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111 movies sorted by popularity
Handsome young Katsuta tries to follow the yakuza code, but even his boss doesn't believe in it. Diamond Fuyu is less ethical, and allows the idiotic Tetsu to trick a schoolgirl he fancies, Hanako, into a type of bonded prostitution. Because of gang conflict, the Izu family (to whom Katsuta belongs) has their last gambling den taken over, and he seeks revenge. This brings him back into contact with a former lover who is also a card trickster - she is also Diamond Fuyu's sister, and is now married to Okaru-Hachi, who has mastered a clever card cheating trick called Okaru, which involves the deft use of mirrors.
A boxing melodrama. Two friends become boxers and begin training for the championship. These two boys eventually face each other in the ring.
Volunteering as a "comfort woman" on the Manchurian front, where she is expected to service hundreds of soldiers, Harumi is commandeered by the brutal Lieutenant Narita but falls for the sensitive Mikami, Narita's direct subordinate. Seijun Suzuki's Story of a Prostitute is a tragic love story as well as a rule-bending take on a popular Taijiro Tamura novel, challenging military and fraternal codes of honor, as seen through Harumi's eyes.
In the shady black markets and bombed-out hovels of post–World War II Tokyo, a tough band of prostitutes eke out a dog-eat-dog existence, maintaining tenuous friendships and a semblance of order in a world of chaos. But when a renegade ex-soldier stumbles into their midst, lusts and loyalties clash, with tragic results. With Gate of Flesh, visionary director Seijun Suzuki delivers a whirlwind of social critique and pulp drama, shot through with brilliant colors and raw emotions.
In this fifth episode of the "Wataridori" series, Taki Shinji (Kobayashi Akira) drifts north to Hokkaido, where he helps protect an Ainu village from unscrupulous land developers.
Two brothers seek revenge on the yakuza responsible for the death of their father.
Ginjiro was born to a family of nobility, though he yearned for freedom. To earn this freedom, he affiliates himself with the worst of the worst. Swearing his allegiance to the notorious Kuroiwa crime syndicate, the yakuza family known for its thirst for blood, Ginjiro equips for battle. When a rival family raids their gambling parlor, he slashes a masked henchman. Unbeknown to him, his victim was no henchman.
1962 Japanese movie
A group of pirates sail the treacherous Pacific ocean in search for wealth.
Asako, a former telephone operator once heard the voice of a murder suspect which has continued to haunt her. Years later her husband invites his boss, Hamazaki, over for dinner and she realises his voice is suspiciously like that of the killer. Before she can investigate further, Hamazaki is found dead and her husband becomes the prime suspect.
Jiro, a young yakuza, and Mami, a diplomat’s daughter, are two young lovers from different worlds. Having met by accident, they soon discover a new life together. But their love is ill-fated. Mami's family will not accept her choice, while leading an honest life seems like an unattainable goal for Jiro. Can there be anything else but a tragic ending?
The year is 1926. It has been three years since the Great Kanto earthquake hit Tokyo. Everything is being rebuilt from the ground up. Odera crime syndicate saw this as an opportunity to expand its territory. The Odera boss arranges marriage between his daughter Orin (Ruriko Asaoka) and the son of notorious Gyotoku clan, but Orin’s heart belonged to Shinjiro (Yujiro Ishihara), a member of her father’s clan.
After his own gang sets him up to kill a rival mobster, a hit man is forced to flee with his younger brother.
A sailor is stuck in the harbor due to an engine failure in his boat, and he learns that a friend of his has died, reportedly from suicide. He begins to investigate the matter himself, and finds there may be more to the story...
The wandering gambler (Akira Kobayashi) once again picks up the dice he forswore in order to take revenge of the gangsters who exploit good citizens. The second installment in The Gambler series.
No description available.
Katiri is a reporter so ambitiously amoral that he’ll sell out anyone—including his partner and the drug dealer he’s sleeping with—to get a scoop. But what happens when an even more ruthless female gang boss kidnaps his sister?
Koji Wada, who is good at shooting, karate, judo and boxing, has a tough fight with the sea gangsters!
A rookie golfer must cope with the stress of fame after a marketing executive transforms her into a sports celebrity.
Kiroku boards with a Roman Catholic family and falls for the daughter Michiko. He ignores his feelings, joins a gang, gets in fights and, eventually, becomes involved with the radical Kita Ikki group.
Emerging from a stint in prison, yakuza lieutenant Sumukawa discovers that his gang has disintegrated. An ambitious type, he quickly hooks up with another gang who promise him a prominent position if he helps them deal with a rival family. But bonds are made to be broken, and pledges of loyalty soon give way to competition, betrayal and — naturally — retaliation.
Nursing home "Yuyoso". Many lonely old people live there, including botanist Taro Makiso, a physicist, an actor, a bar mom, and a chef. Maki has spent most of his life studying botany, and has lived without regard for entertainment, drinking, women, or everything else in the world. Then came my 80th birthday. He and a young staff member go digging for wild yam and find a mysterious golden flower. It was the flower of immortality, the "Golden Flower", which was said to bloom beside the Himalayan Virgin, which he had been looking for for many years. From that day onwards, fragments of memories from his youth, which he had intentionally sealed off in order to immerse himself in botany, surged into Maki in a whirlpool.
Ryoji, a wanderer, arrives in a remote mountain town, carrying a shotgun and claiming to be a hunter. He quickly becomes embroiled in a web of trouble surrounding the town's mill.
A man is wrongfully accused of murder.
Based on the comic by Tetsu Kariya.
A gang lord hires Kamimura, a hit man, to take out a rival boss who's gotten greedy.
A comedic tale that follows several quirky individuals who navigate the twists and turns of their daily lives.
Place your bets! Japan's greatest gambler, Koji Himuro (Akira Kobayashi), faces off against an international cabal of gamblers with only his wits and his incredibly skilled left hand against every conceivable way to cheat someone in a game.
Hiroshi is the second officer on board the Hakuromaru. Lead by his captain, he heads out to town to recruit new crew members for their next voyage. Hiroshi is baffled when his captain approaches the Daigo-Kuroshiomaru crew, a notorious group nicknamed "the hoodlums of the sea". Their offer is greeted with scoffs and quickly turned down.
Story of the last three days in the life of Sakamoto Ryoma (1836-1867), the imperial loyalist who tried to unite the Choshu and Satsuma clans and prepared the way for the Meiji Restoration (1868).
Yukiko is on her way to meet Boss Gunji. Judging by her appearance, no one would suspect that this beautiful young woman, sitting quietly in a suburban train, is the only woman able to beat the best professional players in Japan; or that she is wearing the tattoo of the man that loved her and died for her...
Three women, deceived by a man, make full use of their feminine weapons, replete with daring and unbridled seduction strategies.
A newspaper reporter's search for his girlfriend's missing father lead him into heart of the criminal underworld of Yokohama's Chinatown.
1959 Japanese movie
A sniper kills two prisoners in a police van, and the driver sets out to find the killer.
12th in the Joe of Aces series.
Based on the loosely autobiographical novel of the same name by Toko Kon. Ken Yamanouchi stars as Togo Konno, the titular bastard.
A master rifleman challenges a family of yakuza who have stolen his favorite gun.
A detective drama that realistically shows the work of an experienced detective who, under cover, pursues the organizer of the arms trade route from Kobe.
Like a girl runaway, Tsuyu moves to Osaka to work as a bar hostess. She meets the owner of a model school, Yoko, and seriously thinks about becoming a fashion model. Yoko tells her that she can move in to Yoko’s house to take lessons, while making a living at the same time.
A film from Nikkatsu's "moodo akushon" (mood/action) subgenre.
A jazz bandleader, falsely accused of murdering his girlfriend, tries to stay one step ahead of the police as he dives into Tokyo's sin-city in search of the real killer.
In the nine part Wataridori series (1959-1962), Kobayashi played a wanderer on Japan’s back roads with most of the accoutrements of a Western hero, from a horse to fringes, guitar and even a trusty bullwhip.
A young yakuza in love with the girl who's to marry his clan oyabun, kidnaps the girl before fleeing with her. In Tokyo, he hides under the identity of a worker while the young woman becomes a waitress in a restaurant.
Based on the manga of the same name. Originally published in the Japanese magazine Weekly Playboy. It follows Ippei Yasuda, son of a prominent family, who is immensely gifted in nearly everything he does.
Arriving in the town of Hakodate, a wandering musician, Shinji Taki, is soon recruited by the local gang as a hired hand. However, with the arrival of a sinister gunman, Taki's mysterious past catches up with him.
A Ginza pickpocket, wanting to show his mother his filial piety, disguises himself as an office worker and takes her sightseeing in Tokyo, with the detective trying to arrest him posing as his Section Chief.
Shortly after arriving in Kobe, "Jiro the Lefty", a killer with a natural talent, witnesses a man die in a crane accident which turns out to be a cover-up for a murder. Jiro soon finds himself on the run, tailed by a determined cop.
When Yakuza decides to take avenge his brother, the war shall begin.
After their father dies, his children try to get by on a house boat.
George Mihara was ordered by his grandfather Tom to go to Japan. The purpose was to deliver a $100,000 check to Matsuyama, a Japanese soldier who had helped Tom around the time of World War I, and to perform some act of kindness in Japan using $300 pocket money. This was to test whether George was a suitable boy to inherit Tom's YES Ranch.
Japanese crime film
Joe, Okita, and Serizawa hear of the armed robbery of a truck carrying one billion eighty million yen's worth of Mint paper. Knowing that the thugs will now need a counterfeiter to make the bogus bills, they each decide to cash in on it by selling them the idea that they need Sakamoto, the best counterfeiter in Japan. A seesaw game unfolds between the three men as each tries to outdo the other two in handing over Sakamoto for one million yen to Hijikata, the big boss, who intends to make counterfeit money with the stolen paper. A little belatedly, they realize it needs their combined forces to outwit Hijikata and they raid his place together. Outnumbered, however, they are thrown into a basement room and the gas is turned on. Certain death stares them in the face, but the three men are not ones to take things lying down....
A motorcycle daredevil is murdered by a gang that wants to take over the circus to become the cover for their drug operation, but his replacement (Akira Kobayashi) has other ideas.
After World War II life in Japan was hard. There was lawlessness, rapine, never enough food or money. One girl, raped by three men, called out the name of Kentaro before she died and this was something that people in this small section of downtown Tokyo remembered. Life went on, however, and local boss Hiramatsu Daizo decided to build a market, aided by his daughter Aya. They met opposition until one day a young man named Kentaro appears who it is rumored he was the vengeful lover of the murdered girl. He lives with Sabu and Yukari, the children the girl looked after before she died, and helps with the market, coming to the rescue with a bulldozer when Daizo is threatened by a rival group. When Daizo is finally killed, Kentaro carries on the work. Finally the market is completed, the rival group makes a last stand but is machine-gunned down by Kentaro who, after saying that he was not the one whose name the dying girl called out, leaves town for good.
Nakata (Keiichiro Akagi) is a nihilistic young buck who is willing to do anything to get money in his pockets. As he knocks back a couple drinks that he knows he won't be able to afford, a former marksman-turned-bad, Ishioka approaches him. Ishioka is looking for an unaffiliated hit-man who is willing to handle some business. Nakata is just the right man for the job.
Two friends, both members of a Japanese cargo boat, return to Japan after a three-month voyage and have just 24 hours shore leave. In those hectic hours, they vie for the affections of a hotel owner's daughter but wind up with separate girl friends and attempt to bring together the parents of a baby who have separated.
Motozo Imamura, a.k.a. Gen, grew up in an upper-class family, but he never went to school and spent his days playing around. One day, he walked into an orgy of male-female sexual misconduct, and when he dropped off Roze, whom he had met there, he saw her sister, Kaoru, forgetting her impurity. One day, he went to an orgy where he met Roze, and he could not forget the purity of her older sister, Kaoru. A few days later, Gen went to the party again and was mistaken for the boss's brother.
Motomu Ida movie
University karate club member Kikuo is actually the son of a yakuza boss. However, he disliked his father's business and never spoke about his family at school. One day, his father, Tatsuzo, becomes the guardian of the Yamanaka-gumi.
Nobuo is a hot-headed hoodlum fresh out of reform school who struggles to make a clean break with his tearaway past.
A rookie newspaper journalist, Takema Sakaki, has a strong sense of justice. In the Diet Building he gets acquainted with a library worker, Reiko Nakafuji. Reiko's father was a member of the Diet who was assassinated six years ago. Through Reiko, Takema joins Tsūkai-kai, a group of young people who respect her late father's political ideas. With the assistance of Tsukai-kai, Takema eventually uncovers the political scandal related to postwar compensation which led to the murder of Reiko's father.
A nanny, played by Sayuri Yoshinaga, who lives and works in a Tokyo family, causes all kinds of waves with her outspoken personality and behavior in this charming coming-of-age blockbuster.
Final installment of THE WANDERING GUITARIST series.
Nonaka Tetsugoro, a substitute for the Aoi group, held a flower party to celebrate the complete recovery of his boss. However, three rival bosses, trying to steal the Aoi's territory, made take-over plans in the shadows. The second in the two part Daimon series movies.
Kosuke Suzuki returns to Hakata's hometown after learning that his best friend Takehara has disappeared. Kosuke is persistently hindered by Hasebe from Omura Sangyo. Kosuke's partner Kumagoro investigates and finds out that Hasebe, who killed the head of the Muraoka clan, made Takehara disappear in order to keep him silent. The third film in the series.
This is a factory area in downtown Tokyo, and Hikaru, nicknamed Pika-chan, is a nurse at the Mihara Clinic, a friend of the poor.
1961 Japanese movie
On a passenger ship to Japan, the journalist Kawase encounters a man who claims to be a Filipino, but Kawase believes he is a murder suspect who fled Japan fifteen years ago, Hojo Shuichi. To throw Kawase off, the man talks a female passenger, Reiko, into acting as if she was his long-time friend. When the man - who is, in fact, Hojo - secretly leaves the ship, Reiko, who has fallen for him, joins up with Kawase to go looking for him. Meanwhile, Hojo, who has returned to Japan to find the true murderer before the 15-year statute of limiitations on murder expires, tracks down the man whom he believes ordered the murder he was accused of.
The story of male friendship unfolding during a boxing match between the navigator, who took responsibility for the accident and went ashore from the ship, and a young docker, whom he loves like a younger brother.
A young man with a strong sense of justice is torn between two girls: the flighty Taneko and the serious Suzuko. With wisdom, courage and honor in a Japanese spirit of manliness he wins the day.
A musical film based on the original work of Saigo Teruhiko. After leaving the juvenile detention center and returning to his hometown of Ibusuki, Hachiro begins to investigate the cause of his older sister Sumiko's suicide. While Hachiro was in juvenile detention, Sumiko committed suicide, but there are too many mysteries surrounding this suicide...
A life insurance agent has a drinking problem causing him to lose his company a fortune. He heads to another town to sell insurance, but to his surprise, the elderly are all healthy thanks to a special local sake. Along the way, he meets an eye-patch-wearing killer, which only confounds his misadventures.
Shigeru is a young man who works as a window cleaner. His older brother Kenzo has just returned from prison and is determined to start life anew. But a battle for leadership within his old gang causes him to be framed for murder. Shigeru sets out to uncover the truth to clear his name.
Japanese "kayo" film centered around the song "Mujo no yume" by Mitsuo Sagawa.
During the 1880's a young swordsman, Saotome Gengo, on his way to Tokyo stops at an inn in a small town. But he does not know that his prowess has already attracted envious attention and that Senzo, the boss of the local gang, plans to have him killed. Seiji, the disowned son of the innkeeper, has run up a big gambling bill and, to settle it, the hoodlums decide to kill him. He is saved, however, by Hanako, star of the dancing troupe also staying at the inn. Gengo meets Hanako and learns that the troupe cannot open their show because the local police corruptly demand too much of the receipts. After another fight, Gengo sees the police-chief on behalf of the troupe, but is refused. So he suspects that the police and the hoodlums are implicated with each other. There seems no way to open the show until they hear that the governor is coming to the town for a local banquet. They appeal to him and he promises to investigate. It is decided that a duel will settle the matter...
The story of three brothers who, after loosing their parents in the Great Kanto Earthquake, continued their respective yakuza family business and the revenge of the youngest one when his siblings were killed by a rival vicious yakuza boss. The first in the two part Daimon series.
Shadowed and alone. Today, a melancholy guitar sobs in a wandering seaside town.... To make amends, he hides his identity and saves his girlfriend's sister from certain death. Filmed on location on the scenic Manazuru Peninsula, the action is set amidst rugged rocky terrain and raging waves!
A young man wanders and makes calls to elders who live alone. Saying “Granny, it’s me,” he lies to them that he is their grandson. An old lady, who runs a music shop in the declining shopping area in Amakusa, answers his call and warmly accepts him. Pretending as her grandson, he settles down in the town. He gets used to his friendship with young villagers, the sound and landscape of Amakusa, and the old lady’s everyday life.
Wada Kōji is a chivalrous young man who leads a group of youths that take on a yakuza boss.
A jazz pianist named Shiro Tsuda returns from an overseas tour unwittingly carrying drugs that have been sewn into his jacket. When he stops by to see his girlfriend Kyoko, he walks in to find an unknown man attacking her. While struggling with the man, who is armed, Shiro accidentally shoots and kills her. The intruder knocks Shiro down and takes the drugs from Shiro's jacket. Shiro realizes that he was being used as a drag smuggler. He is sent to prison for three years for killing his girlfriiend. When he is released, he is determined to find out who set him up.
This action drama depicts a horrifying murder case over a photo of a mysterious beautiful woman hidden in a wallet, and the justice and love-hate relationship between the men involved in the case.
Tsuiseki is a 1961 crime film.
When Tornado Joe is wrongly accused of distributing counterfeit banknotes, he gets on a mission to clear his name and challenge the mastermind behind this scheme.
Seven years ago, Ishimatsu Toshio, a talented radio producer at Zen Nihon Hōsō, witnessed a crazed drug addict murder his wife and then commit suicide, though Toshio was able to save the lives of their two children. Just transferred from Shimizu to Tokyo, Toshio hopes to produce a program that will expose the drug trade in Tokyo. One day, Toshio stops into a noodle shop where he is mistaken for a drug dealer and passed a bagful of drugs. The real dealer arrives in time to follow Toshio home. That night Toshio is attacked by the dealer, who turns out to be Kenji, one of the children Toshio had saved. Kenji can't bring himself to kill Toshio, so he runs away and goes into hiding from the mafia. While continuing to investigate the drug trade, Toshio searches for Kenji to get Kenji's testimony for his program.
It is the Taisho era in Japan. A man has quit the Yakuza after five years and returned to Shikoku in order to begin his life anew as a ferryman. His boss, however, became ill and the boat is taken due to unpaid debts to the local thugs. His new life has not begun well and he is determined to rebuild the shattered business. The Yakuza, however, have added the ferry business to the rest of their portfolio of local concerns.
A moodo/akushon yakuza picture with heavy emphasis on poignant seishun romance.
Mega star Akira Kobayashi stars as Jiro in the rambunctious tale of a chef who opens a restaurant in the busy Ginza district. His culinary skills and dashing good looks bring in the women as well as unwanted trouble, while an explosive political scandal builds around his girlfriend’s business...
In this town, Kagosuke and Ryukichi of the Okamoto family, who are deeply committed to the yakuza way, are straightforward and justice-loving hot-blooded men. However, their slight clumsiness is a flaw, but they are extremely strong in fights, and there's no one who can match them. They are head over heels for Osen-san. They are both desperately unwilling to yield even if the other is a brother.
An airplane loaded with 50 million yen for the reconstruction of Amami Oshima crashes en route from Kagoshima, Kyushu, but neither the money nor the remains of the pilot can be found.
The bustling Ikebukuro area was under the control of the Hanamura Kogyo yakuza gang, and there was no end to the violence. The tramp Bin Tsuzuki returns to his hometown after being released from Abashiri prison, and he is noticed when he saves a student from gangsters from the Hanamura gang. But this was only the beginning of a bloody struggle...
Kyoichi Kageyama, a TV station reporter, is always getting into trouble. But when he gets his hands on a TV that shows the “news of the next day,” his reporting becomes a string of scoops, his love life blossoms, and everything starts going his way, until the news from tomorrow reports his aunt getting robbed and murdered!
