Free Resources of Rare Movies
Posts tagged Thriller
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…
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.
School of the Holy Beast (Seijû gakuen) (聖獣学園 ) (1974)
Dec 24th
After the mysterious death of her mother, a young woman chooses to enter a convent to find out what happened. As soon as the door closes to the nunnery, the nuns start torturing the woman. Also, the woman has to deal with a God-hating archbishop and a lesbian mother superior.
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.
Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in the Land of Demons (子連れ狼 冥府魔道 ) (1973)
Dec 19th
Fifth film in the Lone Wolf & Cub Series. 5 warriors challenge Ogami to duels. Each has 1/5th of Ogami’s assassin fee and 1/5 of the information he needs to complete his assassination. His mission is to kill a mad Daimyo before he destroys his clan!
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.
Contagion (2011)
Dec 17th
Soon after her return from a business trip to Hong Kong, Beth Emhoff dies from what is a flu or some other type of infection. Her young son dies a few days later. Her husband Mitch however seems immune. Thus begins the spread of a deadly infection. For doctors and administrators at the U.S. Center for Disease Control, several days pass before anyone realizes the extent or gravity of this new infection. They must first identify the type of virus in question and then find a means of combating it, a process that will likely take several months. As the contagion spreads to millions of people worldwide, societal order begins to break down as people panic.
The Debt (2011)
Nov 23rd
The espionage thriller begins in 1997, as shocking news reaches retired Mossad secret agents Rachel (Helen Mirren) and Stefan (Tom Wilkinson) about their former colleague David (Ciarán Hinds). All three have been venerated for decades by their country because of the mission that they undertook back in 1966, when the trio (portrayed, respectively, by Jessica Chastain, Marton Csokas, and Sam Worthington) tracked down Nazi war criminal Vogel (Jesper Christensen) in East Berlin. At great risk, and at considerable personal cost, the team’s mission was accomplished – or was it? The suspense builds in and across two different time periods, with startling action and surprising revelations.
Cowboys and Aliens (2011)
Nov 19th
The Old West.. where a lone cowboy leads an uprising against a terror from beyond our world. 1873. Arizona Territory. A stranger with no memory of his past stumbles into the hard desert town of Absolution. The only hint to his history is a mysterious shackle that encircles one wrist. What he discovers is that the people of Absolution don’t welcome strangers, and nobody makes a move on its streets unless ordered to do so by the iron-fisted Colonel Dolarhyde (Ford). It’s a town that lives in fear. But Absolution is about to experience fear it can scarcely comprehend as the desolate city is attacked by marauders from the sky. Screaming down with breathtaking velocity and blinding lights to abduct the helpless one by one, these monsters challenge everything the residents have ever known. Now, the stranger they rejected is their only hope for salvation. As this gunslinger slowly starts to remember who he is and where he’s been…
Woman in the Dunes / Suna no onna (砂の女) (1964)
Nov 16th
Jumpei Niki, a Tokyo based entomologist and educator, is in a poor seaside village collecting specimens of sand insects. As it is late in the day and as he has missed the last bus back to the city, some of the local villagers suggest that he spend the night there, they offering to find him a place to stay. That place is the home of a young woman, whose house is located at the bottom of a sand pit accessible only by ladder. He later learns that the woman’s husband and child died in a sandstorm, their undiscovered bodies buried somewhere near the house. The next morning as he tries to leave, he finds that the ladder is gone – he realizing that the ladder he climbed down was a rope ladder which is anchored above the pit – meaning that he is trapped with the young woman as the walls of the pit are sand with no grip. He also realizes that this entrapment was the villagers and the young woman’s…
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.
Sanjuro / Tsubaki Sanjûrô (椿三十郎) (1962)
Nov 12th
A group of idealistic young men, determined to clean up the corruption in their town, are aided by a scruffy, cynical samurai who does not at all fit their concept of a noble warrior.
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.
Ugetsu / Ugetsu monogatari (雨月物語) (1953)
Oct 28th
In the beginning of the springtime in the period of the Japanese Civil Wars of the Sixteenth Century in Lake Biwa in the Province of Omi, the family man farmer and craftsman Genjurô travels to Nagahama to sell his wares and makes a small fortune. His neighbor Tobei that is a fool man dreams on becoming a samurai, but he can not afford to buy the necessary outfit. The greedy Genjurô and Tobei work together manufacturing clay potteries, expecting to sell the pieces and enrich; however, their wives Miyage and Ohama are worried about the army of the cruel Shibata that is coming to their village and they warn their ambitious husbands. Their village is looted but the families flee and survive; Genjurô and Tobei decide to travel by boat with their wives and baby to sell the wares in a bigger town. When they meet another boat that was attacked by pirates, Genjurô decides to leave his wife and son on the bank of the river…
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.
Drunken Angel / Yoidore tenshi (酔いどれ天使) (1948)
Oct 26th
After a battle with rival criminals, a small-time gangster is treated by an alcoholic doctor in post-war Japan. The doctor diagnoses the young gangster’s tuberculosis, and convinces him to begin treatment for it. The two enjoy an uneasy friendship until the gangster’s former boss is released from prison and seeks to take over his gang once again. The ailing young man loses his status as gang boss and becomes ostracised, and eventually confronts his former boss in a battle to the death.
