Battle Royale

In the future, the Japanese government captures a class of ninth-grade students and forces them to kill each other under the revolutionary "Battle Royale" act.

Virus

Scientists in Antarctica desperately try to find a cure to a military virus that was released in a plane crash and has wiped out the rest of the world.

Legend of the Eight Samurai

The evil Hikita clan rises from the dead to fulfill a curse on the Satomi clan by restoring the face of their warlord by using the skin of Princess Shizu. In the process of trying to capture her, the clan murders her entire family, but Princess Shizu escapes their clutches. She enlists the aid of eight samurai warriors, possessors of powerful magic crystal, led by Dosetsu (Sonny Chiba!) to help rescue the remaining members of her court and revenge her family. Along the way, they must fight undead warriors, evil spirits, poisonous beauties an...

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 ...

Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Final Episode

While Hirono is in prison, his rival Takeda turns his own crime organization into a political party, whose two executives stir up new tensions in their thirst for power.

Battles Without Honor and Humanity: The Complete Saga

The 224-minute compilation edition of Battles Without Honor and Humanity compiles these four movies: Battles Without Honor and Humanity, Deadly Fight in Hiroshima, Proxy War, Police Tactics.

The Abe Clan

A Choice between Loyalty or Duty of the Samurai! Can the heartlessness of society crush the honor of an individual? In the spring of the 18th year of Kanei, Hosokawa Tadatoshi, feudal lord of the Higo area, died. Although Tadatoshi forbade his vassals to follow him in death before he died, they still committed seppuku one after the other. The new feudal lord, Mitsunao, Tadatoshi's son, also gave the order forbidding seppuku. Abe Yaichiemon obeyed his former lord's last wish but is now being called a coward by his comrades and finally decided...

Gambler's Farewell

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

A Chaos of Flowers

Set in the Taisho era, which might be regarded as Japan's Hippie Phase, Hana no ran is a story about fashionable people without impulse control. Much of the action centers on a popular woman writer, the real-life poet Akiko Yosano, and her experiences among the literati of early 20th century Japan. Because of her independent, anti-war and often erotic poetry, she was a lightning rod for revolutionaries and other extremists, many of whom were destined to glamorous, yet ultimately pointless, deaths. The closest parallels might be the Byron/She...

Drifting Detective: Black Wind in Harbor

Fukasaku and Chiba are back in a sequel filmed with the same cast and released just two weeks after the first film. This time the storyline is set in a small seaside town and the film favours detective and watadori film influences over westerns. Like its predecessor, the film runs barely over one hour and never drags. It’s a little less goofy, but doesn’t have as beautiful landscapes the first movie had. Not an especially good film, but for fans of Fukasaku and Chiba it’s an entertaining if flawed 60 minutes.

House on Fire

In the 50s, the complicated life of a popular writer who must share his life with his family, his numerous mistresses and his work