Movies: Isao Bitō

Follows the fluctuating fortunes of three ronin in feudal Japan who wander from castle to castle, selling their services to whichever lord will fill their rice bowls. Though they use the servants' entrance, they still feel themselves bound by the sam...

A young jazz musician's desire to advance in his career runs afoul of organized crime in this thriller from Haruki Kadokawa. After a saxophonist starts playing at a particular nightspot, a thug from the Yakuza adopts him as a special friend for no gr...

Etsuko, a female college student, tries to beat the con artists at their own game after she gets scammed one after another....

Chiba, looking gnarly, and acting as animalistic as ever, stars alongside Matsukata as violent gangsters battling their way through fight after bloody fight with rival yakuza on the streets of Okinawa....

A yakuza leader must balance his violent tactics necessary for the rough streets of 1960s Tokyo with the domestic needs of his daughters....

When Wabisuke's father-in-law unexpectedly dies, the family goes through a series of random events and occurrences as the funeral unfolds over three days in their home....

In 1930, the chance meeting of a novelist and one of his fans opens the door to a series of mysterious events culminating in the death of a wealthy industrialist who may have been leading a double life....

Kotaro and Kuroe marry almost immediately in a Christian ceremony and move into an apartment. Life is completely joyous until, one day, Kuroe falls ill....

Young writer Tamako, who is wrongfully accused of killing the head yakuza, must find a way out of trouble....

One night, as pub owner Sotaro is caring for his sick wife, Shizuko, she asks him to promise that if she dies, he will never remarry. Thinking she is just being dramatic, he promises and tells her to go to sleep. When he wakes the next morning, howev...

The four kinds of love that Yuriko experiences, namely, a childhood longing love, a dream of marriage, a maternal love, and a destined love between parents and children over two generations, as well as the sisterly love between Yuriko and her sister ...

After a death-defying game of chicken one evening in 1958, Akagi nonchalantly enters a Yakuza Mahjong parlor to shake the cops' trail. Even unfamiliar with the rules of Mahjong, his gambling intuition is enough to save a small time gambler, Nangou, a...

Life seems to be good for Shintoto, an up-and-coming rakugo artist who has just had his first sexual experience at a local brothel. Lucky for him, he gets to date the beautiful sex worker he meets that day, and a younger high school rakugo aficionado...

The story of a Japanese man who as a 16-year-old went to Maui to work in the sugar cane fields in order to support his family back in Japan. Now 89 and still living in Hawaii he is visited by his granddaughter who brings him a letter from his disinhe...

An ex-Olympic athlete and a student commit cash robbery. Aki Hoshino, a pre-med student, becomes inspired to steal money the school collected as “special fees” from parents wanting to assure their offspring’s’ acceptance into the hallowed institution...

Kon Ichikawa's retelling of the classic true story of Samurai honor. When a young clan lord is forced to commit seppuku (ritual suicide), his loyal followers (now Ronin, masterless Samurai) dedicate their lives to avenging his death....

The documentary about how Beatles went popular in Japan and did a concert in Budokan back in 1966....

High school movie...

A new magistrate in the town of Horisoto—widely reputed to be the most lawless township in Japan, uses guile and his opponents' own misperceptions and prejudices to defeat his enemies and uproot corruption....

A man whose son has been murdered pushes to create laws to financially protect victims' families....