Badge of the Night (1963)

OSARU-CHAN

When two brothers steal a valuable heirloom from an elderly Japanese woman, they unknowingly awaken her demigod son, Osaru, who does not take kindly to thieves.

The Threat

Two escaped criminals who kidnapped a baby break into the house of Misawa, a man who works in an advertising agency and lives quietly with his family. They will force him to collect the child's ransom for them.

Greed in Broad Daylight

After a successful robbery the culprits, from very different backgrounds, at once turn on each other.

The Bad Sleep Well

In this loose adaptation of "Hamlet," illegitimate son Kôichi Nishi climbs to a high position within a Japanese corporation and marries the crippled daughter of company vice president Iwabuchi. At the reception, the wedding cake is a replica of their corporate headquarters, but an aspect of the design reminds the party of the hushed-up death of Nishi's father. It is then that Nishi unleashes his plan to avenge his father's death.

Endless Desire

Set in post-war Japan, a group of five, four men and one woman, gathers in the basement of a butcher shop to dig up a cache of morphine buried during the war. A grimly humorous tale of twisted relationships as one by one each of the group is eliminated.

A Colt Is My Passport

A gang lord hires Kamimura, a hit man, to take out a rival boss who's gotten greedy.

Tokyo Drifter

After yakuza boss Kurata dissolves his own criminal empire, a rival kingpin offers a position to Kurata's top operative, Tetsuya "Phoenix Tetsu" Hondo. When the fiercely loyal Tetsu declines, Otsuka taps unstoppable Tatsuzo the "Viper", a ruthless gun-for-hire, to assassinate him. As the Viper trails his target through the countryside, the agile Phoenix Tetsu grows concerned that one of his former associates has betrayed him.

High and Low

A Yokohama shoe executive faces a wrenching choice when kidnappers mistakenly seize his chauffeur’s son but demand the ransom anyway.

Black Line

Freelance reporter “Scoop” Machida is hot on the trail of a prostitution ring called the Black Line, when he is framed for the murder of a young woman. Forced to clear his own name, the handsome journalist sinks deeper into the Black Line’s rotten swamp of drugs, prostitution, and murder and finds unexpected help in Maya, a steamy female gambler familiar with the neon-lit streets, shadowy alleyways, and seedy nightclubs he must navigate. The closest film in the Line series to classic American film noir, Ishii’s Black Line is a pulpy assortment of crime film conventions including the starkly expressionistic black and white cinematography by Jûgyô Yoshida, a jazzy music score by Michiaki Watanabe, and a sleazy screenplay by Ishii and Ichirô Miyagawa.

Intimidation

Koreyoshi Kurahara's ingeniously plotted, pocket-size noir concerns the intertwined fates of a desperate bank manager, blackmailed for book-cooking, and his resentful but timid underling, passed over for a promotion. The marvelously moody Intimidation is an elegantly stripped-down and carefully paced crime drama.

Stolen Pleasure

Based on the original novel by Tokuda Shusei, adapted by frequent Masumura scribe Kaneto Shindo, this downbeat melodrama features a battle of women for the affections and commitment of the same man, a handsome car salesman. Masuko is the number one hostess at a cabaret, living with her lover, ... but finds out that he has a wife. When Masuko’s niece arrives the competition further ratchets up.

Good-for-Nothing

Yoshida's first feature follows the lives of young students against a background of jazz, emptiness and boredom. The plot is fairly simple: a "good-for-nothing" from a poor background falls in love with the young secretary of his rich friend's father. The woman senses good in him and tries to lead him on the right path.

Pale Flower

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.

I Am Waiting

A former boxer gets involved with a club hostess trying to escape the clutches of her gangster employer.

Rusty Knife

Udaka is a new, post-war city where corruption has already taken hold. A persistent district attorney wants to arrest and convict Katsumata, a laughing, self-confident thug. The D.A. gets an anonymous letter about the suicide five years' before of a city council member. Evidence about the case leads the D.A. to Tachibana, struggling to go straight after involvement with the mob and a prison sentence for killing the man responsible for the rape and suicide of his fiancée. One of Tachibana's friends is Keiko, the daughter of the dead councilman and the ward of another powerful official. How do these stories connect?

Cruel Gun Story

Businessmen arrange the early release from prison of Togawa, serving time for taking revenge on the truck driver whose carelessness confined Togawa's sister, Rie, to a wheelchair. They want Togawa to hijack an armored truck loaded with 120 million yen; their leverage is to promise him money for surgery for Rie. Togawa consents and plans the heist with three others. The plan is solid, but it doesn't go smoothly. Togawa must improvise, there are traitors somewhere, and double-crosses mount. Can Togawa escape with enough money to help his sister and ensure a passage out of Japan?

Take Aim at the Police Van

A sniper kills two prisoners in a police van, and the driver sets out to find the killer.

Internal Sleuth

When 150 guns are stolen from Iwakuni base and two police officers are shot dead, a detective criminal tries to find out the truth.

Cash Calls Hell

Before leaving prison, Oida uncomfortably enters into an agreement with his cell mate: in exchange for a half-share of 30,000,000 yen, he is to assassinate three strangers given to him on a list. However, upon meeting his first potential victim, Oida has second thoughts. Yet, even as he tries to back out, the body count starts climbing. Oida must now try to alert the people on his list of their impending danger, and find out why they are being targeted in the first place.

A Killer's Key

Raizô Ichikawa reprises his role as the restaurant-cook-turned-contract-killer in this sequel to Kazuo Mori's stylish 1967 thriller A Certain Killer.

Red Pier

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.

The Warped Ones

A juvenile delinquent gets out of the pen and immediately embarks on a rampage of untethered anger, most of it directed at the girlfriend of the journalist who helped send him up.

Yellow Line

The murder of the chief official of Kobe city's Customs triggers an investigation of a prostitution ring called the 'Yellow Line' that sells Japanese women. A hired assassin is betrayed by his organization, and kidnaps a woman who happens to be the girlfriend of a newspaper reporter.

Get 'em All

Gang of robbers quarrel about the loot, but when one of them gets killed, his younger brother seeks them out to ice them one by one.

The Beast Shall Die

A promising post-graduate literature student is transformed into a psychotic killer following the suicide of his father and a sleazy affair by his mother with a younger man.

Yuganda tsuki

Plot unavailable

The False Student

A youth drama set in a Japanese university which is home to a group of active, leftist students.

The Challenge

Journalist Kuroki is investigating clandestine arms sales to Southeast Asia. He discovers that the point man in an arms trade was also involved in the cover-up of a murder on an American base during the Allied Occupation. The film rolls along as a suspenseful thriller while offering a critique of political corruption, hypocrisy, and journalistic cowardice in postwar Japan.

Ten Dark Women

Kaze is a philandering TV producer. His wife and nine of his mistresses conspire to kill him. However each woman would rather keep him alive, as long as she was the only woman in his life.

The Perfect Game

College students come up with a scam to rob a gambling house. When it comes time to collect, the money isn't there, leading the young men into even more serious crime.

The Desperate

A noir drama depicting the downfall of a veteran detective who hates evil and falls into its depths. Ace detective Sugai pursues Chiyo, the mistress of a man who was arrested for extortion, and takes advantage of her weakness. However, as his colleague Tokumochi and others regard him with suspicion, he is tormented by remorse.

The Last Gunfight

Japanese police detective Saburo Fujioka is suspected of corruption, demoted, and sent to the city of Kojin. Kojin is the scene of fierce fighting between rival gangs. Fujioka is assigned to investigate the death of the wife of gangster Tetsuo Maruyama of the Kozuka gang, probably at the hands of one of the Oka gang. During a gang gunfight, Maruyama is rescued by Detective Fujioka and the two become friends. But Maruyama insists on avenging his wife's murder, even if it means conflict with his new friend.

Sexy Line

It tells the story of a couple who fall into a trap set up by a sinister organization. One of them is a guy who is framed for the murder of his lover. The other is a woman pick-pocket who is entrapped by the organization's schemes involving their crimes. Fate places them together, and they start to investigate the prostitution ring run by the organization...

The Shadow Within

When a married man begins an affair with a woman from his past, he comes to suspect her young son intends to murder him.

The Creature Called Man

A top police-guard, charged with protecting a visiting politician and ruthless dictator, contends with an assassin set to kill the man.

Wolves, Pigs & Men

Sabu and his pals hold a pauper's funeral for Sabu's mother. His brother Jiro arrives home, fresh out of jail, and Sabu pointedly states that Jiro is not invited. Jiro meanwhile is planning a big job - steal 40 million in cash and drugs, and he invites Sabu and gang to act as decoys, for 50,000 each. The sting is a success, but the double-crossing starts almost immediately. Sabu discovers how little of the take they were promised and hides the stash. Jiro and his slimy partner pressure the kids to fess up. Meanwhile, their respectable elder brother Ichiro is being leaned on by the town's big boss, whose money it was.

The Man Without a Map

A private detective is hired to find a missing man by his wife. While his search is unsuccessful, the detective's own life begins to resemble the man for whom he is searching.

Seijun Suzuki: kabuki & yakuzas

Film director and screenwriter Seijun Suzuki (1923-2017), who in the sixties was the great innovator of Japanese cinema; and his collaborator, art director and screenwriter Takeo Kimura (1918-2010), recall how they made their great masterpieces about the Yakuza underworld for the Nikkatsu film company.

The Lost Alibi

Suspense drama about a married salaryman whose affair with one of his co-workers is compromised when, returning from a clandestine meeting with his lover, he runs into a neighbor who is later accused of murder. Questioned by police about the neighbor, and blackmailed by his lover's neighbor, the salaryman's lies lead him on a path to destruction.

The dark side of Japan

Forget the neon lights and cherry blossoms — this is Japan like you’ve never seen it. In this gripping short documentary, Omar Farooq dives into the dark underbelly of Japanese society, exposing hidden truths, silent struggles, and the untold stories that lie behind the country's polished image.

The Alabama Solution

Incarcerated men defy the odds to expose a cover-up in one of America’s deadliest prison systems.

Vatapá ou Maniçoba?

Young Marcely had to move to her father and grandmother's house. While trying to adapt to the new routine, Marcely also needs to dedicate herself to winning her first MC battle, which is her life's greatest dream. At the same time, her father organizes for her to participate in a debutante ball. With different beliefs, dreams and goals, father and daughter face generational barriers that generate a series of conflicts between them.

A Bela e a Rosa

Plot unavailable

Proximity

A woman living in an isolated community is anchored to her home while waiting for her husband to return from sea, until she is reminded she has everything she needs to be free.

They Learned About Women

Jack and Jerry are doing okay between profession baseball and Vaudeville. That is, until love and gold-diggers get in the way.

Two Kinds of Women

The daughter of a senator from South Dakota visits Manhattan for the first time, eager to see the sights of the big city. While there, she finds herself caught up in an affair with a married man, whose wife soon commits suicide. Complications ensue.

Two-Gun Caballero

A cowhand named Bob Blake visits with Sally Thompson and her kid-brother, Jimmy, on their hard-scrabble homestead adjoining the Steele Ranch where Bob works. He learns that their father just died, and he plans on seeing if he can make things a bit easier for them.

The Tigress

The wild and wanton Francisca, known as "The Tigress," is the eldest of three sisters, who are bosses of a farm in Ecuador. A medicine man tells Francisca and Juliana that their youngest sister Sara must remain a virgin to protect their land. A travelling salesman, engaged to Sara, tells the police that she is being kept locked up by her older sisters.

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.

City of Desire

Sandra (Sandra Ng) is in for a serious dose of culture shock when she returns from her studies abroad to her home in Macau, where her father is the head of a major network of underground gambling, prostitution, and other assorted super-vices. Sandra's father is putting on the pressure for her to inherit his morally-corrupt throne, but her morals dictate that she have nothing to do with it. However, Sandra's childhood friend Josie (Josie Ho) has gotten herself into serious debt and desperately needs any help Sandra can offer. Will Sandra help her friend at the cost of her own morals? It's now up to her to decide between upholding her own beliefs and making serious ethical sacrifices for the sake of her friend.

Overnight Flies

Eddie, a 65-year-old man from Sudan, seems to have been living for countless days on a remote stone-covered Swedish island. Surrounded by screaming birds and carrying a silent past, Eddie wanders around in nature, recollecting moments with a broken video camera. Accompanied by Jan, a ghostly hermit living deep in the forest, Eddie penetrates an otherwise hostile environment that is oblivious to his isolation. ​Despite his circumstances, Eddie looks for the miraculous in the overlooked present time.

Jack Kerouac's Road: A Franco-American Odyssey

Part documentary, part drama, this film presents the life and work of Jack Kerouac, an American writer with Québec roots who became one of the most important spokesmen for his generation. Intercut with archival footage, photographs and interviews, this film takes apart the heroic myth and even returns to the childhood of the author whose life and work contributed greatly to the cultural, sexual and social revolution of the 1960s.

In the Eyes

A Sunday like any other among a Russian community in France. Victor, a discreet young man, has to overcome the elusiveness of the one he loves in secret.

The Girls with the Red Ribbons

Jeta is a student who is a member of the illegals and tries to create a group of antifascist girls in her school.

Once Upon A Time in Hoi Shing Road

The film is based on a real incident that happened in Hong Kong. Like any other regular people, Dak made 3 months of effort trying to have his “Know TV” account terminated: calling Service Hotline, faxing and mailing forms everyday, invoices nonetheless are still sent to Dak. Sometimes it takes a silly act to start a revolution.

Sugar

Inspired by the dramatic true story of the Cocaine Cowgirls, Sugar follows two young Canadian women who get caught up in a major drug smuggling operation aboard a luxury cruise ship sailing around the world. With nowhere to run—the walls close in on them.