Kôji Tsuruta

  • Kinji Fukasaku – Hokori takaki chosen AKA The Proud Challenge (1962)

    1961-1970ActionCrimeJapanKinji Fukasaku
    Hokori takaki chosen (1962)
    Hokori takaki chosen (1962)

    Kuroki, a journalist working for a newspaper, is investigating the clandestine sale of arms to Southeast Asia.Read More »

  • Kinji Fukasaku – Kaisan shiki aka Ceremony of Disbanding (1967)

    1961-1970ActionCrimeJapanKinji Fukasaku

    Quote:
    Sawaki is released from prison after serving eight years for murdering a rival gang leader in order to obtain the land rights to a landfill for the Kotaki clan and he discovers that the world has changed significantly in that time. The police have forced the disbanding of all yakuza groups in and around Tokyo and most of the former yakuza have moved on to legitimate jobs while the low-level thugs have returned to their former gangs. Shimamura, a former executive of the Kotaki clan, has become the president of a construction company that built an oil complex on the landfill and now intends to build another one as soon as they clear the inhabitants off of land owned by Dr. Omachi. Shimamura takes control of the debt owed by Dr. Omachi on his poultry farm in order to exert pressure on him. The poultry farm is worked by Mie, Sawaki’s former lover and mother of his child. Sawaki feels connected to the residents and regrets past his actions that have caused their existence to now be threatened. When Shimamura and his rival former Kotaki clan executive Sakurada battle over the land rights and each pressure the residents in their own way, Sawaki views them as corrupt and decides to follow his traditional code of honor to save the residents.Read More »

  • Shigehiro Ozawa – Bakuto tai tekiya AKA Gamblers and Racketeers (1964)

    1961-1970CrimeDramaJapanShigehiro Ozawa

    Synopsis:
    It’s brother against brother and father against son in this all-star yakuza epic. With brilliant performances from Toei’s samurai movie stars in a modern day setting the battles highlight this tale of brutality among Japanese gangster groups. Toei Film Company set the standard for high quality in the yakuza movie genre with this motion picture. Rival gangs vie for control of the prostitution racket leading to an ultra-violent confrontation. This powerful story is not to be missed!Read More »

  • Kinji Fukasaku – Bakuto gaijin butai AKA Sympathy for the Underdog (1971)

    1971-1980ActionCrimeJapanKinji Fukasaku

    From Kinji Fukasaku (Battles Without Honor & Humanity) comes this pivotal early crime drama in the celebrated career of the director who changed the face of Japanese action cinema. Stylish and hard-boiled, Sympathy for the Underdog stars Koji Tsuruta, one of Japan’s seminal figures in the Yakuza genre, as Gunji, an aging Yakuza who is released from prison after ten years. Gunji lives by a code of honor that has no place among Tokyo’s modern corporate gangs. He gets a new lease on life by reforming his former gang and taking over the whiskey trade on the island of Okinawa. But he is forced to make a final, fateful, bloody stand against the mainland gang that sent him to prison.Read More »

  • Kôsaku Yamashita – Bakuchiuci: Sôchô Tobaku AKA Big Time Gambling Boss (1968)

    1961-1970CrimeJapanKôsaku YamashitaThriller

    Tokyo, 1934. Gang boss Arakawa is too ill and a successor must be named. The choice falls on Nakai, but being an outsider he refuses and suggests senior clansman Matsuda instead. But Matsuda is in jail and the elders won’t wait for his release, so they appoint the younger and more malleable Ishido to take the reins. Clan honour and loyalties are severely tested when Matsuda is released, resulting in an increasingly violent internal strife. An atmospheric tale of gangland intrigue written by Kazuo Kasahara (Battles Without Honour and Humanity) and starring Tomisaburo Wakayama, (Lone Wolf and Cub, The Bounty Hunter Trilogy) and genre legend Koji Tsuruta, Big Time Gambling Boss is one of the all-time classics of the yakuza genre. Paul Schrader called it the richest and most complex film of its type, while novelist Yukio Mishima hailed it as a masterpiece.Read More »

  • Kôsaku Yamashita – Zoku kyôdai jingi AKA Family Obligations 2 (1966)

    1961-1970CrimeDramaJapanKôsaku Yamashita

    The services of a wandering gambler, Seiji, are called upon to protect the turf of his loyal friend Risaburo.Read More »

  • Kinji Fukasaku – Gyangu tai G-men AKA Gang Vs G-men (1962)

    1961-1970ActionCrimeJapanKinji Fukasaku

    Quote:
    The young Sonny Chiba is fabulous in this wildly entertaining Kinji Fukasaku film. It’s the 4th movie in the very loosely related Gang series. This instalment sees former gangster (Koji Tsuruta) brought back to action when the police needs his help to bring down a dangerous gang lead by Tetsuro Tamba. Chiba plays an enthusiastic young man who goes undercover even though it’s obviously more than he can handle. Critic Mark Schilling aptly described his character as “the seventh samurai” of this story. Though not an all time classic like some of Fukasaku’s later movies, it’s a very stylish and entertaining film full of 1960s cool. Chiba, bursting with youthful charm and energy, is the film’s biggest asset. This is one of his best performances, often leaving superstars like Tamba and Tsuruta in his shadow, and marked the beginning of his best era as an actor.Read More »

  • Hiroshi Inagaki – Zoku Miyamoto Musashi: Ichijôji no kettô AKA Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple (1955)

    1951-1960ActionHiroshi InagakiJapanMartial Arts

    Synopsis:
    Hiroshi Inagaki’s acclaimed Samurai Trilogy is based on the novel that has been called Japan’s Gone with the Wind. This sweeping saga of the legendary seventeenth-century samurai Musashi Miyamoto (powerfully portrayed by Toshiro Mifune) plays out against the turmoil of a devastating civil war. The Trilogy (whose first part won an Academy Award) follows Musashi’s odyssey from unruly youth to enlightened warrior. In the second and most violent installment, Duel at Ichijoji Temple, Musashi beats a samurai armed with a chain and sickle and is later set upon by eighty samurai disciples—orchestrated by the sinister Kojiro—while the two women who love him watch helplessly.Read More »

  • Hiroshi Inagaki – Miyamoto Musashi kanketsuhen: kettô Ganryûjima AKA Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island (1956)

    Hiroshi Inagaki1951-1960ActionJapanMartial Arts

    Synopsis:
    Hiroshi Inagaki’s acclaimed Samurai Trilogy is based on the novel that has been called Japan’s Gone with the Wind. This sweeping saga of the legendary seventeenth-century samurai Musashi Miyamoto (powerfully portrayed by Toshiro Mifune) plays out against the turmoil of a devastating civil war. The Trilogy (whose first part won an Academy Award) follows Musashi’s odyssey from unruly youth to enlightened warrior. In the third installment, Duel at Ganryu Island, Musashi reunites tragically with the women who love him, and battles for samurai supremacy in a climactic confrontation with his lifelong nemesis.Read More »

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