Yōichi Numata

A new documentary on director Nobuo Nakagawa and the making of the film, Jigoku. Featuring exclusive interview with Nakagawa collaborators.

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Sakura is a Japanese serialized morning television drama that aired on NHK from April 1 to September 28 of 2002. The series totalled 156 episodes. It chronicles the life of Matsushita Sakura, a Sansei Japanese-American living in Hawaii. She moves to a small town in Japan to be an assistant language teacher for Japanese middle-school students. The show, lasting only 15 minutes long, is on every morning except Sunday, every week. Sakura first comes to Japan living with her grandparents; later, she moves because she has to teach English to the Japanese students. There she learns many valuable lessons and makes new friends.

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Raised by assassins, Yuki is the last of the Takemikazuchi royal bloodline. A deadly weapon in her own right, she learns the gruesome truth about the death of her beloved mother and joins forces with a mysterious rebel leader.

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While investigating the horrifying death of her boyfriend, Mai Takano learns about a videotape haunted by the spirit of a disturbing girl named Sadako, which kills anyone who watches it exactly one week later. When her boyfriend’s son, Yoichi, starts to develop the same psychic abilities as Sadako, Takano must find a way to keep the boy and herself from becoming the next victims.

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A mysterious video has been linked to a number of deaths, and when an inquisitive journalist finds the tape and views it herself, she sets in motion a chain of events that puts her own life in danger.

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A group of Japanese tourists try to forget their pasts and find themselves in India.

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Second live action "Barefoot Gen" sequel.

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Set in Japan's Tenpyou era (729-749 CE), four young monks are sent to China to study Buddhism and bring a high priest back to Japan with them. The film tells the tale of the four monks' youth and the life and times of the high priest Ganjin.

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Shihomi Etsuko plays a race car driver who also lends out her services to the Japanese Secret Service. Although there really isn't much of a "chase" to be seen, Shihomi does pursue a cartel of drug runners and assorted Japanese yakuza types. While the story is pure 70's exploitation and gritty crime drama, the best reason to see it is for the Martial Arts Action of Etsuko Shihomi. The action is over-the-top and at times hilarious (i.e. Shihomi battling the lead criminal atop a moving gondola or Shihomi battling a whip-wielding Catholic Nun).

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The Bohachi Clan, the most vile, corrupt organization with ties deep in the Shogunate, have controlled the flesh trade in Japan for generations. When threatened by a competitor, they employ Saburai, a nihilistic ronin on the verge of self destruction. Blood gushes and limbs fly for anyone who stands against Saburai as he instills the Way of the Bohachi.

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In Part I we see the young would-be swordsman setting out to achieve greatness in war, achieving nothing because fighting on the losing side, & then beginning his long period of wandering & training, with the goal always in mind of his duel with Kojiro. Part II builds toward that great duel on Ganryu Island, with considerable focus on Musashi's planning & forethought as to how to gain an advantage.

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With her first love that unfolded in the battlefield in her heart, and with a short sword and a pillbox as her weapons, female gambler Okatsu the Tiger Lily travels from gambling site to gambling site. Surrounding her are Omon, an outlaw star blind lone gambler; Onaka, a thief who’s after Okatsu to avenge her father’s death; Ohide, a tattoo artist whose back is covered by a dragon tattoo; and Oryu, a young girl sold as a prostitute to a gambling family.

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After being cruelly set up and deceived by Sugimi, a detective in cahoots with the mob with whom she was whole-heartedly in love, Matsushima’s desire for revenge knows no bounds.

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Ninkyo with Hideki Takahashi.

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The fifth and final chapter of the Kanto Street Peddlers series! Will the battle in Asakusa be enough for a complete victory?

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The story of a lone wolf struggling with human compassion and duty.

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The seventh chapter of the stunning Hibotan Bakuto series. Many years have passed since Oryu the Red Peony began her soul-searching journey after her father was killed. In her travels, she meets villagers whose crops and livelihoods are being destroyed by pollution from a local factory. They seem to work out an agreement, but Oryu must help the poor villagers when the greedy factory owner and corrupt politicians betray them…

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Superbly entertaining action comedy with Tomisaburo Wakayama as Kuriyama Capone who learned his trade under Al Capone in Chicago. The film follows his first venture to Japan with gangster brothers Frank (Shingo Yamashiro) and Joe (Fumio Watanabe). And being chased by gangster and the FBI, including the granddaughter of Eliot Ness. The whole thing is a good amount of fun, the performances especially (Wakayama, Yamashiro, Watanabe in a rare heroic role), making this one of routine director Takashi Harada’s best pictures.

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Oryu searches for blind child she left behind and get involved in a Yakuza turf war that takes place in the Tokyo Theater.

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The second film in the Kanto Street Peddlers Clan series starring Bunta Sugawara.

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A young female samurai comes upon a dying messenger and agrees to deliver the scroll he was carrying to its destination. However, unbeknownst to her, the scroll is actually a formula for a new kind of gunpowder. An evil clan that is planning to overthrow the Emperor is also after the scroll, and they try to take it from her.

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Okatsu the Fugitive is the third film in the "Ohyaku/Okatsu" series. Okatsu; a "tomboy" who is good with a sword. Her father has found her a man to marry and actually she doesn't seem too upset about the situation. At the same time, a bunch of farmers are being slaughtered by a corrupt group running a tobacco smuggling ring. They're being investigated by a man who is documenting their crimes and when they find out about it, they torture him for information but get none. It's not long before he and Okatsu's mother wind up dead and she sets out for revenge.

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Film with Junko Miyazono.

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When Honjo is selected as Kansai district's chairman, Iwasa of the rival gang asks Itsuki to do everything possible to have Honjo step down, which puts Itsuki between a rock and a hard place.

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Dr. Mikami is an elderly somewhat clumsy, very popular therapist, his patients turn to him with all possible and impossible questions. Because Dr. Mikami's specialty is sexual clarification... The world's best-selling sex literature was filmed here in a manner close to the original. And the openness of the image shows the shocking conflicts of young people in scenes that were never filmed. Shocking documents about sex life from the doctor's office.

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A portrait of a man trying to become an artist in order to escape from his life as a miserable peasant due to severe annual tribute during the reign of the fifth Tokugawa Shogun Tsunayoshi.

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Nabeshima Naoshige murders his lord, Ryuzoji Takafusa, seeking to gain power and steal his Lord’s wife. To avoid her fate, Lady Takafusa drowns herself along with her cat in a nearby marsh. A decade later, Naoshige’s efforts to steal another woman trigger a curse on him when she also commits suicide at the same marsh — forcing him to suffer the consequences of his past actions.

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Tokyo, 1934. The boss of the clan that controls gambling agonizes and some of his followers propose to Nakai to take his place, but he refuses the offer.

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Inosuke, a former gangster, and his friends struggle to make a living as simple fishermen in this tale of chivalry and friendship among yakuza in the northern regions.

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Bungo is released from prison to find his son Kenichi in the care of strangers. Teruko, the woman originally looking after the boy, was forced to leave town and sell herself into prostitution. Bungo and Kenichi, in their search for Teruko, arrive in a new place and find work running a peddling stall for the upright Tatsumaki family. However, the drifting father and son soon find themselves caught up in a struggle for territory. Boss Negishi, the head of the yakuza family responsible for the death of the former Tatsumaki leader, will stop at nothing to take over the marketplace. Sickened by the injustice, Bungo takes on the rival boss knowing it might cost him his newly acquired freedom..

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A teenage boy discovers that the planet Icarus is on a collision course with Earth by gazing through his telescope. Scoffed at by the scientific establishment, the boy is kidnapped and brought to a secret UN base in the Japan alps. He is immediately inducted into the secret program whose mission is to finish the Super-Destruction Beam cannon and destroy Icarus. The cannon is missing a special mineral for the lens. The team heads for a mysterious island in the middle of the Pacific. There they find ancient ruins of Atlantis but they are suddenly attacked by a strange drill shaped metal squid spaceship. It's commanded by the evil being Nazu who has engineered the collision with Icarus! He doesn't want to share the universe with humans and he really doesn't want the cannon finished. The action is on and the team discovers the Golden Bat who has been asleep for over 10,000 years awaiting this very moment to save the earth!

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Japanese mystery film directed by Michiyoshi Doi.

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Live-action adaptation of Ko Kojima's manga "Sennin buraku".

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1961 Japanese movie

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A omnibus movie consisting of the three parts: "Kechinbo", "Yowak" and "Kōshoku".

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