Also Directed by Kazuo Mori
Blind masseur and master swordsman Zatoichi finds a robbed and fatally wounded pregnant woman, whose baby he delivers before she dies. He takes the baby in search of its father and finds the child's aunt, who is about to be forced into prostitution for want of a payment the dead mother was bringing. Zatoichi determines to save the woman from her cruel fate.
A former soldier, reduced to working at a restaurant post-war, becomes a contract killer for the yakuza gangs he's in contact with.
The Shinobi-no-Mono series was so successful that Daiei Studios dipped into the well one more time, making the best 60′s B&W ninja movie ever seen in the otherwise color-dominated year of 1970. Issei Mori directs Hiroki Matsukata as the reluctant leader of a small band of spies charged with kidnapping a noblewoman from a heavily ninja-proofed castle. The finality of the air slowly began to fill like smoke, and in all that had become dark the loyalty of the Ninja who dared to go shone like light as they entered a world shrouded in mystery. Things do not go as planned in what is possibly the darkest and most fatalistic of the already noir-ish 60′s fare. Both the decade and it’s distinctive style of shinobi cinema went out on a high note with Mission Iron Castle.
An all-star cast from Daiei Film Company has made "the ultimate Jirocho movie" about the legendary yakuza Shimizu no Jirocho, the biggest Boss in the Tokaido area. Telling the story of Jirocho and his 28 henchmen, some of the greatest actors in movie history play these valiant warriors as they travel the unruly path from a 'Fire Festival' in Akiba to the decisive battle by the Fujigawa River. With a huge budget to make this film, Daiei has put together an outstanding cast including, Hasegawa Kazuo, Ichikawa Raizo, Katsu Shintaro, Yamamoto Fujiko, Wakao Fumiko leading the way to help create this marvelous piece of work under the director, Mori Issei. A true Daiei classic, a must have for any collector of jidaigeki gems!
Disguised as a beggar monk, Ryunosuke is harassed along the road by the rowdy members of a country dojo or fencing school malingering outside their fencing hall. The third film in the Satan's Sword trilogy.
Set in the Edo-era, a smuggling vessel runs into conflict between the Matsumae clan and the Ainu in Hokkaido.
Japanese film.
About 1786 the doings of a demented lord results in many masterless samurai, including Iyemon (Kei Sato) who is used to luxury and cannot adjust to the hand-to-mouth conditions & piecework of umbrella making. Having hired ruffians to make him look like a superior swordsman, he arranges for himself the opportunity of a profitable marriage. He hires the half-blind masseur Takuetsu (Sawamura Sounosuke) to seduce or rape his wife (Kyoko Mikage), so that she can be divorced or killed for adultery. But the masseur takes pity & informs Oiwa of her husband's horrid plot. Assisted by the merchant's daughter he intends to marry, Iyemon disfigures his wife attempting to poison her so he can marry higher. There's a lovingly gruesome sequence as she combs blad patches into her hair, kneeling deformed at her mirror, weeping with bitterness. She eventually cuts her own throat, swearing revenge.
