In the beginning of the springtime in the period of the Japanese Civil Wars of the Sixteenth Century in Lake Biwa in the Province of Omi, the family man farmer and craftsman Genjurô travels to Nagahama to sell his wares and makes a small fortune.
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Tag Archives: Japan
Onmyoji / The Yin Yang Master (2001) Yôjirô Takita, Mansai Nomura, Hideaki Itô, Hiroyuki Sanada, Action, Fantasy, Drama
In a time when demons and ghosts threaten to bring total devastation to a powerful kingdom, betrayal from within the powerful ranks of the ruling emperor threatens to bring an entire civilization to its knees in this supernaturally charged martial arts epic from director Yojiro Takita.
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Shiruku hatto no ô-oyabun / Big Boss in a Silk Hat (1970) Noribumi Suzuki, Tomisaburô Wakayama, Yuri Yamashina, Masumi Harukawa, Crime
In a strange outfit and full of youthful energy, the explosive Boss Kumatora raises hell like there’s no tomorrow.
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Agein: 28-nenme no Koushien / Again (2015) Sumio Ohmori, Kiichi Nakai, Haru, Emi Wakui, Drama
A high school baseball team had to quit before the final because of the fact that one player was envolved in a student pregnancy and abortion. After twenty eight years, the daughter of the dismissed player found the old players of the team and persuaded them to play the baseball again.
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Red Room: The Forbidden King Game (1999) Daisuke Yamanouchi, Hiroshi Kitasenju, Sheena Nagamori, Mayumi Ookawa, Horror, Thriller, Exploitation
How low would you go to win a million dollars? Just how desperate are you for the cash? Desperate enough to enter the Red Room? In this latest and most vicious game show to emerge from the Japanese underground, four contestants (a husband and wife on the edge of divorce, and two sisters) are locked in the Red Room to draw cards in the “king game.”
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Fires on the Plain / Nobi (1959) Kon Ichikawa, Eiji Funakoshi, Mantarô Ushio, Yoshihiro Hamaguchi, Drama, War
It is the Philipines, 1945. The Japanese Imperial Army has been reduced to a ragtag mob hiding in the jungles. Among them is Pvt. Tamura.
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Esupai / E.S.P.Y. (1974) Jun Fukuda, Hiroshi Fujioka, Kaoru Yumi, Masao Kusakari, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller
The film deals with the recruitment of racecar driver Jiro Miki (Kusakari) and his dog, Cheetah, to a group of people who use ESP, psychokinesis, and other special mental abilities to fight crime.
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Hasami otoko / The Man Behind The Scissors (2005) Toshiharu Ikeda, Etsushi Toyokawa, Kumiko Asô, Hiroshi Abe, Crime, Thriller
Toshiharu Ikeda makes a return to extreme genre fare with this taut police procedural about serial murder suspects who possess convincing alibis.
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Akumu Tantei 2 / Nightmare Detective 2 (2008) Shin’ya Tsukamoto, Ryûhei Matsuda, Yui Miura, Hanae Kan, Drama, Horror
Yukie and two of her girlfriends are being haunted by the ghost of a classmate, they once heavily bullied. When the other two die under mysterious circumstances, Yukie sees only one chance for herself. With the help of the Nightmare Detective (Ryuhei Matsuda) she hopes to escape her hopeless situation.
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Samurai From Somewhere / Zoku Dojo Yaburi: Mondo Muyo (1964) Yasushi Kikuchi, Kôki Matsuno, Isamu Nagato, Tetsurô Tanba, Haruko Wanibuchi, Drama
Young Lord Takenaka stands to succeed his father until a series of violent actions lead his retainers to believe that he has gone insane with blood-lust.
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Ôgon no inu / The Golden Dog (1979) Shigeyuki Yamane, Kôji Tsuruta, Yôko Shimada, Isao Natsuyagi, Drama
Head of Arms Department in the Ministry of Industry and Trade Yukichi Nagayama was caught up in corruption scandal. He puts secret documents onto microfilm and attaches it to the collar of hunting dog Goro…
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Sanma no aji / An Autumn Afternoon (1962) Yasujirô Ozu, Chishû Ryû, Shima Iwashita, Keiji Sada, Drama
In the early 60’s in Tokyo, the widower Hirayama is a former captain from the Japanese navy that works as a manager of a factory and lives with his twenty-four year-old daughter Michiko and his son Kazuo in his house.
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Lone Wolf with Child: Assassin on the Road to Hell (1989) Tokuzô Tanaka, Action
The story of Lone Wolf and Child has been told many times, but never before like this. With the magnificent sword skills of Takahashi Hideki as Ogami Itto, the Shogun’s Decapitator and Wakayama Tomisaburo as the power hungry Lord Yagyu Retsudo the story has come full circle.
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Yakusoku / The Rendezvous (1972) Kôichi Saitô, Keiko Kishi, Ken’ichi Hagiwara, Yoshie Minami, Drama
During a long train ride heading north of Japan, a young man addresses an older woman in front of him. At first she doesn’t respond, but he finally gets her into a conversation when he offers her lunch. Thus begins Saito Koichi’s famous romantic thriller, Le Rendezvous. The woman turns out to be a murderer on parole, whist the man a runaway accused of assault and robbery. As it happens, the two soon fall in love. The woman asks the man to wait two years until she is released from jail. And he agress.
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Aozora Musume / The Blue Sky Maiden (1957) Yasuzô Masumura, Ayako Wakao, Keizô Kawasaki, Kenji Sugawara, Comedy, Drama
Ayako Wakao plays good-natured Yuko, the illegitimate daughter of a well-off executive, raised in the country by relatives. Journeying to Tokyo she finds Father’s Western-style house to be a nest of vipers straight out of There’s Always Tomorrow, replete with Terrible Children, a housekeeper who sees all, and a dog named Cal with his own doghouse. But Yuko meets it all with aplomb; she’s interested in one thing only, finding her real, cast off mother.
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