Tsunehiko Watase

When a large crime syndicate seeks to invade Gifu’s underworld, three brothers and their yakuza family are the only ones that stand in their way.Read More »

Bank robber Takashi and his partner in crime have been targeting banks across the country and they agree to do one more job before they can flee to Brazil. Unfortunately the heist does not go as planned and Takashi’s partner is killed by a car during the escape. On the run from the cops, Takashi picks up a girl from a bar called Michi who has a bit of a mental problem. Although he says that he’ll take her with him to Brazil, he has no intention of doing that and will dump her before he leaves the country. Meanwhile the brother of Takashi’s dead partner in crime comes looking for him as he wants a share of the loot that was stolen from the bank and he blames him for his brother’s death. Takashi manages to escape but for how long? Will Takashi be able to get away with the cops and this man on his tail?Read More »

Quote:
Time and Tide (時代屋の女房 Jidaiya no nyobo) is a 1983 Japanese film directed by Azuma Morisaki and based on a novel by Muramatsu Tomomi. It involves a woman, her cat, and an antique shop owner.

Stars the beautiful Masako Natsume who passed away a mere 2 years after this film’s release from leukemia.Read More »

Motorbike, Tits, Miki Sugimoto… and cops & yakuza as well (scripted by Norifumi Suzuki)Read More »

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 »

Gang leader Nami (Meiko Kaji) kills a member of a yakuza group and goes away to prison. Upon her release three years later, she’s a shamed woman confined to living in the shadowy world of sex clubs and street gangs. She returns to the city to live with her uncle, a billiard-hall owner, and after befriending pimp and ne’er-do-well Ryuji (Tsunehiko Watase), she gets a job working at a hostess club in the chic Ginza neighborhood, where the expensive shops and neon lights conceal a dark world of crime and sexual slavery. But when a rival gang attempts to muscle in on the club, Nami becomes enmeshed in a violent struggle that forces her to wield a skilled pool cue to defend her uncle’s business, and eventually a short sword to wreak bloody vengeance upon her enemies.Read More »

A disgraced yakuza member, framed for the murder of his boss, emerges from prison eight years later with revenge on his mind.Read More »

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Based on novel by MATSUMOTO Seicho
The year is 1926. Unhappy with his drunken father and the constant bickering, 15-year-old Takichi runs away from home to Mt. Amagi. During his lonely escapade, he meets interesting characters, including a beautiful prostitute named Hana. They stumble upon a drifter who is later found dead. Hana is implicated in the murder, but she is released for the lack of evidence. Thirty years later, they’ve gone on with their separate lives. Takichi hears of Hana’s whereabouts from a retired police investigator. He embarks on yet another journey to find her…Read More »

Synopsis:
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 »