American Cinematheque - Japanese Outlaw Masters Retrospective
by labyrinthofdreams | created - 16 Oct 2011 | updated - 16 Oct 2011 | PublicA collection of titles shown theatrically by the American Cinematheque as part of their Outlaw Masters of Japanese Film series.
http://www.jpf.go.jp/e/culture/new/old/more/07_02.html
http://www.americancinematheque.com/japanoutlaw21999.htm
http://egyptiantheatre.com/archive1999/2001/japanoutlaw3.htm
http://egyptiantheatre.com/archive1999/2002/japanese4.htm
http://egyptiantheatre.com/archive1999/2005/JapaneseOutlawMasters.htm
http://www.americancinematheque.com/archive1999/2007/Japanese_Outlaw_Masters_2007.htm
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1. Battles Without Honor and Humanity (1973)
Not Rated | 99 min | Crime, Drama
During the violent chaos of post-War Japanese black market, a young gangster called Shozo Hirono has to keep up with the rapid shifts of power between unscrupulous bosses.
Director: Kinji Fukasaku | Stars: Bunta Sugawara, Hiroki Matsukata, Kunie Tanaka, Eiko Nakamura
Votes: 4,307
2. The Sword of Doom (1966)
Not Rated | 120 min | Action, Drama
Through his unconscionable actions against others, a sociopath samurai builds a trail of vendettas that follow him closely.
Director: Kihachi Okamoto | Stars: Tatsuya Nakadai, Michiyo Aratama, Yûzô Kayama, Yôko Naitô
Votes: 12,063
3. Ecstasy of the Angels (1972)
Not Rated | 89 min | Action, Drama, Mystery
A revolutionary faction steals some hand bombs. While escaping, several soldiers are killed. The movement's highest authority deems October unfit and sends the leader of another faction to take the remaining bombs.
Director: Kôji Wakamatsu | Stars: Ken Yoshizawa, Rie Yokoyama, Yuki Aresa, Tatsuhiko Honda
Votes: 1,076
4. Pale Flower (1964)
Not Rated | 96 min | Action, Crime
A gangster gets released from prison and has to cope with the recent shifts of power between the gangs, while taking care of a thrill-seeking young woman, who got in bad company while gambling.
Director: Masahiro Shinoda | Stars: Ryô Ikebe, Mariko Kaga, Takashi Fujiki, Naoki Sugiura
Votes: 4,386
5. Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 (1972)
Not Rated | 90 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
After spending a year in solitary confinement, Matsu escapes from prison with six more convicts, followed by the guards led by the vengeful warden who wants her dead at all costs.
Director: Shun'ya Itô | Stars: Meiko Kaji, Fumio Watanabe, Yukie Kagawa, Kayoko Shiraishi
Votes: 3,370
6. Gate of Flesh (1964)
Not Rated | 90 min | Drama
An injured thief on the run finds sanctuary within a brothel of united, ruthless women.
Director: Seijun Suzuki | Stars: Jô Shishido, Kôji Wada, Yumiko Nogawa, Tomiko Ishii
Votes: 3,376
7. Black Tight Killers (1966)
87 min | Action, Crime, Thriller
A military photographer takes a cute stewardess out to dinner where she is promptly kidnapped. Deciding that he has fallen in love with the girl, our "hero" decides to investigate her kidnapping himself.
Director: Yasuharu Hasebe | Stars: Akira Kobayashi, Chieko Matsubara, Akemi Kita, Mieko Nishio
Votes: 393
8. Harakiri (1962)
Not Rated | 133 min | Action, Drama, Mystery
When a ronin requesting seppuku at a feudal lord's palace is told of the brutal suicide of another ronin who previously visited, he reveals how their pasts are intertwined - and in doing so challenges the clan's integrity.
Director: Masaki Kobayashi | Stars: Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Ishihama, Shima Iwashita, Tetsurô Tanba
Votes: 68,583
9. Blind Beast (1969)
86 min | Drama, Horror
A blind sculpter and his mother kidnap a young model.
Director: Yasuzô Masumura | Stars: Eiji Funakoshi, Mako Midori, Noriko Sengoku
Votes: 3,903
10. Fight, Zatoichi, Fight (1964)
Not Rated | 87 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
When Zatoichi witnesses the murder of a young mother he promises to deliver the baby to the father. Along the way he gains the help of a reluctant criminal.
Director: Kenji Misumi | Stars: Shintarô Katsu, Saburô Date, Kôji Fujiyama, Chikara Hashimoto
Votes: 1,883
11. Zatoichi and the Chest of Gold (1964)
Not Rated | 83 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
Zatoichi is mistaken for a thief. To clear his name he must find and defeat the real villain.
Director: Kazuo Ikehiro | Stars: Shintarô Katsu, Shôgo Shimada, Mikiko Tsubouchi, Machiko Hasegawa
Votes: 1,831
12. Hiruko the Goblin (1991)
89 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Horror
A goblin is sent to Earth to behead students and turn their bodies into demons.
Director: Shin'ya Tsukamoto | Stars: Kenji Sawada, Masaki Kudou, Hideo Murota, Naoto Takenaka
Votes: 1,715
13. The Red Angel (1966)
Not Rated | 95 min | Drama, Romance, War
During the Sino-Japanese War, a young army nurse gives sympathy to her patients and falls in love with an impotent doctor who's addicted to morphine.
Director: Yasuzô Masumura | Stars: Ayako Wakao, Shinsuke Ashida, Yûsuke Kawazu, Ranko Akagi
Votes: 1,887
14. Samurai Assassin (I) (1965)
122 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
February 17 to March 3, 1860, inside Edo castle. A group of assassins wait by Sakurada Gate to kill the lord of the House of Ii, a powerful man in the Tokugawa government, which has ruled ... See full summary »
Director: Kihachi Okamoto | Stars: Toshirô Mifune, Keiju Kobayashi, Michiyo Aratama, Yûnosuke Itô
Votes: 2,505
15. Audition (1999)
R | 115 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
A widower takes an offer to screen girls at a special audition, arranged for him by a friend to find him a new wife. The one he fancies is not who she appears to be after all.
Director: Takashi Miike | Stars: Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina, Tetsu Sawaki, Jun Kunimura
Votes: 89,188
16. The City of Lost Souls (2000)
R | 102 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
When Brazilian-Japanese Mario is unleashed from jail, he sets out to rescue his beautiful Chinese girlfriend, Kei, from being deported to Japan.
Director: Takashi Miike | Stars: Teah, Michelle Reis, Kôji Kikkawa, Mitsuhiro Oikawa
Votes: 2,419
17. Spiral (2000)
90 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
The inhabitants of a small Japanese town become increasingly obsessed with and tormented by spirals.
Director: Higuchinsky | Stars: Eriko Hatsune, Fhi Fan, Hinako Saeki, Shin Eun-kyung
Votes: 8,987
18. Cat Soup (2001)
Not Rated | 34 min | Animation, Short, Comedy
A young anthropomorphic cat goes on a psychedelic journey with his sister in order to save her soul.
Directors: Tatsuo Satô, Masaaki Yuasa
Votes: 5,945
19. Tokyo Fist (1995)
Not Rated | 87 min | Action, Drama, Horror
Suspecting that his childhood friend, a professional boxer, is having a love affair with his fiancée, a businessman starts training rigorously in order to take him down.
Director: Shin'ya Tsukamoto | Stars: Kaori Fujii, Shin'ya Tsukamoto, Kôji Tsukamoto, Naomasa Musaka
Votes: 4,007
20. Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1992)
R | 83 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
When metal-worshipping fanatics abduct his son, a father unleashes his dormant destructive power, as his naked rage transforms the once-feeble flesh into a grisly symbiosis of metal and tissue. Who dares to defy the ultimate body-hammer?
Director: Shin'ya Tsukamoto | Stars: Tomorô Taguchi, Shin'ya Tsukamoto, Nobu Kanaoka, Sujin Kim
Votes: 5,094 | Gross: $0.00M
21. Freeze Me (2000)
101 min | Drama, Thriller
A woman is raped by 3 men. She moves south to Tokyo and 5 years later is about to marry a colleague, when one of the rapists enters her apartment. The other 2 come later.
Director: Takashi Ishii | Stars: Harumi Inoue, Shingo Tsurumi, Kazuki Kitamura, Shunsuke Matsuoka
Votes: 1,893
22. Kids Return (1996)
107 min | Crime, Drama, Sport
Dropping out of high school, two friends at first find success, one as a up-and-coming boxer and one as a low level gangster. Yet, their life decisions still find a way of catching up with them.
Director: Takeshi Kitano | Stars: Ken Kaneko, Masanobu Andô, Leo Morimoto, Hatsuo Yamaya
Votes: 6,767
23. Black Angel Vol. 1 (1998)
107 min | Action, Crime, Drama
Ikko, the six year old daughter of a yakuza gang boss witnesses the brutal slaying of her parents and is only saved from sharing their fate by an underground hitwoman who goes by the ... See full summary »
Director: Takashi Ishii | Stars: Riona Hazuki, Reiko Takashima, Jinpachi Nezu, Kippei Shîna
Votes: 921
24. A Scene at the Sea (1991)
101 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
The lives of a young, hearing-impaired and gloomy couple are fulfilled after the boy holds interest in surfboarding.
Director: Takeshi Kitano | Stars: Claude Maki, Hiroko Ôshima, Sabu Kawahara, Toshizo Fujiwara
Votes: 6,683
25. Onibi (1997)
101 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A yakuza hitman gets out of jail and decides to start a new life, but soon his old life catches up with him.
Director: Rokuro Mochizuki | Stars: Yoshio Harada, Reiko Kataoka, Shô Aikawa, Kazuki Kitamura
Votes: 253
26. Crazy Thunder Road (1980)
97 min | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
When the leader of the once-notorious biker gang of Tokyo falls in love with a barmaid and quickly loses his rebellious ideals, the rest of the gang feels betrayed. Especially the reputedly... See full summary »
Director: Gakuryû Ishii | Stars: Tatsuo Yamada, Masamitsu Ohike, Kôji Nanjô, Nenji Kobayashi
Votes: 605
27. Pistol Opera (2001)
Not Rated | 112 min | Crime, Action, Drama
The No. 3 assassin of Japan is given the chance to usurp No. 1 and take their place.
Director: Seijun Suzuki | Stars: Makiko Esumi, Sayoko Yamaguchi, Hanae Kan, Masatoshi Nagase
Votes: 1,518
28. Black Rose (1969)
90 min | Drama
When the enigmatic woman Ryoko (played by Mishima-discovered female impersonator Akihiro Miwa) arrives at the Black Rose Mansion to perform, not only do the gentleman patrons seem smitten ... See full summary »
Director: Kinji Fukasaku | Stars: Akihiro Miwa, Eitarô Ozawa, Masakazu Tamura, Ayako Hôshô
Votes: 250
29. If You Were Young: Rage (1970)
89 min | Action, Crime
Riveting story of five kids who come to Tokyo for work in 1960. Fukasaku shows the shocking consequences for these idealistic youths whose dreams are soon torn apart in the chaos of class turmoil and youthful indiscretion.
Director: Kinji Fukasaku | Stars: Tetsuo Ishidate, Gin Maeda, Chôichirô Kawarasaki, Hideki Hayashi
Votes: 242
30. Ichi the Killer (2001)
R | 129 min | Action, Crime, Drama
As sadomasochistic yakuza enforcer Kakihara searches for his missing boss he comes across Ichi, a repressed and psychotic killer who may be able to inflict levels of pain that Kakihara has only dreamed of achieving.
Director: Takashi Miike | Stars: Tadanobu Asano, Nao Ômori, Shin'ya Tsukamoto, Paulyn Sun
Votes: 60,026 | Gross: $0.02M
31. Sukedachi-ya Sukeroku (2001)
88 min | Action, Comedy, Drama
A lively and rambunctious samurai who has made a successful living out there and developed quite a reputation returns to his hometown just in time for big things to go down. His methods are... See full summary »
Director: Kihachi Okamoto | Stars: Hiroyuki Sanada, Kyôka Suzuki, Takehiro Murata, Tatsuya Nakadai
Votes: 163
32. I Went To (2000)
111 min | Action, Crime
New magistrate cleans up a corrupt town in his own comic Samurai way.
Director: Kon Ichikawa | Stars: Koji Yakusho, Yûko Asano, Tsurutarô Kataoka, Ryûdô Uzaki
Votes: 564
33. Riben guizi (2001)
160 min | Documentary, War
A documentary recording the testimony of fourteen former Japanese soldiers as they recount atrocities and war crimes committed during the Second World War, including the infamous Unit 731 ... See full summary »
Director: Minoru Matsui | Stars: Yoshio Tsuchiya, Hakudo Nagatomi, Yoshio Shinozuka, Taisuke Funyu
Votes: 146
34. The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001)
R | 113 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Horror
A family moves to the country to run a rustic mountain inn when, to their horror, the customers begin befalling sudden and unlikely fates.
Director: Takashi Miike | Stars: Kenji Sawada, Keiko Matsuzaka, Shinji Takeda, Naomi Nishida
Votes: 10,019
35. Three Outlaw Samurai (1964)
Not Rated | 94 min | Action, Drama
When poor peasants kidnap a magistrate's daughter to coerce him into reducing their unfair taxes, a wandering ronin decides to give them some help.
Director: Hideo Gosha | Stars: Tetsurô Tanba, Isamu Nagato, Mikijirô Hira, Miyuki Kuwano
Votes: 3,991
36. The Steel Edge of Revenge (1969)
PG | 124 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
A guilt-haunted samurai warrior attempts to stop a massacre taking place.
Director: Hideo Gosha | Stars: Tatsuya Nakadai, Tetsurô Tanba, Yôko Tsukasa, Ruriko Asaoka
Votes: 2,618
37. Kill! (1968)
Not Rated | 115 min | Action, Comedy, Drama
Two ronin - an ex-samurai and an ex-farmer - get caught up in a local official's complex game of murder and betrayal.
Director: Kihachi Okamoto | Stars: Tatsuya Nakadai, Etsushi Takahashi, Yuriko Hoshi, Tadao Nakamaru
Votes: 3,174
38. Assassination (1964)
104 min | Action, Crime, Drama
In 1863, when Americans warships approach Japan, a enigmatic ronin becomes a important figure in a complex game of power between the Shogunate and the empire.
Director: Masahiro Shinoda | Stars: Tetsurô Tanba, Shima Iwashita, Eiji Okada, Isao Kimura
Votes: 968
39. The Age of Assassins (1967)
99 min | Action, Comedy
A nerdy young college instructor named Shinji Kikyo returns home one day to find himself the target of a mad assassin.
Director: Kihachi Okamoto | Stars: Tatsuya Nakadai, Reiko Dan, Hideo Sunazuka, Hideyo Amamoto
Votes: 312
40. Branded to Kill (1967)
Not Rated | 91 min | Action, Crime, Drama
After a botched assignment, a rice-fetishizing hitman finds himself in conflict with his organization, and one mysterious, dangerous fellow-hitman in particular.
Director: Seijun Suzuki | Stars: Jô Shishido, Mariko Ogawa, Annu Mari, Kôji Nanbara
Votes: 10,208
41. The Great Killing (1964)
Not Rated | 118 min | Action, Drama
A Shogunate Elder connives to rule Japan by making his puppet, the Shogun's brother Tsunashige, the next Shogun. The best strategist in Japan, Yamaga, leads a plot to stop the Elder, but ... See full summary »
Director: Eiichi Kudô | Stars: Takayuki Akutagawa, Kôtarô Satomi, Chôichirô Kawarasaki, Mikijirô Hira
Votes: 395
42. Pigs and Battleships (1961)
Not Rated | 108 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
A young hoodlum decides to work for a criminal organization that is tearing itself apart.
Director: Shôhei Imamura | Stars: Hiroyuki Nagato, Jitsuko Yoshimura, Masao Mishima, Tetsurô Tanba
Votes: 2,585
43. Intentions of Murder (1964)
Not Rated | 150 min | Drama
A housewife living under her tyrannical husband has her life stressfully turned upside down after getting raped by a burglar.
Director: Shôhei Imamura | Stars: Masumi Harukawa, Kô Nishimura, Shigeru Tsuyuguchi, Yûko Kusunoki
Votes: 1,816
44. Vengeance Is Mine (1979)
Not Rated | 139 min | Crime, Drama
Chronological exploits of Iwao Enokizu, a murderous thief on the run.
Director: Shôhei Imamura | Stars: Ken Ogata, Rentarô Mikuni, Chôchô Miyako, Mitsuko Baishô
Votes: 7,291
45. Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards! (1963)
Not Rated | 88 min | Action, Crime, Drama
Police detective Tajima, tasked with tracking down stolen firearms, turns an underworld grudge into a blood-bath. Suzuki transforms a colorful pot-boiler into an on-target send-up of cultural colonialism and post-war greed.
Director: Seijun Suzuki | Stars: Jô Shishido, Tamio Kawaji, Reiko Sasamori, Nobuo Kaneko
Votes: 982
46. The Flowers and the Angry Waves (1964)
92 min | Action, Crime
Another subversion of audience expectations has Kobayashi acting somewhat cowardly in the snow-bound final showdown, an unheard-of trait in a ninkyô yakuza hero. Also with Tamio Kawaji as a sword-wielding assassin in Zero-cape-and -hat(!)
Director: Seijun Suzuki | Stars: Eimei Esumi, Chieko Misaki, Keisuke Noro, Yôko Yamamoto
Votes: 265
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