An assassin is shot by her ruthless employer, Bill, and other members of their assassination circle – but she lives to plot her vengeance.
A cocaine deal is about to go down between yakuza and Hong Kong triad gangsters and a small time porn peddler is used as a mole by a dirty cop.
Kamagasaki is an "invisible" slum of Osaka that attracts day laborers and prostitutes since WW2. When the local gang has its treasured cauldron stolen, a war to find it begins involving the thugs, a 12 years old kid, a prostitute and a pickpocket, including the giant cauldron used to feed the destitute: The symbol of Kamagasaki.
A yakuza boss hires Goemon Ishikawa, a modern day samurai, to protect him aboard his cruise ship casino. Everything goes sideways when the famous thief, Lupin the Third, tries to rob the vessel. Lupin's being hunted by a powerful and mysterious man: the so called “Ghost of Bermuda.” With Goemon's employer dead in the ensuing chaos, his honor is at stake, and the only way to preserve it is with blood. But this opponent is like no other, and to make things right, Goemon may need to sharpen not only his sword, but himself as well!
Dolls takes puppeteering as its overriding motif, which relates thematically to the action provided by the live characters. Chief among those tales is the story of Matsumoto and Sawako, a young couple whose relationship is about to be broken apart by the former's parents, who have insisted their son take part in an arranged marriage to his boss' daughter.
A unique action-packed drama that tells the story of a Yakuza man who craves blood like crazy, unaware that he has fallen into a trap set by his younger brother.
Ryūichi and his small gang of Triad vie for control of the Japanese underworld in a crime-ridden Shinjuku quarter while Detective Jojima tries to bring it down.
Osaka, 1907: Asajiro lives between a rock and a hard place: he has to keep his business clean and running, tame his late oyabun’s hot-blooded son and suffer the throes of his impossible love for beautiful geisha Hatsue.
The cop Himuro is picked as scapegoat by his superiors because of their own involvement in sokaiya gangster practices.
It is the third film in the Gokudo series. In this episode, set in 1937, the main character of the series gang leader Shimamura is drafted into the military and fight in China.
Financially troubled, a newbie hitman reluctantly takes the job of finding the plotted killer of a Japanese tycoon.
Washio now reigns as boss of Tendokai, but a deal over casino operating rights ignites a fierce war with a hostile faction in the Kansai region.
Marc Schrader, a rookie cop caught red-handed with drugs in a police raid of an illegal rave, joins a homicide investigation conducted by Chief Inspector Minks. The victim is a naked young woman with the skin stripped off her back, killed as she staggered into traffic. As Schrader and Minks investigate the murder, the case is complicated by a finger found in the stomach of the victim. Forensic examination proves the finger belongs to Nobert Günzel, who was previously convicted of rape and assault. The police raid Günzel’s residence, and discover a blood-stained table with restraints and bits of human flesh in his basement. They also find video equipment and preserved, tattooed skin from the victim’s back. Soon, they found dead bodies buried in the garden. Günzel then goes missing.
As sadomasochistic yakuza enforcer Kakihara searches for his missing boss he comes across Ichi, a repressed and psychotic killer who may be able to inflict levels of pain that Kakihara has only dreamed of.
Ichiro Kataki, a violent Yakuza gang member travels to Melbourne, Australia after his beloved sister Yuko is brutally murdered by a group of criminals. Hell bent on vengeance he teams up with Cassidy Arizona, a lady of the night with a vendetta of her own.
Ryotatsu, the wayward Priest blinded by Shinkai, the Wicked Priest, has his own story in this ultra-violent tale from the era of the Meiji Reconstruction. When a woman leaves her blind son at the Monastery, Ryotatsu is forced to teach the boy how to cope as a blind person in old Japan. When he takes the child with him on the road to find the boy's mother, they run afoul of not only yakuza gangsters, but some corrupt army officers have been trying to sway public opinion against the Satsuma rebels by posing as members of Saigo Takamori's group. It's a bloody mistake for them to underestimate the strength of the Blind Priest, and he'll make them pay with their lives!
A cabdriver and a cop race to Paris to rescue a love interest and the Japanese minister of defense from kidnappers.
Murakawa, an aging Tokyo yakuza tiring of gangster life, is sent by his boss to Okinawa along with a few of his henchmen to help end a gang war, supposedly as mediators between two warring clans. He finds that the dispute between the clans is insignificant and whilst wondering why he was sent to Okinawa at all, his group is attacked in an ambush. The survivors flee and make a decision to lay low at the beach while they await further instructions.
Takei Goro leaves the gang to quit the yakuza world, but the gang won't allow it and relentlessly pursues Takei. This is Watari Tetsuya's first film to star in Shochiku.
Since they were both five, Ryosuke has been stalked by Momoko - the ugliest girl in the village. Her love for Ryosuke is so boundless that she has her face surgically altered to suit his taste - but still he wants nothing to do with her. Ryosuke goes in for fleeting romance - for example, with the girlfriend of a gangster boss. But when he finds out about their affair, he has Ryosuke's little finger hacked off. Magically, the finger falls into Momoko's hands, and she uses it to clone Ryosuke, so she can finally have him (or almost him) for herself. And this is just the first five minutes of Lisa Takeba's short-but-powerful feature debut. Just like in her previous short films, the director - who cut her teeth in the advertising world and as the writer of a video game - throws a lot of genres and techniques into the mix: from science fiction to gangster films, from hospital eroticism to animation. Hectic and absurd, but with its heart in the right place. © IFFR