Mitsuru Mori

Japanese director Tai Kato's last film, The Ondekoza is a documentary profiling a Japanese taiko drumming group based in the remote Sado Island, Japan. The film blurs the line between real-life documentary footage of the troupe's training and practice regimes, and staged performances of their varied musical acts, with sets designed by artist Tadanori Yokoo and an additional experimental electronic music score by Toshi Ichiyanagi. Filmed in 1981 but due to largely unknown difficulties with various production companies, the film wasn't released publicly until 1994, nine years after the director's death. Remastered digitally into 4K HD resolution in 2016, to be screened at the Venice Film Festival and Tokyo Filmex Film Festival.

7.8/10

Taro Kuroki, 42, is a stuntman with a samurai's heart. He loves adventures, plays pranks with the police, tries to cure a cat lady by reversing her trauma, and finally, rescues his niece who is about to be lured into prostitution.

7/10

Two yakuza, one of whom frequently reflects on an uncomfortable past taking advantage of Korean women, meet a stowaway on Japanese soil from across the Genkai Sea.

7.8/10

Movie based on a book by Kakou Senda about the use of women as sexual slaves by the Japanese Army during WW2.

Following her successful prison break, Scorpion begins this third episode in the series hiding out in a brothel. Her prostitute friend tries to keep her identity secret, but the brothel's madam discovers that Scorpion is the ex-girlfriend of the vice officer who killed her lover.

7/10

When a rebellious roughneck enlists in the Navy and goes on a rampage against his superiors, he is sent to the Yokosuka Naval Prison.

6.6/10

A small time crook, who sells rabbits for a living frequently gets him into trouble with loan sharks and the yakuza. He dreams of becoming a successful big-shot and embarks the life of a yakuza hitman.

6.9/10

After a desperate gang of ex-soldiers and gamblers meet in a fistfight in occupied Ginza and decide to make the neighborhood their own.

7/10