Free Resources of Rare Movies
Posts tagged Crime
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.
The Bad Sleep Well / Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru (悪い奴ほどよく眠る) (1960)
Nov 4th
In Kurosawa’s HAMLET-like story of corporate scandal in post-war Japan, a young man attempts to use his position at the heart of a corrupt company to expose the men responsible for his father’s death.
Stakeout (Harikomi) (1958)
Nov 3rd
Harikomi involves a veteran policeman (Seiji Miyaguchi) and a junior associate (Minoru Ohki) trying to capture a malefactor during an oppressively hot summer. Their fugitive has fled Tokyo, leaving no real trail. For lack of any better options, the two officers travel to the town in Kyushu in which the criminal’s former girlfriend (Hideko Takmine) lives. Once in Kyushu, they rent a room in an inn across the street from Takamine’s home. While watching Takamine’s day to day life, they grow increasing sympathetic of her plight — she is married to a rather boorish banker and has demanding children. Eventually, because this lead has proved unpromising, the senior detective returns to Tokyo. However one day, Takamine gets a letter that changes her demeanor and eventually she sets off on a journey alone (except for Ohki tailing her). She finally does rendezvous with her former lover, still unaware of his legal problems. As they go together to a resort inn, Ohki gathers local reinforcements…
Rashomon (羅生門) (1950)
Oct 26th
A priest, a woodcutter and another man are taking refuge from a rainstorm in the shell of a former gatehouse called Rashômon. The priest and the woodcutter are recounting the story of a murdered samurai whose body the woodcutter discovered three days earlier in a forest grove. Both were summoned to testify at the murder trial, the priest who ran into the samurai and his wife traveling through the forest just before the murder occurred. Three other people who testified at the trial are supposedly the only direct witnesses: a notorious bandit named Tajômaru, who allegedly murdered the samurai and raped his wife; the white veil cloaked wife of the samurai; and the samurai himself who testifies through the use of a medium. The three tell a similarly structured story – that Tajômaru kidnapped and bound the samurai so that he could rape the wife – but which ultimately contradict each other, the motivations and the actual killing being what differ…
Stray Dog / Nora inu (野良犬 ) (1949)
Oct 26th
Murukami, a young homicide detective, has his pocket picked on a bus and loses his pistol. Frantic and ashamed, he dashes about trying to recover the weapon without success until taken under the wing of an older and wiser detective, Sato. Together they track the culprit.
