Advanced search
- TITLES
- NAMES
- COLLABORATIONS
Search filters
Enter full date
to
or just enter yyyy, or yyyy-mm below
to
to
to
Exclude
Only includes titles with the selected topics
to
In minutes
to
1-50 of 395
- Three thieves escape from a heist, one of them killing the other two. He is sheltered by a prostitute and sought after by the police, but only after ten years his true motivation unravels.
- In order to investigate her mother's strange death, a woman enters a sacred convent run by hypocritical, perverse nuns.
- A lonely gangster tries recruiting men to plunder a respected and powerful gang.
- Sugihara, born in Japan but with North Korean parents, falls in love with a Japanese girl after changing from a North Korean school to a Japanese school. His boxer dad teaches him boxing - skills used a lot.
- Shinichi is a good guy serving three years and approaching the end of his time. He escapes handcuffed to dangerous Gunda, who instigated the escape. Thus tethered, they start out on a journey across the desolate snow country of Hokkaido.
- Golgo 13 is assigned to murder a man named Boss Goa.
- A charismatic ronin gets snared into a conflict between officials at a waystation, and gains the enmity of a group of thugs.
- A young martial artist is on a mission to rescue her brother who's being held captive by a sadistic drug lord.
- A man with a special power attempts to help a cursed woman.
- Karate master and anti-drug vigilante Kiba returns to his home in Japan, where he aims to wipe out the nation's drug industry.
- A retired yakuza is caught in the middle of a growing conflict between two rival clans.
- When the Earth is threatened by an evil alien, a group of UN scientists travel to the lost city of Atlantis where they unearth a superhuman mummy named The Golden Bat who is prophesied to help the humans survive this terrible attack.
- Joji learns a dark secret from his dying father; he learns he has a twin brother and a sister. He travels to find his brother and finds he has been murdered in mysterious circumstances. While staying with his sister he overhears his Uncle's plans to find a 130CT diamond (named the Queen of Sheba) and soon learns he may be behind other sinister schemes.
- Three street toughs are hired to take down a Tokyo drug dealer in this hard-hitting Toei karate action film.
- Maki is the leader of a female gang that fights for justice, but she is taken and sent to a sadistic women's prison.
- The lives and battles of soldiers leading up to the 1904 siege of Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War.
- Karate master Kazuma gets severely beaten and crippled by nefarious rival Nikaido. Kazuma trains his loyal daughter Yumi in the martial arts so she can exact a harsh revenge on Nikaido and his band of evil thugs.
- Tachibana has completed his three years in prison and returns to the streets. He and his old cell mate wants a new life as ex-prisoners, but by chance they come across some jewels from a bloody bank robbery.
- Once again on the lam, Matsu is helped by a strip club worker who holds a grudge against the detective who's trying to find her.
- This time Koryu heads to Yokohama in search of a woman named Birei, kidnapped by diamond smugglers who move their hot rocks by surgically implanting them into the nubile buttocks of Chinese prostitutes. Koryu's older sister, working as a jewelry designer, is secretly if unhappily involved with the gangsters.
- Shin'Ichi returns home to visit his mother's grave. Upon returning he finds the mess that his previous reckless behavior left behind. His old boss, Asahi, was attacked after Shin'Ichi left and was forced to give up a lot of of his power.
- Kiba is caught in the intrigue between a crooked goldmine owner, a cynical, betrayed swordsman, a manipulative lady and an arrogant dojo master.
- A former police captain recruits a group of deadly murderers to remove the corrupt and mafia Yakuza . Their first task is to intercept a briefcase from a band that trafficked drugs.
- 2 ninja clans are conned into fighting each other for years by their evil leaders. Watari; small hard as nails Ninja Boy saves the day.
- This movie is based on the true life story of a Korean fighter named Choi Bae-dal (who later changed his name to Masutatsu Oyama), the founder of Kyokushin Karate in Japan.
- Famous detective Kindaichi investigates a series of mysterious murders revolving around a wealthy family.
- When Koryu's childhood friend Shurel 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.
- When an alien force tries to invade Earth to steal a powerful new rocket fuel, a mysterious hero intervenes.
- A young British schoolgirl receives a letter from her mother, asking her to go into hiding until her birthday. After receiving an unsettling phone call, the girl returns home to London to discover her mother has gone missing, and when she pursues a mysterious stranger, she finds herself being hurtled through time.
- A group of prisoners attempts to break out of the Abashiri Prison.
- Nami Matsushima's sister goes missing and after getting too caught up in doing something about it, Nami is given a fifteen year sentence for a murder she didn't commit. She's sent to an all women prison where she's not exactly welcome.
- A college student becomes romantically involved with a married middle-aged teacher.
- Young yakuza Shujiro Hanada (Takakura) goes to prison after losing his cool in a rigged gambling game and slashing a few other players. When he's released in 1927, the world has changed. His sister died in the Great Kanto Earthquake and his father is also gone. His brother Jukichi (Ikebe) invites him to stay at his in-laws and works in their family pub. Shujiro is trying to go straight. He lies low, helping his blind mother-in-law and slowly developing a relationship with Ikuye, the hostess who helped him before his arrest. But trouble lurks when the resident gang decides to show its strength. It all leads to a showdown between the two brothers and around 20 sword-wielding gangsters.
- Kiba is back again, but this time he has fallen from grace and sent to prison for all the violent acts he has committed. Once he's out, he begins working as a bodyguard in a club that is crawling with gangsters.
- After World War II, their town was a pile of rubble. Gennosuke, the second generation boss of the Kamizu Group was upholding yakuza chivalry by keeping black-market and illegal items out of their open-air market. Taking advantage of the mess, Iwasa and his gang take hold of goods from the US military, black-market and controlled items in order to become the most powerful group in Enko area.
- An undercover cop befriends a yakuza underling who through his contacts helps him infiltrate two rival Yakuza gangs. He pits the two rival gangs against each other in hopes that they will cross each other out.
- The story of Kitano Akio competing in the All-Japan Road Race Championship, the International Class A 500cc class.
- Favorable portrayal of Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, who approved of the bombardment of Pearl Harbor, as a patriot. The film is a jingoistic defense of Japanese imperialism.
- An old man dies of heartbreak when a cruel landlord is about to repossess his land. Since the man died in debt, his wife and daughter are indentured servants and are forced to work in the landlord's factory.
- A killer who only hits people who deserve it is tricked into killing an innocent man. He then seeks revenge against the people who employed him.
- A crime story about a sociopath businessman and his associates who cheat small businesses out of their money with shady contracts in the early 50s.
- In a village subsisting on its herring fishery, a one-eyed criminal named Jakoman terrorizes the inhabitants. One of them, the son of the head of one of the fish companies by the name of Tetsu, decides to overthrow Jakoman and his cohorts.
- A female plays a race car driver lends her services to the Japanese Secret Service. She goes in pursuit of a cartel of drug runners and assorted Japanese Yakuza types.
- Sonny Chiba plays the character referred to as "Mr Soh", who is based on the true life founder of Shorinji Kempo, Doshin So. Mr Soh has been acting as a secret agent in Manchuria during the Japanese occupation. He is first seen spying on a meeting of Chinese soldiers as they plan a surprise ambush on the retreating Japanese Army. He is discovered and has to fight his way out, using fists, feet and then a machine gun. He rushes to inform the Japanese commanders of the plot, but is horrified to learn that Japan has done the unthinkable by surrendering unconditionally. Soh returns to his homeland to find a ravaged land of beaten people. Victimised by gangsters, occupation forces and corrupt local officials, the poor and the disenfranchised have lost the will to fight back. Using his "Shao Lin" skills (subtitle translation of Shorinji Kempo), he regularly champions the weak and teaches the black market thugs the error of their ways, becoming a regular guest at the local prison. He is seen to assist a former soldier, Otaki, who is seeking his lost wife at the bottom of a bottle, a fallen woman (Kiku) who has turned to prostitution after suffering rape by Russian soldiers, her little brother Kimio who gets injured by some American G.I.s who subsequently try to flee from accident. The Prison Governor warns him that the US Administration will not be so tolerant now that he has "crippled" the troops, suggesting a likely death sentence. He helps him to "escape" the jail and Soh leaves town in a hurry, pausing only to give advice to the band of orphans that he has befriended. Soh leaves the city of Osaka (central Japan) to go to the rural island of Shikoku where he finds a similar situation. He determines to bring new hope to the locals by teaching his martial arts skills to a growing band of followers. He gathers the loafers, ruffians and aimless, teaches them Shorinji Kempo (referred to as "Shao Lin" in subtitles) to build them up to be stronger physically and mentally. He meets some new characters, who he soon enlists in his school; Tomoda the young ex-soldier and his sister Miho. When the noodle-stall girl Noriko is raped by a gang of yakuza thugs, Soh and Tomoda dish out some rough justice (with some sharp scissors to one of the miscreant's tenderest flesh). Later, Tomoda and Miho are attacked and Tomoda has his arm cut off with a katana (Samurai sword). Soh avenges that with a visit to the local yakuza boss that leaves the boss with a dislocated arm and his minion missing a digit. Otaki, the former drunken soldier from Osaka joins the group, then in an emotional scene, discovers his wife is alive but has re-married after he was reported dead in the war. When the small-time local yakuza gangs are joined by familiar faces from Osaka seeking to expand their activities, it is time for action with a capital A. Before the final climactic face-off between Soh's students and the yakuza mob, there is time for Soh to receive an urgent message to see Kiku in Osaka. He returns to find the orphans caring for a terminally ill Kiku, who had turned to prostitution to help support them all. Soh experiences an epiphany and comes to recognise that "Strength and Compassion must be together" (Riki Ai Funi). In a typically cinematic finale, Soh's friend Otaki dies is killed by yakuza thugs paid to clear the honest poor from land to be used to build brothels and gambling dens. Soh goes on a final rampage to clear the yakuza right out of town forever. The epilogue reveals how Soh's school has flourished and spread across Japan (circa 1975), with scenes filmed at the organisations magnificent headquarters still based in the town of Tadotsu.
- A ronin carries a secret that could either deliver or destroy 400,000 clan members.
- In 1868, after the fall of the Shogun-dominated Japan, the new government orders people from Awaji, near Kobe, to re-locate to the northern part of Hokkaido. These people once supported the now displaced Samurais of the older days. After two years, over 500 of them settled in their new land under the leadership of Hideaki, husband of Shino. However, as crops fail he is to go to Sapporo to learn new techniques of farming, leaving his wife and daughter for 5 years. All this time, the new community is constantly watched by the government which choose to again uproot them from their new homes.
- Set in early 20th Century Japan, the movie follows the adventures of a young man who wants to get into the movie business -- but in a job unique to his country: a dramatic narrator for silent movies known as "Katsubenshi" or just "benshi". Comedy and action ensue as he becomes entangled with competing movie theaters where the crowds are drawn mostly by the skills of the dramatic interpreters rather than the movies themselves.
- A forlorn love story between a young monk and his childhood sweet-heart set in post WWII Japan.