Swords and Brocade

Four people recount different versions of the story of a man's murder and the rape of his wife.

Blind traveler Zatoichi is a master swordsman and a masseur with a fondness for gambling on dice games. When he arrives in a village torn apart by warring gangs, he sets out to protect the townspeople.

A group of seemingly ordinary merchants is really a band of assassins for hire. When they discover that all the assassins in Edo are being killed they must act quickly to find the culprit.

Before he was a protector, Kenshin was a fearsome assassin known as Battosai. But when he meets gentle Tomoe Yukishiro, a beautiful young woman who carries a huge burden in her heart, his life will change forever.

A nameless ronin, or samurai with no master, enters a small village in feudal Japan where two rival businessmen are struggling for control of the local gambling trade. Taking the name Sanjuro Kuwabatake, the ronin convinces both silk merchant Tazaemon and sake merchant Tokuemon to hire him as a personal bodyguard, then artfully sets in motion a full-scale gang war between the two ambitious and unscrupulous men.

Akira Kurosawa's lauded feudal epic presents the tale of a petty thief who is recruited to impersonate Shingen, an aging warlord, in order to avoid attacks by competing clans. When Shingen dies, his generals reluctantly agree to have the impostor take over as the powerful ruler. He soon begins to appreciate life as Shingen, but his commitment to the role is tested when he must lead his troops into battle against the forces of a rival warlord.

In Edo period Japan, a lone ronin lives in a village helping the farmers tend to their land. One day, a group of outlaw swordsmen enter the village.

After the forced suicide of Nobunaga Oda at the Incident at Honnō-ji, powerful figures Katsuie Shibata, Hideyoshi Toyotomi, Nagahide Niwa and Tsuneoki Ikeda meet to decide on a successor. The conference would become Japan's first group made political decision. The meeting was known as the Kiyosu Kaigi.

Shakespeare's King Lear is reimagined as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan where an aging warlord divides his kingdom between his three sons.

Toshiro Mifune swaggers and snarls to brilliant comic effect in Kurosawa's tightly paced, beautifully composed "Sanjuro." In this companion piece and sequel to "Yojimbo," jaded samurai Sanjuro helps an idealistic group of young warriors weed out their clan's evil influences, and in the process turns their image of a proper samurai on its ear.

53 Stages of Action

The man is chased by losing the beauty and preciousness of love and the foundation of life without overcoming the hardship of life.

A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food.

Momotaro carries this sword into battle against injustice in shogunate Japan. Aided by ninja he must now wage a furious battle against the terrible “Ran” clan, villains in league with Ohara Ukon, a bitter samurai nursing a grudge against the shogunate. Together the ruthless conspirators will threaten the foundations of shogunate rule over Japan. Only the relentless slashing sword of Momotaro may save the nation from the Ran clan's army of killers.

The Shinobi-no-Mono series was so successful that Daiei Studios dipped into the well one more time, making the best 60′s B&W ninja movie ever seen in the otherwise color-dominated year of 1970. Issei Mori directs Hiroki Matsukata as the reluctant leader of a small band of spies charged with kidnapping a noblewoman from a heavily ninja-proofed castle. The finality of the air slowly began to fill like smoke, and in all that had become dark the loyalty of the Ninja who dared to go shone like light as they entered a world shrouded in mystery. Things do not go as planned in what is possibly the darkest and most fatalistic of the already noir-ish 60′s fare. Both the decade and it’s distinctive style of shinobi cinema went out on a high note with Mission Iron Castle.

Shipwrecked African-American slaves arrive in the midst of Bakumatsu-era Japan; they soon carve out a niche in the market with their musical talents.

Kohei Akiyama, a popular master swordsman, and his son Daijiro live in the town of Edo in good faith. While running a dojo, Daijiro and his father find themselves wrapped up in a series of events with the town's people.

Kohei Akiyama, a popular master swordsman, and his son Daijiro live in the town of Edo in good faith. While running a dojo, Daijiro and his father find themselves wrapped up in a series of events with the town's people.

In the time of the peaceful Toyotomi Era, Shinotada, the master of Kochi Family, a source of revenue for the Tokugawa, is trying to marry his younger sister Princess Fuji to Akinobu Sunekazura, who has connections with the rival Toyotomi, in order to bring peace. One of sixteen great warriors of Tokugawa, Hattori Hanzo, entrusts his wish and gathers the remnants of Iga Village, which was destroyed by Oda Nobunaga, and orders them to guard Princess Fuji. The Council of Elders of Sunekazura, hire the Fuma Ninja led by Fuma Kotaro, joined by the Koga Ninja, led by Sarutobi Sasuke, who is serving Hideyoshi Toyotomi, to assassinate Princess Fuji! Can Hanzo Hattori with the Iga remnants prevent this evil plot and protect the princess? Once again, Shinichi "Sonny" Chiba plays the leading role of Hanzo Hattori with his old enemy, Sarutobi Sasuke, played by Hiroki Matsukata. The presence of both famous actors will overwhelm any audience!

The tale takes place around 1650, after the death of the third Tokugawa shogun, when ronin were expelled from Edo, the military capital. During the political instability following the death of Iemitsu Tokugawa, Hanzo's Iga ninja clan battles against the Koga clan as various factions vie to seize power. The child shogun Ietsuna is kidnapped but turns out to be hidden under (or over) everyone's noses in a castle turret which is reinforced by a comic book villain, the fire-spitting black ninja. The good ninja has to get through all the traps & save the child.