
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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Tag Archives: japanese
Gurotesuku / Grotesque (2009) Kôji Shiraishi, Kotoha Hiroyama, Hiroaki Kawatsure, Shigeo Ôsako, Horror, Thriller

An unnamed doctor has always had everything he’s ever wanted, but that has only made him develop more extreme and depraved needs. He kidnaps a young couple in the prime of their life together and forces them into a game of torment that slowly extinguishes their hopes for survival.
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Revolver (1988) Toshiya Fujita, Kenji Sawada, Masatoshi Murakami, Shiori Sakura, Action, Crime, Drama

When a gun belonging to a police officer is stolen, it ends up in the hands of a student, who decides to use it on a yakuza who beat him recently. Now the police officer is hot on the student’s trail, and he’s determined to prevent the gun from going off.
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Nurse Diary Beast Afternoon (1982) Naosuke Kurosawa, Maiko Kazama, Jun Miho, Miki Yamaji, Hideo Shiroyama, Crime, Sci-Fi, Erotic

A doctor develops a new scientific breakthrough in female psychotherapy with the discovery of the “Dream Ring,” a device that is inserted into a woman to record her thoughts and dreams.
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Flame Of Blood / Hono-o no Gotoku (1981) Tai Katô, Bunta Sugawara, Mitsuko Baishô, Tomisaburô Wakayama, Drama, Action

The story is set in Bakumatsu and revolves around the Bunta Sugawara character, a yakuza (of course 🙂 but instead of a modern yakuza/gangster, he’s a gambler/bakuto). After he kills someone and gets wound, is saved by a blind woman (Mitsuko Baishô), who took care of him.
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Flag in the Mist / Kiri no hata (1965) Yôji Yamada, Chieko Baishô, Osamu Takizawa, Michiyo Aratama

When her only relative, her elder brother is accused of robbing and murdering an old woman loan-shark Read More »
Yakuza Taxi / 893 Taxi (1994) Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Susumu Terajima, Kouichi Ueda, Yoshiyuki Oomori, Comedy

The Yakusa clan Inoshika decides to help a small family business, Taxi Tanaka, lured by the clan Jinryûkaï and deeply in debt.
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Kagerô-za / Heat-Haze Theatre (1981) Seijun Suzuki, Yûsaku Matsuda, Michiyo Ohkusu, Mariko Kaga, Fantasy, Romance, Thriller

Playwright Matsuzaki (Yusaku Matsuda) crosses paths with a beautiful woman on her way to the hospital who tells him a friend is dying. Frightened of a mysterious older woman who sells the fruit of the Chinese Lantern Plant – rumored to be distaff souls – she implores Matsuzaki to accompany her.
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Zigeunerweisen / Tsigoineruwaizen (1980) Seijun Suzuki, Yoshio Harada, Naoko Ôtani, Toshiya Fujita, Horror, Mystery

A surreal period film following an university professor and his eerie nomad friend as they go through loose romantic triangles and face death in peculiar ways.
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Violent Virgin / Gewalt! Gewalt: shojo geba-geba (1969) Kôji Wakamatsu, Eri Ashikawa, Toshiyuki Tanigawa, Miki Hayashi, Crime, Horror, Erotic

Filmed entirely in a desolate field, Violent Virgin opens with two cars travelling along a dusty road. Three men and three women, apparently members of a gang, have a couple bound and blindfolded. After they reach their demonstration, they drag the man and woman, whose names we soon learn are Hoshi and Hanako, out of the cars and dump them on the ground. It seems that Hanako was the boss’s girl, but she eloped with Hoshi. Captured, it seems that they are going to be murdered, but not before they are humiliated by the other gang members.
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