Free Resources of Rare Movies
Posts tagged Crime
A Taxing Woman / Marusa no onna (マルサの女) (1987)
Dec 31st
Ryoko Itakura is a government tax agent who has just landed a big promotion. Her first assignment is to catch wheeler-dealer Hideki Gondo. She has a tough job, since in Japan tax evasion is an art and Gondo is, in effect, Rembrandt. Her job is complicated by a growing sympathy for the rogue and by political pressure to lay off.
The Professional: Golgo 13 (ゴルゴ13) (1983)
Dec 30th
Indestructible to his enemies and irrestible to women, the professional assassin codenamed GOLGO 13 is shrouded in mystery and anonymity. If you’re on his hit list your already dead. Always hired on his reputation alone, GOLGO 13 never breaks a contract. But can he survive the combine forces of the FBI, CIA, The Pentagon and the U.S. Army? Has the nameless agent finally met his match against the superhuman powers of the Snake and the twin evils of the psychopathic mercenaries, Gold and Silver?
The Man Who Stole the Sun (Taiyô wo nusunda otoko) (1979)
Dec 27th
A misfit high-school science teacher decides to build his own atomic bomb. He steals isotopes from a nuclear reactor and manages to create two warheads, but at the same time is present at a botched school-bus hijacking and is publicly coronated as a hero. Nevertheless, he uses the bombs to extort the police, first by demanding that baseball games be shown without commercial interruptions and then by having the Rolling Stones play in Japan despite their drug bust. Soon it’s a race to see what wins first: the determined cop who’s after him, the bomb he’s carrying, or a burgeoning case of radiation poisoning…
Vengeance is Mine / Fukushû suru wa ware ni ari (復讐するは我にあり) (1979)
Dec 27th
Iwao Enokizu is a middle-aged man who has an unexplainable urge to commit insane and violent murders. Eventually he is chased by the police all over Japan, but somehow he always manages to escape. He meets a woman who runs a brothel. They love each other but how long can they be together?
Watcher in the Attic / Edogawa Rampo ryōkikan: yaneura no sanposha (江戸川乱歩猟奇館 屋根裏の散歩者) (1976)
Dec 24th
Based on a story by well-praised Japanese writer Edogawa Rampo. In Tokyo, 1923, Saburo Gouda is exploring secrets of his fellow-occupants of an apartment building. All from above, using spy-holes bored in ceilings of his neighbors rooms. After he sees a meeting between aristocratic (and bored) Lady Minako and a clown, he realizes, that pursuit of Minako’s blooming dark realm of senses is drawing themselves by the corruption they both experience and cause.
Graveyard of Honor / Jingi no hakaba (仁義の墓場) (1975)
Dec 24th
A look at the life of renegade yakuza, Rikio Ishikawa, particularly the years from 1946 to 1950 when his violent antics get him in trouble with his own clan, Kawada, and then with the clan of his protector, Kozaburo Imai. In these years, he can rely on Chieko, a young Tokyo courtesan who gives him shelter. He’s banished to Osaka, where he picks up a drug habit. Through it all, he keeps his friends and enemies off balance with unpredictable behavior – and he seems indestructible.
Bullet Train / Shinkansen daibakuha (新幹線大爆破) (1975)
Dec 24th
One of the Japanese Shinkansen “Bullet Trains” is threatened with a bomb that will explode automatically if the train slows below 80 km/h, unless a ransom is paid. Police race to find the bombers and to learn how to defuse the bomb.
The Streetfighter (Gekitotsu! Satsujin ken) (1974)
Dec 19th
Terry is a tough, mercenary, master of martial arts. When an important business magnate dies, leaving billions to his daughter, the Mafia and Yakuza try to hire Terry to kidnap the daughter. When they refuse to meet his exorbitant price, then try to kill him to conceal their secret plans, he promptly offers his services to protect her. Much ultra-violent martial-arts fighting action, as expected, ensues. This also includes a subplot of a family’s bloodfeud with Terry over a disputed debt.
Battles Without Honour and Humanity (仁義なき戦い) (1973)
Dec 19th
In the teeming black markets of postwar Japan, Shozo Hirono (Bunta Sugawara) and his buddies find themselves in a new war between factious and ambitious yakuza…
Sex and Fury (Furyô anego den: Inoshika Ochô) (不良姐御伝 猪の鹿お蝶) (1973)
Dec 19th
Reiko Ike stars as Ocho, a gambler and pickpocket in Meiji Era Tokyo. After sheltering a fleeing anarchist, Ocho runs into the three gangsters responsible for her father’s murder, and runs afoul of various yakuza who want her dead. A European spy, played by Christina Lindberg, arrives on the scene and complicates matters.
Female Convict Scorpion Jailhouse 41 (女囚さそり) (1972)
Dec 19th
Matsu, known to the prisoners as Scorpian, is locked away in the bowels of the prison as revenge for disrupting the smooth operation of the prison and for her disfiguring attack on the warden. Granted a one day reprieve due to the visit of a dignitary, she takes advantage and attacks the warden again. This leads to more brutal punishment and humiliation. But the punishment gives her an opportunity to escape along with six other female prisoners. Their surreal flight from prison pits the convicts against the guards, the warden and each other.
Female Prisoner Scorpion (Joshuu 701-gô: Sasori) (1972)
Dec 19th
After being cruelly set up and deceived by Sugimi (Natsuyagi Isao), a conniving and crooked detective she had whole-heartedly fallen in love with (and subsequently lost her virginity to…), Matsushima Nami’s desire for revenge knows no bounds. Her failed attempt at stabbing Sugimi on the steps of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Headquarters results in her doing hard time in a female prison run by sadistic and horny male guards. To Sugimi’s surprise, Matsushima refuses to testify against him and his connections to the mob, and now the sheer fact that she knows such secrets makes her a liability. So Sugimi and the Japanese mafia orchestrate a plan whereby Matsushima will succumb to an “accidental” death in prison. They enlist the help of Kagiri, another female inmate with ties to both Sugimi and the mafia, thus their formidable plan is quickly set in motion. Little do they realize, however, how hotly Matsushima’s desire for revenge burns within her.
Inflatable Sex Doll of the Wastelands / Kôya no Dacchi waifu (荒野のダッチワイフ) (1967)
Dec 17th
A private detective is hired to find a woman who has apparently been murdered in a snuff film. It turns out the woman’s not dead, but very much alive, and he gets sucked into a torrid affair with her that leaves him questioning his sense of reality.
Youth of the Beast / Yajû no seishun (野獣の青春) (1963)
Nov 12th
Joe Shishido plays a tough guy with a secret agenda. His violent behavior comes to the attention of a yakuza boss who immediately recruits him. He soon tries to make a deal with a rival gang a starts a gang war. His real motivations are gradually revealed as we find out how this all ties in with the murder of a policeman shown at the beginning of the film.
High and Low / Tengoku to jigoku (天国と地獄) (1963)
Nov 12th
An executive mortgages all he owns to stage a coup and gain control of the National Shoe Company, with the intent of keeping the company out of the hands of incompetent and greedy executives. He needs the same money, though, to pay the ransom that will possibly save a child’s life. His resolution of that dilemma — the certain loss of the company vs. the probable loss of the child — makes for one distinct drama, and an ensuing elaborate police procedure makes for a second.
The Pitfall / Otoshiana (おとし穴) (1962)
Nov 12th
A documentary fantasy. Penniless miners talk in passing about labor unions. A miner and his young son go to a village in Kyushu where the miner has been told he’ll find work, but it’s a ghost town, save for one woman. The miner leaves and is followed by a man in a white suit and white gloves. A murder takes place: faked footprints, bribery and intrigue, investigations, a frame-up, and a ghost who wants to know why meet in a story of realism and the surreal. A child mutely witnesses all. Does the truth count for anything in this world or in the next? Can everything be manipulated?
Yojimbo (1961)
Nov 5th
Sanjuro, a wandering samurai enters a rural town in nineteenth century Japan. After learning from the innkeeper that the town is divided between two gangsters, he plays one side off against the other. His efforts are complicated by the arrival of the wily Unosuke, the son of one of the gangsters, who owns a revolver. Unosuke has Sanjuro beaten after he reunites an abducted woman with her husband and son, then massacres his father’s opponents. During the slaughter, the samurai escapes with the help of the innkeeper; but while recuperating at a nearby temple, he learns of innkeeper’s abduction by Unosuke, and returns to the town to confront him.