Yami wo saku kuchibue (1960)

Dolls

Dolls takes puppeteering as its overriding motif, which relates thematically to the action provided by the live characters. Chief among those tales is the story of Matsumoto and Sawako, a young couple whose relationship is about to be broken apart by the former's parents, who have insisted their son take part in an arranged marriage to his boss' daughter.

Kill Bill: Vol. 1

An assassin is shot by her ruthless employer, Bill, and other members of their assassination circle – but she lives to plot her vengeance.

Return of the Outlaw

Second film of the Gokudo series starring Tomisaburô Wakayama

Crying Freeman

A lethal assassin for a secret Chinese organisation, who sheds tears of regret each time he kills, is seen swiftly and mercilessly executing three Yakuza gangsters by a beautiful artist. She is captivated by the grace of his kill and later falls in love with him. An intense power struggle for the leadership of the Yakuza Clans ensues as they seek vengeance for the death of their leader.

The Yakuza Awaits

Forth film in the Gokudo series with Tomisaburô Wakayama

Gokudo of Kamagasaki

Eighth installment in the "Gokudo" series. Depicts the activities of Shimamura Seikichi and his henchmen

Tattoo

Marc Schrader, a rookie cop caught red-handed with drugs in a police raid of an illegal rave, joins a homicide investigation conducted by Chief Inspector Minks. The victim is a naked young woman with the skin stripped off her back, killed as she staggered into traffic. As Schrader and Minks investigate the murder, the case is complicated by a finger found in the stomach of the victim. Forensic examination proves the finger belongs to Nobert Günzel, who was previously convicted of rape and assault. The police raid Günzel’s residence, and discover a blood-stained table with restraints and bits of human flesh in his basement. They also find video equipment and preserved, tattooed skin from the victim’s back. Soon, they found dead bodies buried in the garden. Günzel then goes missing.

Ichi the Killer

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.

Greatest Boss Of Japan

A man who became the third boss faces off against delinquent foreigners and villains vying to rule the underworld in order to develop the port city.

Sonatine

Murakawa, an aging Tokyo yakuza tiring of gangster life, is sent by his boss to Okinawa along with a few of his henchmen to help end a gang war, supposedly as mediators between two warring clans. He finds that the dispute between the clans is insignificant and whilst wondering why he was sent to Okinawa at all, his group is attacked in an ambush. The survivors flee and make a decision to lay low at the beach while they await further instructions.

Tough as Iron

Gang-cheol is a legendary street fighter in Busan who cleaned up his act to care for his sick mother. Knowing he's desperate for money for his mother's operation, Sang-gon proposes that Gang-cheol works for him.

Showdown in Little Tokyo

An American with a Japanese upbringing, Chris Kenner is a police officer assigned to the Little Tokyo section of Los Angeles. Kenner is partnered with Johnny Murata, a Japanese-American who isn't in touch with his roots. Despite their differences, both men excel at martial arts, and utilize their formidable skills when they go up against Yoshida, a vicious yakuza drug dealer with ties to Kenner's past.

Gamblers

Tsuruta is a respected tattoo artist working with comrades Machida and Yamashiro. His former boss, who also just happens to be the master who had tattooed the magnificent dragon on Tsuruta’s back, is now a dissolute, bitter drunk living with his son in law and sickly grandson. His daughter, the boy’s mom, is indentured at the brothel run by boss Nakamura and daughter Matsuo. Nakamura’s two faced second in command Amatsu will not let the mother see her son…

Gamblers: The Dragon Tattoo

The second part of the Gamblers series.

Gozu

Minami mistakenly kills a gangster associate of his named Brother. Almost as soon as the murder takes place, the body of the deceased man is gone, prompting Minami to conduct a search. While looking, he finds a mysterious isolated hotel where he decides to take a rest. Not only are the front desk clerks a bit strange, but even the ambiance feels unusual. Minami soon realizes he may have gotten more than he bargained for.

The Black Battlefront Kidnappers

A taut, economical policier-cum-gang-hostage thriller.

Modern Chivarly: Sworn Brothers

After the enactment of the Anti-Prostitution Law, the red-light district in Shinjuku lost its allure. Even the gambling den of the Ryūzaki family was always deserted. Ryūzaki, the boss, declared his retirement in response to the changing times. It was thought that Igarashi, who valued righteousness and principles and had the respect of others, would become the second-in-command. However, he was an annoying presence to Ryūzaki...

Dead or Alive

Ryūichi and his small gang of Triad vie for control of the Japanese underworld in a crime-ridden Shinjuku quarter while Detective Jojima tries to bring it down.

Dead or Alive 2: Birds

Two contract killers cross paths in the middle of the same job and realize they are childhood friends. Together they take a break from killing and visit the small island they once called home. After reflecting on their past lives they decided to team up and use their talents in killing for good... much to the upset of the crime syndicates.

Festival Champ

Hiroki Matsukata is a fish market worker and a fanatical Japanese festival rascal. He also falls in love with a stripper while delivering his colleague's love letter to her but forgetting to mention it's from another man.

Gambler Tales of Hasshu: A Man's Pledge

This is one of the many films based on the legend of Chuji Kunisada, a wandering gambler and a defender of the weak in the Edo period. In other words, he was the Japanese Robin Hood. In this film Kunisada (Chiezo Kataoka) arrives to a small town terrorized by an evil gang. He insists that he is not Kunisada, as the word is Kunisada has been executed, but of course the audience know better. Sonny Chiba plays an unusual supporting role as a helpless young man unable to defend himself from the gangsters. He does, however, get to play taiko drums and dance with Junko Fuji (who makes her film debut here). Chiba's father, an old judge who helps Kunisada, is played by Takashi Shimura. The film hardly anything exceptional, but it's a pretty decent jidai geki / yakuza drama.

Queen Bee and College Boy Ryu

Japanese action film.

Wasabi

Hubert is a French policeman with very sharp methods. After being forced to take 2 months off by his boss, who doesn't share his view on working methods, he goes back to Japan, where he used to work 19 years ago, to settle the probate of his girlfriend who left him shortly after marriage without a trace.

Black Rain

Two New York cops get involved in a gang war between members of the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia. They arrest one of their killers and are ordered to escort him back to Japan. However, in Japan he manages to escape, and as they try to track him down, they get deeper and deeper into the Japanese Mafia scene and they have to learn that they can only win by playing the game—the Japanese way.

Japan's Top Gangster

A boy born in a poor village in Tokushima spends his days idly until a chance meeting sets him on the road to becoming boss of Japan's largest gang.

Syndicate Smasher

A group of mercenaries hired as contract killers are hunted down by the Mafia, the Yakuza, the Russian Mob, and the Tongs all at once.

Think Again, Junpei

A low-ranking yakuza is given the mission to kill a high-ranking yakuza from a rival group. Wanting recognition, he accepts the assignment, only to meet an enthusiastic office lady.

Fireworks

Detective Nishi is relieved from a stakeout to visit his sick wife in hospital. He is informed that she is terminally ill, and is advised to take her home. During his visit, a suspect shoots one detective dead and leaves Nishi's partner, Horibe, paralyzed. Nishi leaves the police force to spend time with his wife at home, and must find a way to pay off his debts to the yakuza.

Motor Psycho

A biker gang, led by a Vietnam veteran, rapes a veterinarian's wife. When the man decides to seek revenge and hunt down the perpetrators himself, he ends up joining forces with a Cajun woman whose husband they killed.

A Legend of Turmoil

A story about the development of a bright and strong yakuza. Otaki is an old-fashioned respectful yakuza who tries to protect his small yakuza family. When his boss gets shot, he decides to go after the plotters.

The Mole Song: Final

Reiji's final mission is to prevent the smuggling of 600 billion yen of drugs. For his mission, he gets on luxury passenger ship and he faces his strongest enemy to date.

Japan's Violent Gangs: The Boss and the Killers

An honorable yakuza syndicate deeply rooted in Kyoto fights for survival when a new breed of gangsters threaten their very existence.

A Modern Yakuza: The Code of The Lawless

Just released on parole, one young man hurtles towards a face-off with the gangsters controlling Shinjuku and its lucrative prostitutes.

Operation Plazma in Osaka

Amidst Japan's postwar economic boom, yakuza factions in Osaka fight for survival when Japan's largest crime syndicate plans a hostile takeover.

The Murder Corps

A violent upstart forms an alliance with the powerful Tensei-kai syndicate to fight on the front lines of an underworld war and take over all of Japan.

Brother

A Japanese Yakuza gangster's deadly existence in his homeland gets him exiled to Los Angeles, where he is taken in by his little brother and his brother's gang.

The Fable

The Fable is a legendary yakuza hitman equal to none—but his boss orders him and his sultry associate to lay low and learn how to live a "normal life" in Osaka.

Police Officer

Itami, a young policeman, meets his high school friend, Tetsuo, a gangster, at a roadblock. As they rekindled their friendship, a complex relationship is established between them.

Silk Hat Boss

In a strange outfit and full of youthful energy, the explosive Boss Kumatora raises hell like there's no tomorrow. The first movie of a new series starring Wakayama Tomisaburo as everybody's favorite character Boss Kumatora from the Red Peony Gambler series. Having made a fortune in the Russo-Japanese War, the Kumatora Family migrates to Kyushu to take on a military-related job. There they encounter the evil and malicious interference of the Chindai family of Kumamoto, and Boss Kumatora boldly fights back with the help of O'Ryu the Red Peony. A super entertaining film with non-stop comedy and action directed by Suzuki Norifumi.

Outrage

When a tough yakuza gangster is betrayed by his bosses, it means all out war. Bodies pile up as he takes out everyone in his way to the top in a brutal quest for revenge.

Conflict

Tendokai's Washio Kazuma, the underboss of Japan's largest crime syndicate, goes on the warpath when his blood brother and family turn up dead.

A Family

Taken in by the yakuza at a young age, Kenji swears allegiance to his old-school boss, pledging to adhere to the family code amid ever-changing times.

Hell Dogs

Bent on revenge, a traumatized ex-police officer must infiltrate a yakuza organization by befriending one of the group's most unhinged members.

Gambler's Farewell

The story of men devoted to the yakuza lifestyle and their struggles during a time of fading yakuza power.

One Man's Chivalry

Tokizо, the boss of the Tenmaru-gumi group, assists Kikujiro, a traveler on the run. At this time, a tender is being held to conclude a contract for the construction of the railway. Tokizo, who made the highest bid, was bought by the head of the Wakatsuki section of the Kansai Railroad, who was thinking about the country, and won by suppressing Takebe-gumi, who used bribes. However, not everything went as smoothly as planned...

Like a Dragon: Prologue

In 1970s-era Japan, three children, Kazuma Kiryu, Akira Nishikiyama, and his younger sister, Yuko Nishikiyama, are raised together in Shintaro Kazama's Sunflower Orphanage. In the summer of 1980, Yumi Sawamura, a young girl whose parents were accidentally shot and killed during a gang's shootout, joins them in the orphanage. Following a yakuza tradition, the honorable Kazama secretly raises orphans whose parents he has directly or indirectly killed. In return, the children love him as a father and he eventually inducts the teenage Kiryu and Nishikiyama into the Dojima Family, a Tojo Clan affiliate of which he is a senior officer.

Jirocho’s Days of Youth: Boss of the Tokai Region

His skill and courage were the best in Japan! The life story of Jirocho, a man who protected people on the Tokaido Road. The fearless Kinnosuke Nakamura enthusiastically plays the young Jirocho from Shimizu in this chivalrous story.

The World of Kanako

When Kanako, a model daughter and a brilliant student, disappears, her mother asks her ex-husband, a violent former policeman, to find her. As his investigation progresses, his idealized image of Kanako cracks: the girl hides a dark life that her father can not even imagine.

The Angry Sword

Story about a gambler who gets involved in a struggle between companies.

The Yakuza

Harry Kilmer returns to Japan after several years in order to rescue his friend George's kidnapped daughter - and ends up on the wrong side of the Yakuza, the notorious Japanese mafia.

A Yakuza Has His Way

The eighth installment in the popular film series starring Tomisaburo Wakayama. Embarrassed by the chairman of the Seiyu-kai for not having a family crest, Seikichi Shimamura sets out with his henchmen on a journey to acquire the crest of a local bankrupt family. The local Iwahashi clan and the fishermen fought over the construction of the industrial complex, but when Seikichi learned that the Seiyu-kai was behind the Iwahashi clan, he sided with the fishermen...

Wild Spirit

It has been 5 years since Eijiro Kikukawa of the Asakusa Kaminarimon family killed the head of the Suzaki family. Finally he gets out of prison and comes to the city of Odahama, where he had a mistress, Okei, whom he could not forget. He accidentally helped a man named Hanji from the Kurokane family and was received by the family as a guest. And soon Eijiro is involved in a showdown between the yakuza families.

Firebrands

Barely scraping by making an honest living as a rural yakuza, Hachiya (Yasukaze Motomiya) dreams of the City of Flowers. Unable to conceal their growing frustration at their everyday lives, he and his partner, Sakane (Yoshiyuki Yamaguchi), choose to pursue their own paths as yakuza, hiding a new major source of income from the family. But when the family captain (Kazuyoshi Ozawa) shows up for the first time in ten years...

Pigs and Battleships

In the city of Yokosuka, Kinta and his lover Haruko, both involved with yakuza, brave the post-occupation period with a goal to be together.

Adrenaline Drive

A gas leak explosion at a yakuza hideout provides a shy nurse and a rental car clerk with the opportunity to take a briefcase full of money. A cross-country chase ensues.

Rainy Dog

A Japanese assassin stranded in Taiwan must take work from a local crime boss to make ends meet when suddenly a woman from his past delivers a son to him.

Monday

A simple funeral turns a man's world Topsy turvy. He wakes up in a posh hotel room, totally clueless about how he got there. Slowly, he recalls what happened a day before.

Deadly Outlaw: Rekka

After Kunisada's Yakuza leader and father figure is brutally murdered, he and his best friend go on a two-man mission to avenge his death, killing other Yakuza leaders leading to a final confrontation by the old man's killers.

Fudoh: The New Generation

In order to settle a business dispute, a mob leader murders one of his own teenage sons. The surviving son vows to avenge his brother's death, and organizes his own gang of teenage killers to destroy his father's organization.

Jirocho' s Days of Youth: Whirlwind on the Tokaido

Adventures of famous yakuza boss Jirocho and his disciples who settle in Kofu.