Jirocho’s Days of Youth: Boss of the Tokai Region

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!

In 1879, Kenshin and his allies face their strongest enemy yet: his former brother-in-law Enishi Yukishiro and his minions, who've vowed their revenge.

A Yakuza hitman travels to North America for his 27th job, only to find lingering memories of lost love through a chance encounter with a beautiful prostitute.

The history of the Yakuza Eiga at the TOEI studio is roughly outlined. Real Yakuza and also their connections to the movie business are discussed, and many important actors and directors of the genres are interviewed. Former real yakuza boss turned actor Noboru Ando, Takashi Miike, Sonny Chiba and many more get a chance to speak.

Bored Hatamoto film #19

Someone has kidnapped Renji Himuro, the second-in-command of the Kyowakai, the largest yakuza group in Japan. Thinking that the kidnappers must be Chinese mafia, Yuto Tamura ventures into the enemy’s hideout alone to rescue Himuro. However, the opponents who appear are martial arts masters from various countries! Tamura defeats one opponent after another, but as he continuous fighting his strength is exhausted and he finds himself in a desperate situation. Can he come through in the clutch? And who was behind the set up?

Returning to their lord's castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the spirit's prophecy comes true, Washizu's scheming wife, Asaji, presses him to speed up the rest of the spirit's prophecy by murdering his lord and usurping his place. Director Akira Kurosawa's resetting of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" in feudal Japan is one of his most acclaimed films.

Aspiring to an easy job as personal physician to a wealthy family, Noboru Yasumoto is disappointed when his first post after medical school takes him to a small country clinic under the gruff doctor Red Beard. Yasumoto rebels in numerous ways, but Red Beard proves a wise and patient teacher. He gradually introduces his student to the unglamorous side of the profession, ultimately assigning him to care for a prostitute rescued from a local brothel.

Two New York cops get involved in a gang war between members of the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia. They arrest one of their killers and are ordered to escort him back to Japan. However, in Japan he manages to escape, and as they try to track him down, they get deeper and deeper into the Japanese Mafia scene and they have to learn that they can only win by playing the game—the Japanese way.

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.

After a major conflict, Kazuma Washio (Hitoshi Ozawa) becomes the 6th boss of Tendokai, Kanto’s largest yakuza group. Wakagashira Date (Hideo Nakano) and Kurata (Yoshiyuki Yamaguchi) secure casino rights from the government, but top officials are soon murdered, and Date is framed. The trail leads to Sanko-kai, a Kansai syndicate forming ties with a Korean underworld led by Myojin Akinari (Noboru Kaneko), brother of Washio’s old rival. Sanko-kai’s boss Onizuka (Hiroshi Fuse), who holds a grudge against Washio, launches a political and violent offensive. As Tendokai fights back to reclaim the casino rights, tragedy strikes—Okita (Yasukaze Motomiya) is targeted. Japan’s largest underworld war erupts again—what awaits at the end?

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.

Violent Gang Re-Arms is a rousing tale of friction in yakuza and labor interactions with Koji Tsuruta as a yakuza supervising a dockworker's union. He finds himself between a rock and a hard place, at odds with both the dockworkers' leader (Tomisaburo Wakayama) and sadistic, unprincipled bosses (Fumio Watanabe and Tetsuro Tamba).

Masaaki Kagari (Akira Kobayashi) is the recruiter and protector of hostesses at the Club Rose. One day he visits Club Aron, to complain about attempts to lure hostesses from Club Rose. Aron's madam Hisayo reminds him of a tragic experience five years before, when a lovely girl named Kumi committed double suicide with a man in a hotel. For Aron's madam is Kumi's elder sister. Kagari's friend Hayazaki introduces him to Chie, the young sister of the man who died with Kumi, who has come to Tokyo to learn the truth about her brother's death. Kagari sends them both away. But he continues to be haunted by the warmed-over memories. When Club Aron is found selling bootleg whisky Kagari learns that Hisayo has been a tool in the hands of the Akune group who are also responsible for trying to steal his girls, and that Fujikura, the public prosecutor who presided over the case of Kumi's death and ruled it suicide, is now the personal lawyer of the Akune group...

Kagari (Akira Kobayashi), a scout and overseer of Ginza bar hostesses, receives an urgent phone call from Sawako, a hostess at the bar Rie, and rushes to Tokyo International Airport to meet her. When he arrives she is gone. At the bar he learns that Tabuchi, a steady customer, had been quite friendly with Sawako and may know something. Tabuchi claims he knows nothing and Kagari lets the matter drop. Over time Kagari learns from Takijima, a businessman, that Sawako is in a hospital in Yokohama. Takijima explains that he found her in Singapore working as a street girl and brought her back to Japan. Sawako had lost her memory after being subjected to narcotics. Kagari swears to find the person responsible.

Aboard a night ferry in the Inland Sea, Masaaki Kagari (Akira Kobayashi), a young tough, who supplies hostesses to night spots, encounters Yuko, his ex-sweetheart. He considers himself a private underworld sort of policeman-in the com- munity of such women. Yuko, now a bar proprietress, is under the protection of Tahei Daigo, a sinister gang boss who in his quest for chances of good investments abroad plans to offer young girls to rich foreigners. Asked to gather attractive girls by Yuko, now Tahei's puppet, Masaaki collects many only to find them mysteriously missing...

A Tokyo cop is sent to Los Angeles to help an LAPD detective break up a yakuza ring operating in the city.

After the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate, there was a series of battles fought while the former supporters of the Tokugawa shogunate retreated to the north where they actually started a sovereign nation that was recognized by more than one European country. Survivors of the Shinsengumi were among the followers of Enomoto Takeaki who took them to the northernmost island of Ezo where they fought their final battle at the star shaped fort, Goryokaku. The Japanese Civil Wars fought in the name of the emperor signaled the complete end of the feudal system and Japan’s entry into the modern world as those brave samurai tried to halt progress and learned that the age of modern warfare and weaponry had passed them by. Swords were no match for rifles and cannons, nor was any man a match for the power of the imperial flag. Japanese loyalty to the emperor has long defined the nation and culture despite the changing times.

A vengeful veterinarian and a grieving widow join forces to track down violent bikers after they commit heinous acts against their loved ones.

Beleaguered police detective Nishi takes desperate measures to try and set things right in a world gone wrong. With his wife suffering from leukemia and his business partner paralyzed from a brutal gangster attack, Nishi borrows from a yakuza loan shark and then robs a bank to clear his debt.