Ryô Suga

A comedy of a yakuza family that goes into show business.

Uta married a priest who saved her when she tried to commit suicide at a waterfall. The love triangle between a lustful priest, his second wife and his son Masao.

6.2/10

Depicts the bloody siege of Port Arthur, one of the most strongly fortified positions in the world, during the Russo-Japanese War.

6.6/10

Momojiro and Jonathan go to Kochi on a ferry. On the ferry a singer called Yuka dropped her sheet music into the ocean. Momojiro helps her by diving in to collect the sheets for her and ends up falling in love.

6.2/10

A bad cop is engaged in a violent chase to catch a yakuza boss. In his absence his wife runs away with another man, who turns out to be the very same man that her husband is hunting. Once he discovers this, he loses his nerve and turns in his badge. But the chase turns into a personal vendetta where the ex-cop plans to wipe out the entire gang.

6.9/10

A look at the life of renegade yakuza, Rikio Ishikawa, particularly the years from 1946 to 1950 when his violent antics get him in trouble with his own clan, Kawada, and then with the clan of his protector, Kozaburo Imai. In these years, he can rely on Chieko, a young Tokyo courtesan who gives him shelter. He's banished to Osaka, where he picks up a drug habit. Through it all, he keeps his friends and enemies off balance with unpredictable behavior - and he seems indestructible.

7.3/10

Comedy about a car salesman who invents a condom against premature ejaculation.

An honorable yakuza syndicate deeply rooted in Kyoto fights for survival when a new breed of gangsters threaten their very existence.

7.2/10

An absolutely astonishing art house ninkyo yakuza film. Wandering gambler runs into a young swindler woman working with old man. They are both arrested by detective. A year later gambler is staying with gangster boss when he comes across that woman and her partner again. Boss lusts for both her and his own daughter, while the boss's crazy yakuza brother loves his daughter, who, in turn, watches the player and wants to destroy the people standing in her way. And here lies one of the film's remarkable departures from the standard ninkyo efforts: it doesn't have a third party villain, nor a clear distinction between good and evil. It's bursting with romantic emotion and wrenched with gritty realism, shot with striking black and white compositions, and explodes into shocking carnage. It has lengthier, more detailed gambling scenes than any other yakuza film I've seen. And it has a heartbreakingly beautiful score. You could call it the Ashes of Time of ninkyo yakuza films. A masterpiece!

Three robbers escape with loot from a heist before one of them shoots the others. Their corpses wash up near the aftermath of a maritime calamity, provoking a policeman's interest.

7.9/10

The Wayside Pebble is an effective drama about the hardships of a childhood spent with a brusque, cold-hearted father and a submissive mother. The year is 1910 and the place is a small Japanese village. Goichi is suffering because he wants to go to school, but his family is too poor to afford that luxury. Even when a kind friend agrees to help out, Goichi's father refuses to give in to his son's request for an education. Instead, he sends Goichi off to work as an indentured servant for a cold-hearted merchant and his family. As tragedy strikes and the suffering of the young boy increases, he begins to look for some way out of his bleak situation.

7.6/10

After losing all his money, Kizuka Keita, a seller on the black market, is trying to commit suicide. But he is saved by Morigen, a broker on the azuki beans market. A young man tries to regain his wealth in the bean market.

7.4/10

Young boys learn survival skills on a remote island and rescue a girl abducted by a gang of foreigners.