherd, Lucas, is blinded by lightening, and some kindly nuns at a nearby abbey take him in. Sister Catherine describes snow to Lucas, who has never seen it….
When Koryu’s childhood friend Shurei is abducted by gangsters, the desperate young woman recruits a female martial artist and a tough-as-nails stranger to join her for a dangerous rescue mission.
A woman and her bridegroom are found murdered in their bed the day after their wedding. It had snowed overnight and the killer left no tracks. It is up to…
The first of many movies featuring the lighthearted adventures of two truck drivers. Momojiro and his best friend Kinzo take to the road on their cargo trucks impressing each other…
Tora-san visits Hokkaido and is reunited with Lily. Now divorced, she plans to resume her singing career and renews her unusual relationship with Tora-san.
After his leading actress becomes pregnant and wants to quit, Juzo, an adult film director, becomes obsessed with finding the woman whose moaning he captured secretly at a dentist’s office…
A military explorer meets and befriends a Goldi man in Russia’s unmapped forests. A deep and abiding bond evolves between the two men, one civilized in the usual sense, the…
A Japanese bullet train is threatened with a bomb that will explode automatically if the train slows below 80 km/h, unless a ransom is paid. Police race to find the…
ĀTMAN is a visual tour-de-force based on the idea of the subject at the centre of the circle created by camera positions (480 such positions). Shooting frame-by-frame the filmmaker set…
“Jealous” man-killer Mayumi (Hitomi Kozue) is sent back into solitary confinement after being re-arrested for the murder of the doctor who fingered her for a botched surgery. After emerging from…
Nakadai is an English teacher at a local school. He’s put-upon like the patron figure of dozens of films and televisions shows. Viewers who are especially fans of Nakadai will…
A violent upstart forms an alliance with the powerful Tensei-kai syndicate to fight on the front lines of an underworld war and take over all of Japan.
In 39 interviews with actors and actresses, writers, producers and staff members, interspersed with film excerpts and stills, Shindō recounts the life and career of his friend and mentor Mizoguchi.
Shihomi Etsuko plays a race car driver who also lends out her services to the Japanese Secret Service. Although there really isn’t much of a “chase” to be seen, Shihomi…
