The Vanishing (1988)

Storm Warning

A couple becomes lost in a massive storm and seek refuge at a nearby farmhouse, only to be captured by deranged killers.

Red Post on Escher Street

A genius film director, Tadashi Kobayashi holds an audition for his new film project. Several actors and actresses answer the open call, but most will only be cast as extras. Can the film come to a completion without accident?

All the Colors of the Dark

After a car accident that caused the loss of her baby, Jane experiences an increasing amount of nightmares that shake her to her core. After seeking professional help, her haunting visions turn into an even more frightening reality, one full of black magic, blood orgies, and murder.

The Invisible Maniac

An invisible scientist escapes from an asylum and teaches high-school physics to nubile teens.

The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years

An exploration of the heavy metal scene in Los Angeles, with particular emphasis on glam metal. It features concert footage and interviews of legendary heavy metal and hard rock bands and artists such as Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Kiss, Megadeth, Motörhead, Ozzy Osbourne and W.A.S.P..

I Am Curious (Yellow)

Lena, aged twenty, wants to know all she can about life and reality. She collects information on everyone and everything, storing her findings in an enormous archive. She experiments with relationships, political activism, and meditation. Meanwhile, the actors, director and crew are shown in a humorous parallel plot about the making of the film and their reactions to the story and each other. Nudity, explicit sex, and controversial politics kept this film from being shown in the US while its seizure by Customs was appealed.

C'est magnifique !

When Pierre learns that his parents are not his parents, he wants to find out who he is and where he comes from. Raised in nature, Pierre has never been confronted with society. He does not know the codes. He will team up with Anna who will help him in his quest and cross a whole gallery of characters as funny as tender. But during his investigation, Pierre will lose his colors – like a photo that fades.

Personal Services

Fed up with working hard just to scrape by, Christine Painter comes up with a bold plan to become the madam of a brothel and earn her financial freedom: she opens a house of spanking to fabulous reviews.

Metamorphosis

A geneticists working on a drug to stop ageing tries it upon himself with horrendous consequences.

Exhibit A

Exhibit A tells the timely story of a normal family disintegrating under financial pressure. All is not as it seems as the King family go about their day-to-day lives oblivious of the horror to come. Dad Andy (Bradley Cole) is nursing a secret that ultimately leads to terrible consequences for them all. We witness these chilling events unfold through daughter Judith's video camera, which subsequently becomes Exhibit A.

My Father Marianne

Hanna's world turns upside down when her dad, the priest, reveals that he wants to be a woman.

Sound of the Sea

Son de Mar (English: "Sound of the Sea") is a 2001 Spanish drama / erotic film directed by Juan José Bigas Luna based on the novel of the same title by Manuel Vicent. It revolves around Ulises (Jordi Mollà), who comes to a fishing village to teach literature at a local high school. During his stay he falls in love with Martina (Leonor Watling), the daughter of his landlord. Sierra (Eduard Fernández), a rich businessman, also falls in love with her and fruitlessly tries to win her heart.

Tiger on the Beat

A seasoned cop and his rookie partner try to solve the murder of a heroin trafficker.

Mind My Mind

Flirting, romance, sex... is it mission impossible for autistic people? Chris has invented a little man who, like a computer processor, helps him to survive in the social jungle.

Nirvana: Smells Like Teen Spirit

Plot unavailable

Stormy Monday

When a corrupt American businessman tries to strong arm his way into businesses in Newcastle, England, he is thwarted by a club attendant and his waitress girlfriend.

American Crime

A news team hunts for a serial killer who stalks victims via videotape and then records the ghastly deed.

My Very Best Friend

Esteban and Maxime are inseparable. Their families have always lived in the same Parisian building and Maxime, who has lived alone with his mother, a hard-working attorney, since his father died, has always felt part of Esteban's happy, friendly family. The boys have known each other since birth and consider themselves more than friends, they are brothers. The two friends have secretly made a small attic room the center of their world, where they invent characters and store their disguises and most treasured possessions. But their friendship is threatened when Maxime learns to his dismay that Esteban and his Spanish-born family are moving back to Spain. The two boys dream up a plan that they must soon put into action.

Black Mountain Side

A group of archaeologists uncover a strange structure in Northern Canada, dating over ten thousand years before the present. The team finds themselves isolated when their communication systems fail and it's not long before they begin to feel the effects of the solitude.

The Vanishing

The boyfriend of an abducted woman never gives up the search as the abductor looks on.

The Aviator's Wife

A student is devastated when he finds that his girlfriend is cheating on him. In order to find out why she did it, he decides to spy on her and her airline pilot lover. Then he sees the pilot with a blonde woman and he begins to follow them…

Arlington Road

Bedraggled college professor Michael Faraday has been vexed — and increasingly paranoid — since his wife's accidental death in a botched FBI operation. When a seemingly all-American couple set up house next door, Michael begin to suspect there’s more to them than meets the eye.

Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler

Dr. Mabuse and his organization of criminals are in the process of completing their latest scheme, a theft of information that will allow Mabuse to make huge profits on the stock exchange. Afterwards, Mabuse disguises himself and attends the Folies Bergères show, where Cara Carozza, the main attraction of the show, passes him information on Mabuse's next intended victim, the young millionaire Edgar Hull. Mabuse then uses psychic manipulation to lure Hull into a card game where he loses heavily. When Police Commissioner von Wenk begins an investigation of this mysterious crime spree, he has little to go on, and he needs to find someone who can help him.

Pépé le Moko

Pépé le Moko, one of France's most wanted criminals, hides out in the Casbah section of Algiers. He knows police will be waiting for him if he tries to leave the city. When Pépé meets Gaby, a gorgeous woman from Paris who is lost in the Casbah, he falls for her.

The Damned

In the early days of Nazi Germany, a powerful noble family must adjust to life under the new dictatorship regime.

Comrades, Almost a Love Story

Jun arrives in Hong Kong from mainland China, hoping to be able to earn enough money to marry his girlfriend back home. He meets the streetwise Qiao and they become friends. As friendship turns into love, problems develop, and although they seem meant for each other they somehow keep missing out.

Better Days

Following a car accident, Suzanne loses custody of her three children. She has no choice but to seek treatment at a center for alcoholics. As soon as she arrives, she meets Alice and Diane, two women with strong personalities. Denis, a sports instructor, will try to bring them together around the same goal: to participate in the Dune Rally in the Moroccan desert. He will need a lot of patience and teaching skills to prepare this unlikely team to achieve their goal.

Motel Hell

Farmer Vincent Smith and his sister Ida run a motel attached to a farm where they capture unsuspecting travelers, bury them alive, fatten them up and then harvest their bodies as ingredients for his famous brand of "smoked meats."

Society

Bill Whitney is worried that he is different to his sister and parents. They mix with other upper-class people while Bill is more down to earth. Even his girlfriend seems a bit odd. All is revealed when Bill returns home to find a party in full swing.

Love Reset

A married couple who received a divorce settlement lose their memories in an accident. With amnesia, they fall in love again, so their families try to restore their memories to finalize the divorce.

Unthinkable

The government gets wind of a plot to destroy America involving a trio of nuclear weapons for which the whereabouts are unknown. It's up to a seasoned interrogator and an FBI agent to find out exactly where the nukes are.

On the Silver Globe

A small group of cosmic explorers, including a woman, leaves Earth to start a new civilization. They do not realize that within themselves they carry the end of their own dream. They die one by one, while their children revert to a primitive native culture, creating new myths and a new god.

Hi, Mom!

Vietnam vet Jon Rubin returns to New York and rents a rundown flat in Greenwich Village. It is in this flat that he begins to film, 'Peeping Tom' style, the people in the apartment across the street. His obsession with making films leads him to fall in with a radical 'Black Power' group, which in turn leads him to carry out a bizarre act of urban terrorism.

Only the River Flows

1990s, Banpo Town, rural China. A woman's body is found by the river. Ma Zhe, Chief of the Criminal Police, heads up the murder investigation that leads to an obvious arrest. His superiors hurry to congratulate him, but several clues push Ma Zhe to delve deeper into the hidden behaviour of his fellow citizens.

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon

On the eve of retirement, Captain Nathan Brittles takes out a last patrol to stop an impending massive Indian attack. Encumbered by women who must be evacuated, Brittles finds his mission imperiled.

The Burning

A caretaker at a summer camp is burned when a prank goes tragically wrong. After several years of intensive treatment at hospital, he is released back into society, albeit missing some social skills. What follows is a bloody killing spree with the caretaker making his way back to his old stomping ground to confront one of the youths that accidentally burned him.

Palombella rossa

Michele is a Communist MP who loses his memory in a car crash—although nobody seems to notice. Over the course of a water polo match ahead of election day, he begins to remember his past life, revealing the picture of a man whose personal and political identity crisis mirrors the one of Italian communism.

A Round Trip to Love 2

Five years apart, they reunite as lovers, but when family-demands force Xiao Chen to marry, Lu Feng feels betrayed—and vows revenge.

Three Colors: Red

Part-time model Valentine unexpectedly befriends a retired judge after she runs over his dog. At first, the grumpy man shows no concern about the dog, and Valentine decides to keep it. But the two form a bond when she returns to his house and catches him listening to his neighbors’ phone calls.

Sweetness

When a chance encounter with her rockstar crush leads 16-year-old Rylee to discover that he's a dysfunctional drug addict, she takes it upon herself to help him, ultimately forcing her teenage fantasies into reality.

Vampyr

A student of the occult encounters supernatural haunts and local evildoers in a village outside of Paris.

Blue Velvet

The discovery of a severed human ear found in a field leads a young man on an investigation related to a beautiful, mysterious nightclub singer and a group of psychopathic criminals who have kidnapped her child.

Rosemary's Baby

A young couple, Rosemary and Guy, moves into an infamous New York apartment building, known by frightening legends and mysterious events, with the purpose of starting a family.

Diabolique

The cruel and abusive headmaster of a boarding school, Michel Delassalle, is murdered by an unlikely duo -- his meek wife and the mistress he brazenly flaunts. The women become increasingly unhinged by a series of odd occurrences after Delassalle's corpse mysteriously disappears.

M

In this classic German thriller, Hans Beckert, a serial killer who preys on children, becomes the focus of a massive Berlin police manhunt. Beckert's heinous crimes are so repellant and disruptive to city life that he is even targeted by others in the seedy underworld network. With both cops and criminals in pursuit, the murderer soon realizes that people are on his trail, sending him into a tense, panicked attempt to escape justice.

Shadowplay

When a private eye takes a case to find a missing university student, he must explore the deep dark depths of his own mind to uncover the truth around his own childhood disappearance as he tracks down the missing girl.

Solaris

A troubled psychologist is sent to investigate the crew of an isolated research station orbiting a bizarre planet.

Cop Land

Freddy Heflin is the sheriff of a place everyone calls “Cop Land” — a small and seemingly peaceful town populated by the big city police officers he’s long admired. Yet something ugly is taking place behind the town’s peaceful facade. And when Freddy uncovers a massive, deadly conspiracy among these local residents, he is forced to take action and make a dangerous choice between protecting his idols and upholding the law.

Breakdown

On their cross-country drive, a married couple, Jeff and Amy Taylor, experience car trouble after their SUV breaks down. Stranded in the New Mexico desert, the two catch a break when a passing truck driver offers Amy a ride to a nearby café to call for help. Meanwhile, Jeff is able to fix the car and make his way to the café, but Amy isn't there. He tracks down the trucker -- who tells the police he's never seen Jeff or his wife before. Jeff then begins a desperate, frenzied search for Amy.

Liberty Stands Still

As the heir and current marketing director for one of the nation's biggest gun manufacturers, Liberty Wallace is indifferent to the atrocities made possible through her business and her CEO husband, Victor. On her way to see her actor lover, Liberty ends up chained to a food cart full of explosives -- all at the insistence of "Joe", a sniper whose young daughter was a victim of gun violence, and who now has Liberty in his sights.

The Glass House

When Ruby and Rhett's parents are killed in a car accident, their carefree teenage lives are suddenly shattered. Moving to an incredible house in Malibu with the Glasses', old friends of the family, seems to be the beginning of a new life for them.

Fanny and Alexander

As children in the loving Ekdahl family, Fanny and Alexander enjoy a happy life with their parents, who run a theater company. After their father dies unexpectedly, however, the siblings end up in a joyless home when their mother, Emilie, marries a stern bishop. The bleak situation gradually grows worse as the bishop becomes more controlling, but dedicated relatives make a valiant attempt to aid Emilie, Fanny and Alexander.

Salvador

In 1980, an American journalist covering the Salvadoran Civil War becomes entangled with both the leftist guerrilla groups and the right-wing military dictatorship while trying to rescue his girlfriend and her children.

Be Afraid

Not long after John Chambers and his family arrive at their new home in a small country town of Pennsylvania, John begins to experience sleep paralysis. Lying there paralyzed, trapped within his own nightmare, other-worldly beings visit John. They are entities which exist in the darkest shadows of the night and can only be seen out of the corner of one's eye. These encounters begin to haunt John, transforming to complete terror as he discovers the entities' sole purpose... the abduction of his seven year old son. In the end, John will uncover the town's horrific secret, a portal on his land, and make one last attempt to save his son before the shadow people permanently take him away to their world.

Let Us In

A 12 year old girl is determined to uncover who or what is behind the rash of disappearances occurring in her small town.

Sand Castles

In rural Indiana, Noah and his impoverished family wrestle with the mysterious return of his now mute sister, Lauren, who was kidnapped and held captive for over a decade.

Aamir

A doctor of Indian origin returning to Mumbai from London is forced to participate in a terrorist plot.

Police Story 2

The Hong Kong super-cop must stop a group of blackmailing bombers at the same time that the villains of the first Police Story are out for revenge.

Without a Paddle

Three friends, whose lives have been drifting apart, reunite for the funeral of a fourth childhood friend. When looking through their childhood belongings, they discover a trunk which contained details on a quest their friend was attempting. It revealed that he was hot on the trail of the $200,000 that went missing with airplane hijacker D.B. Cooper in 1971. They decide to continue his journey, but do not understand the dangers they will soon encounter.

Tell No One

A man receives a mysterious email appearing to be from his wife, who was murdered years earlier. As he frantically tries to find out whether she's alive, he finds himself being implicated in her death.

Naked Weapon

A mysterious woman, known as Madame M, kidnaps forty pre-teen girls and transports them to a remote island to train them as the most deadly assassins. CIA operative Jack Chen follows the case for 6 years with no leads, but when a series of assassinations begin to occur, Jack suspects that Madame M is back in business.

The Crow: City of Angels

A murder victim is brought back to life by a mysterious crow. With the help of a beautiful woman, he exacts revenge on his killers – only to realize his enemy has discovered the one weakness that can destroy him forever.

Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever

Jonathan Ecks, an FBI agent, realizes that he must join with his lifelong enemy, Agent Sever, a rogue DIA agent with whom he is in mortal combat, in order to defeat a common enemy. That enemy has developed a "micro-device" that can be injected into victims in order to kill them at will.

Seven Days to Live

A grieving woman suffers terrifying visions of her own demise after she and her husband move into a country mansion.

In the Heat of the Night

African-American Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs is arrested on suspicion of murder by Bill Gillespie, the racist police chief of tiny Sparta, Mississippi. After Tibbs proves not only his own innocence but that of another man, he joins forces with Gillespie to track down the real killer. Their investigation takes them through every social level of the town, with Tibbs making enemies as well as unlikely friends as he hunts for the truth.

Soundless

Viktor, a methodical hit man, probably on his last job, has no plan for his retirement. He does not kill Nina, a woman sleeping beside his latest mark; then he follows her and rescues her from an attempted suicide. Nina is attracted to him, but also wants to know who he is. Her pursuit of his identity crosses the investigation of Lang, a brilliant police investigator who tries to inhabit the minds of the victims and the killer. Viktor's employer also wants to kill Viktor and his contact, an aging arms dealer and family friend. Does Viktor have a future?

Dead Calm

An Australian couple takes a sailing trip in the Pacific to get over the recent loss of their son. While on the open sea, they come across a sinking ship with one survivor who is not at all what he seems.

Blow Out

While recording sound effects for a slasher flick, Jack Terry stumbles upon a real-life horror: a car careening off a bridge and into a river. Jack jumps into the water and fishes out Sally from the car, but the other passenger is already dead — a governor intending to run for president. As Jack does some investigating of his tapes, and starts a perilous romance with Sally, he enters a tangled web of conspiracy that might leave him dead.

Le Cercle Rouge

When French criminal Corey gets released from prison, he resolves to never return. He is quickly pulled back into the underworld, however, after a chance encounter with escaped murderer Vogel. Along with former policeman and current alcoholic Jansen, they plot an intricate jewel heist. All the while, quirky Police Commissioner Mattei, who was the one to lose custody of Vogel, is determined to find him.

Red Road

Jackie is a CCTV operator. One day, a man shows his face on her monitor, a man she hoped never to see again. Now she has no choice and is compelled to confront him.

Who's Harry Crumb?

Harry Crumb is a bumbling and inept private investigator who is hired to solve the kidnapping of a young heiress which he's not expected to solve because his employer is the mastermind behind the kidnapping.

Sicilian Ghost Story

In a little Sicilian village at the edge of a forest, Giuseppe, a boy of 13, vanishes. Luna, his classmate who loves him, refuses to accept his mysterious disappearance. She rebels against the silence and complicity that surround her, and to find him she descends into the dark world which has swallowed him up and which has a lake as its mysterious entrance.

The Road to Shame

Pierre Rossi and Béatrice live in the same block of flats in Marseille and love each other. One night, Béatrice leaves her apartment. Pierre knows that his fiancée goes to a rendezvous, but she would not tell him more than just that. Worried, Pierre follows her but he is attacked and stolen his identity papers by two men, Tom and Nasol, on the payroll of Quaglio, one of the city's bosses. Later on, Quaglio kills Nasol and deposits the body in a garage, leaving Pierre's papers nearby. As for Pierre, he manages to follow Tom to a villa where several young women have been invited. Pierre, horrified, realizes that this place is the headquarters for the white slave trade. - Written by Guy Bellinger

The Fury

When a devious plot separates CIA agent Peter Sandza from his son, Robin, the distraught father manages to see through the ruse. Taken because of his psychic abilities, Robin is being held by Ben Childress, who is studying people with supernatural powers in hopes of developing their talents as weapons. Soon Peter pairs up with Gillian, a teen who has telekinesis, to find and rescue Robin.

Freeze Frame

Sean Veil is an ultra paranoid murder suspect who takes to filming himself round the clock to provide an alibi, just in case he's ever accused of another crime. Problems arise however when the police do come calling and the one tape that can prove his innocence has mysteriously disappeared.

Room of Death

While on a joyride with the headlights turned off, two men hit and kill another man carrying a satchel full of money. The two men decide to take the money and throw the body into a pond and bury the money in a coal hill. The next morning the police discover the body of a kidnapped 12-year blind girl, Melody, in a warehouse near the site of the hit-and-run. They determine that the kidnapper saw the girl's father bringing the ransom to him and also witnessed the hit-and-run and the men stealing the ransom.

In a Lonely Place

A violent screenwriter and a female neighbor fall in love after she clears him of murder, but she begins to have second thoughts.

Night Skies

On March 13th, 1997 one of the largest UFO sightings ever recorded took place across the southwestern United States...

Reckless

This stylish, sexually charged thriller revolves around two men who kidnap a woman and chain her to a bed as they await the ransom money. As the clock ticks, the woman discovers that she may have a relationship with one of the kidnappers that she never expected...and that the two men may have a relationship with each other that no one could have expected.

The Last House on the Left

On the eve of her 17th birthday, Mari and friend Phyllis set off from her family home to attend a rock concert in the city. Attempting to score some drugs on the way, the pair run afoul of a group of vicious crooks, headed up by the sadistic Krug.

Woman in the Dunes

A vacationing entomologist suffers extreme physical and psychological trauma after being taken captive by the residents of a poor seaside village and made to live with a woman whose life task is shoveling sand for them.

Murder Mystery 2

After starting their own detective agency, Nick and Audrey Spitz land a career-making case when their billionaire pal is kidnapped from his wedding.

The Cry of the Owl

Fleeing New York City, a failed marriage and a fragile mental history, artist Robert Forrester moves to small-town Pennsylvania. There he becomes fascinated with the simple domesticity of a beautiful neighbor, watching her through the windows of her home --- until she invites him in for coffee. He is drawn into a relationship with the young woman whose boyfriend goes missing; Robert becomes a murder suspect, gradually sensing he is the target of a larger plot.

Flesh and Bone

Haunted by memories of his father murdering a family, Arlis Sweeney prefers to keep to himself, focusing his energy on his work. One day, the traumatic past that eats away at him returns when he meets Kay Davies, a woman connected to the bloody event. Against all odds, Arlis and Kay fall in love; however, when his father, Roy, reappears in his life -- with the coldhearted Ginnie in tow -- Arlis must deal with his past demons.

Oxygen

When housewife Frances Hannon is abducted and buried alive, detective Madeline Foster is brought in. With only 24 hours before Frances' oxygen runs out, Madeline pursues the trail laid by a killer calling himself Harry Houdini. After capturing him, Madeline brings Harry back to the police station, but is unable to get him to confess where Frances is buried. As time runs down, Harry gets inside the head of unstable, alcoholic Madeline.

The Last House on the Left

When athletic teen Mari Collingwood opts to hang out with her friend Paige in town rather than spend an evening in with her parents vacationing at the family's remote lake house, it marks the beginning of a night no one is going to forget.

The Abductors

Someone is stealing cheerleaders and other pretty girls and selling them to the highest bidder. Female super sexy spy Ginger is soon employed to investigate the disappearances. She does so by going undercover with a fellow agent and doing whatever is necessary to put an end to the operation and take down the leaders.

Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon

In the midst of World War II, Sherlock Holmes rescues the Swiss inventor of a new bomb-sight from the Gestapo and brings him to England, where he quickly falls into the clutches of the evil Professor Moriarty.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

A renegade Vulcan with a startling secret hijacks the U.S.S. Enterprise in order to find a mythical planet.

Star Trek: Generations

Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-D find themselves at odds with the renegade scientist Soran who is destroying entire star systems. Only one man can help Picard stop Soran's scheme...and he's been dead for seventy-eight years.

The Wages of Fear

In a run-down South American town, four men are paid to drive trucks loaded with nitroglycerin into the jungle through to the oil field. Friendships are tested and rivalries develop as they embark upon the perilous journey.

Rebecca

Story of a young woman who marries a fascinating widower only to find out that she must live in the shadow of his former wife, Rebecca, who died mysteriously several years earlier. The young wife must come to grips with the terrible secret of her handsome, cold husband, Max De Winter. She must also deal with the jealous, obsessed Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper, who will not accept her as the mistress of the house.

Police Intervene in the House of Love

Three young hobby archeologists witness a satanic ritual in a secluded villa. Instead of helping poor female victims they decide to secretly document the events.

The Lady Vanishes

On a train headed for England a group of travelers is delayed by an avalanche. Holed up in a hotel in a fictional European country, young Iris befriends elderly Miss Froy. When the train resumes, Iris suffers a bout of unconsciousness and wakes to find the old woman has disappeared. The other passengers ominously deny Miss Froy ever existed, so Iris begins to investigate with another traveler and, as the pair sleuth, romantic sparks fly.

Lethal Weapon 2

Riggs and Murtaugh are on the trail of South African diplomats using their immunity to engage in criminal activities.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

In the questionable town of Deer Meadow, Washington, FBI Agent Desmond inexplicably disappears while hunting for the man who murdered a teen girl. The killer is never apprehended, and, after experiencing dark visions and supernatural encounters, Agent Dale Cooper chillingly predicts that the culprit will claim another life. Meanwhile, in the more cozy town of Twin Peaks, hedonistic beauty Laura Palmer hangs with lowlifes and seems destined for a grisly fate.

Nell

In a remote woodland cabin, a small town doctor discovers Nell — a beautiful young hermit woman with many secrets.

Zodiac

The Zodiac murders cause the lives of Paul Avery, David Toschi and Robert Graysmith to intersect.

Spare Parts

Honeymooning couple Monica and Mike check into a motel in New Mexico. All seems normal until an ambulance pulls up and abducts Mike. Monica narrowly escapes and, with the help of truck driver Bill, discovers the awful secret of the motel and the ambulance service.

Death Sentence

Nick Hume is a mild-mannered executive with a perfect life, until one gruesome night he witnesses something that changes him forever. Transformed by grief, Hume eventually comes to the disturbing conclusion that no length is too great when protecting his family.

Yojimbo

A nameless ronin, or samurai with no master, enters a small village in feudal Japan where two rival businessmen are struggling for control of the local gambling trade. Taking the name Sanjuro Kuwabatake, the ronin convinces both silk merchant Tazaemon and sake merchant Tokuemon to hire him as a personal bodyguard, then artfully sets in motion a full-scale gang war between the two ambitious and unscrupulous men.