Tôru Minegishi

Steelhead is a Chinese laborer who comes to Japan hoping for a better life. Unable to find honest work and bullied into the shadows with his fellow Chinese illegal immigrants, he soon finds himself ascending as the boss of a black market mob. After providing a deadly service to a powerful Yakuza crime boss, Steelhead’s rise to mafia power spirals rapidly out of control as he’s given reign over the dangerous and lucrative Shinjuku district.

7/10
6%

There's something wrong at the Pacific Institute...something wrong and evil. For young Mari, whose family has worked in the finishing industry for generations, her studies in advanced genetics and marine bio-engineering represent not just her own future, but that of her entire family. But when her friend Nanako is mysteriously discovered dead, Mari's dreams turn into her worst nightmares! Because not only was Nanako's body covered with fishbites, she was also growing scales! Now, as a new wave of deaths and tragedies engulf the Pacific team, it becomes all too clear that someone....something...has a new future in mind for all human kind. For centuries man has taken from the ocean, never dreaming what might lurk beneath the waves; now the revelation has begun...and this time, we're the sushi!

4.9/10

When a gal named Kasumi decides to become a traditional Japanese 'Rakugo' storyteller due to her uncle's invalidity, she is soon on her way to a career with college-level and amateur success. She becomes a student to one of the master's of the genre and is even asked to perform by a TV producer. The only snag is, the particular story has a curse dripping from its words.

6/10

It is the second work of the Oita trilogy of Obayashi . Following " Nigori Snow ", Ise Masazo draws a song written by composers and songwriter "Farewell of 22 years old " as a motif and draws a story of love that spans two generations of mother and daughter.

6.7/10

Ken Kariba, who was transferred to the Public Security Department of the Metropolitan Police Department, was investigating allegations of kidnapping of Japanese groups in Europe amid a series of explosions in various parts of Japan and the spread of fear of terrorist attacks with bombs. It eventually led to a series of terrorist attacks and, gradually, to a great conspiracy.

Takashi, an unemployed young man, is entrusted with a "catch ball shop" by a stranger he meets in the park. While accepting people's feelings through catch ball, Takashi himself remembers the important things that he had forgotten.

Miyata, who is starting to get on his way with the cabaret club he runs, is reluctant to pay protection money to Sawaki-gumi, so he consults with crisis management consultant Kiriyama. Former Maru Rogue Kiriyama used his old title to charge business and store consultants. Miyata has lost ties with Sawaki-gumi ...

In this excursion into Tokyo's dark side, a sexually repressed woman finds liberation by turning tricks at night a sex worker is taken by surprise when her ex drops by and a sex blogger finds strange kinship with a loner.

6.5/10

A woman is discovered strangled inside a car, and Inspector Muta of the Yamashita police station hurries to the scene! The relationship between the murdered woman and a suspect whom the new Assistant Inspector, Iwaki, has been pursuing for one year will soon become clear...

Yuichi Kosaka is a salaried businessman in Ueda city. His achievements have not been improved recently, and he is betrayed by the manager of takada. Takada, who is related to the company's executives, is very strict with him. Every night late, Yuichi is often dissatisfied with his wife, Kazue, and his daughter Sanae.On the other day Yuichi ran the car aiming at his home village. However, it is lost in the mountain road which should know well. An old public telephone keeps in sight, and yuichiro stops the car before it. It was Yuichi who had been able to find the name of the old high school classmate, Tai in the old telephone book, and dial, and was surprised to hear the voice of the big. It was because the voice was as it was 30 years ago. The telephone was connected to the past.

The life and death of the men who are bound by violence.

Sequel to 'Fighting Knife Yoshi'

Authentic eroticism returns in part two of this much-anticipated sequel. Reveals the hearts and bodies of five young women who descend into a life of compromise for the sake of money...

The chimpira 'Katsuichi' got his hands on the only daughter of the largest daughter in the Kanto region.

The second TV movie Obayashi Nobuhiko directed based on Akagawa Jiro's Mikeneko Holmes series.

Asuka Hanyu, a lone wolf who will stop at nothing to investigate, is a cool beauty who throws away her voluptuous body and strikes her enemies right between the eyes. This female detective infiltrates the Taiwanese mafia. However, her identity is compromised when someone tips her off!

Arina is a beautiful assassin who uses a knife and her own body to kill high-profile individuals in the political and business world. The next task received from the head of the organization, Kojiro, was to eliminate En, an arms dealer from Southeast Asia. Arina tries to get closer to him while he is in Japan. However, due to a partner's mistake, the plan is revealed and she becomes a prisoner...

Upon rescuing a friend who is being held captive by a wicked classmate and his gang of bullies, 11-year-olds Tetsushi, Yuusuke, and Ryoji unexpectedly find themselves entwined in a supernatural battle against the forces of hell. Armed with courage, wit, and three magical charms given to them by a mysterious hermit, they set out to thwart the evil in a quest, which takes them to the depths of hell and brings them to a final battle with the god of death himself.

When beautiful forensic scientist Kyoko and her colleagues fail to uncover clues to the identity of a man who brutally attacks and kills women, she agrees to become the bait to lure the killer into a police snare. But as the murderer remains frustratingly aloof, Kyoko discovers that she will have to risk everything in order to apprehend him. Naosuke Kurosawa directs this steamy thriller.

6.6/10

A criminal syndicate wants detective Onihei dead, but the resolute hero proves to be hard to kill.

6.1/10

A yakuza's woman got in a car with Ida, a salesman who has no choice!

Drug enforcers, the G-Men, bravely fight against the world's largest drug organization known as the Kataoka Route. Lust, betrayal and excitement follow!

A man who has no choice but to act as an agent for anything and will play a role in the conflict between the gangsters.

The detective with the highest arrest rate. In fact, he was a vicious detective who communicated with the gangsters!

The life of a young man who aspires to be in the judicial power begins to decline when he gets involved with street kids

A former safe-breaker, a former yakuza , and another young "Toshiro" Ryo (Aikawa) are planning to attack a casino run by a large organization. The three get a lot of money , but Ryo betrays his companions because he wants a runaway fund with the mistress of the group leader .

In the sequel to 1990's classic Neo Chinpira, Junko (Sho Aikawa) attempts to take out Kazama and then goes on the run. However, he quickly begins to feel homesick, and returns home to find that almost everything has changed. Noriko is now a bar mama with a lavish lifestyle, Yumeko is nowhere to be found, and his boss (Toru Minegishi) seems to have sinister plans involving Junko and his uncle (Jo Shishido).

6.6/10

"Do Not Fall" - Set during Japan's Meiji period, three sisters are abused and exploited by their harsh father, including a daughter who plays the three-corded shamisen for pilgrims visiting the sacred chapel of Ise.

Another buxom bombshell falls prey to the masked vigilante, the Big Boobs Buster! Rumor has it that the vengeful villainess was once a mild mannered student ridiculed and rejected for her small bust size. Now, the spurned woman gets even by donning a ridiculous costume and taunting her well-endowed nemeses. Will bouncy coeds across the land be forced under cover? Is any bosomy beauty safe from the Big Boobs Buster?

5.5/10

Junko (Sho Aikawa) is a low-level yakuza in the service of Yoshikawa (Toru Minegishi), despite the misgivings of his uncle (Jo Shishido). He lives off of the money earned by his girlfriend and is more interested in trying to look cool than anything else. He meets Yumeko (Chikako Aoyama), an innocent but dangerous narcoleptic runaway, after she steals his car, and she soon moves in with him. Following the assassination of a high-ranking member by the Kazama Family, Junko is called on to be the lookout while the family gets revenge. However, the other men quickly "zoom", or escape from their duty, leaving the task to Junko. Will he take out Kazama, or will he zoom?

7.2/10

A painfully splendid adventure has begun!

After the previous Godzilla attack, a miniature arms race ensues to collect his cells. Concerned over Godzilla's possible return, the Japanese government uses the cells to create a new bio-weapon, ANEB (Anti-Nuclear Energy Bacteria). They seeks the aid of geneticist Genshiro Shiragami, who's experiments result in a new mutation.

6.6/10
7.1%

Former policeman Matsushita Hiroshi is a professional marksman shootist. When his keen eye catches his target in the dry urban darkness, the hard, breathless action begins.

A middle-aged salaryman tries to revitalize his career.

A girl from a wealthy family falls in love with a working-class boy.

4/10

Based on the comic book by Jūzō Yamasaki and Kei Sadayasu.

Harada is a successful scenario writer, and his best buddy has just announced an intention to propose to Harada's ex-wife. Recovering from the shock, Harada indulges in melancholy, mainly on his failure as a husband and father, and goes to a 'Rakugo' (sit-down comedy) show, where a friendly man in the audience invites him home. Harada is puzzled at the strong resemblance of this man and his wife to his own parents, who were killed nearly 30 years ago when he was twelve.

6.9/10

The reincarnation of a 10th century Japanese general haunts 1920's Tokyo.

6.1/10

After a series of chance meetings, a shiftless motorbike enthusiast, Ko, begins a romance with a carefree girl, Miyo, after teaching her to ride. When Miyo proves herself a biker prodigy, Ko begins to fear that she is destined to crash.

6.9/10

Tetsu gets into an argument with some Okinawa yakuza and is murdered by them. His brother Ryo comes to Okinawa shortly thereafter and teams up with Tetsu's girlfriend and Max an ex US soldier to extract revenge.

6/10

Heartbroken Ukiko takes refuge with a relative after a devastating breakup. While away, she makes a dangerous match with the husband of her frigid cousin.

6.2/10

During the fervently nationalist months leading up to World War II, a rebellious teenager is transferred to a new primary school in a small Inland Sea town. He vies with the school’s reigning bully, who takes a romantic interest in his older stepsister. When they learn she’s going to be sold to a brothel to pay off her father’s debts, they form an uneasy alliance to free her. With surprising moments of caricature and slapstick, Obayashi celebrates the anarchic world of adolescence while also satirizing adult hypocrisy and conformism.

7.4/10

A romantic comedy involving shooting commercials, French food, and island visitors.

5.5/10

Umiemon is a naniwa-bushi singer who travels with his wife to the United States in hopes of achieving fame and fortune.

6.3/10

A lonely high schooler suddenly meets the love of his life out of thin air. Is she a real person or a figment of his imagination?

7.3/10

A made man during the height of Hiroshima's yakuza turf war must maneuver through the violence and betrayal inside the criminal underworld.

6.4/10

A high school girl travels to the island of New Caledonia and has magical adventures.

5.8/10

After noticing in the news there was a fire in an old canal town, Eguchi recalls visiting there a decade ago as a university student.

7/10

Drama set in the world of Formula 2 motor racing in Japan.

While Ryouko was in Europe studying music, her boyfriend died in a traffic accident. Ryouko believed that she had psychic powers that killed him, and when she returned to Japan she was sent to a mental hospital. While recovering, her brother-in-law, Kouji, decides to look after her, and she goes to his house to act as a governess for Kouji's daughter, Alice.

7.2/10

Mitamura Yuka is a normal, shy high school student… Except for the fact that she has psychic powers. When a new student with similar powers begins to show her skills, creating a force of psychic Nazi student enforcers, Yuka and her friends vow to stop her. But behind it all is a mysterious force that will put Yuka's powers to the ultimate test!

6.1/10

A star tennis player takes revenge on the blackmailers out to ruin his athletic career.

Obayashi’s take on the famous Kosuke Kindaichi series, made popular partly thanks to the numerous movie-adaptions by Kon Ichikawa, the most known being The Inugami Family. Kosuke Kindaichi is the most famous detective in Japan. Kindaichi gets a new case to figure out who has beheaded a valuable statue and made off with its head.

6.7/10

Yūsaku Matsuda plays the part of a private detective in this modern day "who dunnit" mystery, full of suspense, thrills, and chills

6/10

Third and Shinbunbu embark on a plan to make money by Third becoming a pimp and Shinbunbu a prostitute.

7/10

This is the story of "The Forty-Seven Ronin." Based on historical events in 1701-2, the movie tells the tale of the Asano clan's downfall and the revenge of its former samurai on the perpetrator of the catastrophe. Lord Asano was goaded, or tricked, into drawing his sword inside the Shogun's palace -- a crime which carried the death penalty. The newly installed Shogun was furious at Asano and ordered all his clan's assets seized, meaning some 20,000 samurai and commoners were unemployed and landless at a stroke. Forty-seven of these ronin (masterless samurai) banded together to take attempt revenge on Lord Kira, who had goaded Asano into drawing his sword.

7.1/10

Kanno (Ken Takakura) is a Yakuza. He had to kill Matsuoka who betrayed their boss. Kanno knew Matsuoka had a 3-year-old daughter named Youko. Before he gave himself to the police, he asked his trusted man to take care of her. While in prison, Kanno kept sending letters to Youko, disguising as an uncle in Brazil. 15 years later, Kanno is released. He is determined to live legitimately, however... the Yakuza has not forgotten his wicked deed!

6.8/10

When an American is murdered in a Japanese inn, Tokyo police detective Munesue follows the trail of the killer to New York. There he is joined by a New York City detective named Shuftan and together they sort out the crime.

6.7/10

Komori Tiaki is a budding tennis student, however one day in training her coach hits the ball into her eye accidentally. She is taken to hospital but it advised that she will never regain the sight in her eye. Her coach knows of a mysterious doctor 'Blackjack' who lives in a secluded house, who might be able to help. 'Blackjack' agrees to do the operation, but for a 'substantial reward'! Her sight is regained, but now she starts to see a mysterious man that is invisible to those around her....

5.9/10

Three men, all named Masa, join forces to capitalize on each of their unique yet questionable talents against a hyper-competitive Tokyo underworld.

7.2/10

When bribe money from a rigged election funnels into a dam construction project, collusion, lust, greed and even murder are on the ballot.

7.1/10

Two semi-slackers with an ultra-intimate friendship work, slack and drink in a freezing Hokkaido town.

6.8/10

Akiyama is an intern, disgusted with the noise pollution caused by the bullet trains and the heart attacks that noise has been causing in older hospital patients, plots to disrupt and, in ten days, destroy a unit of the operation. He warns the Japan National Railway, that, if nothing is done to reduce the noise, he will derail a bullet train. Takigawa is the police detective sent to stop him.

6.5/10

Deep in the mountains of feudal Japan, a group of children endure cruel and unorthodox training in order to become the Shogunate's most secret and deadly weapons - the Demon Spies! Their true identities are hidden - even from each other. Behind their demon masks, they are educated in the deadly arts of infiltration, espionage, assassination - and seduction! If they survive to become strong enough to kill their teachers, they will become - the Demon Spies! Sent on a suicide mission to uncover a deadly conspiracy, five inexperienced Demon Spies must infiltrate a powerful fief, discover the location of its secret arsenal, and destroy it. But Lord Shogen, the Demon Hunter, plans to brutally interrogate, ingeniously torture, and cruelly execute - the Demon Spies!

6.6/10

The film follows the story of Sugi Toranosuke, a ronin, who returns to his home town of Edo many years after his attempted suicide as a sickly child. Rescued and adopted by a master swordsman, he has grown into a master swordsman and a very kind gentleman. The time is around 1868 the year that the nails were finally put into the coffin containing the feudal system that nurtured and sustained the samurai. Sugi is confused and unsure about what is happening but his teacher wants him out of the chaos of the multiple power struggles between the various clans.

7.4/10

Rica wanting a fresh start leaves her friends and past life behind or at least that is what she thinks as trouble always seems to find her. Rica's looks into a ship that exploded and everyone who survived this disaster who comes in contact with her dies. Rica only chance of solving the mystery of the sunken ship is if she can locate a old friend of hers who just happened to be on that ship the night it blew up.

6.2/10

A civic music group, created by Tsukasa Nitta, a high school teacher in Koriyama City, and Akiko Watanabe, the daughter of a record shop and teacher of a music class, invites Takuro Yoshida to Koriyama City to hold a concert. He then starts being harassed by the Hashimoto group, a local gangster group which manages the city's entertainment.

Thirsting for revenge, Jokichi rashly attempts to assassinate the evil Chogoro but ends up being captured by Yakuza. His life is spared by Boss Juzaburo, in order that the harmony of an important commemoration not be further disturbed. Though now even more of an outcast, Jokichi is asked by another Yakuza boss, Umezo, to guard Oyuki, the wayward daughter of Juzaburo. The tragic consequences of this assignment will lead him into a deadly trap and a final confrontation with Chogoro.

6.8/10

The movie was inspired by real life test driver Yukio Fukuzawa, who on 12 February 1969 lost control of his Toyota 7 at Fuji Speedway near Nakahinata, Japan and fatally smashed into a signpost. In the movie Kei Kiyama’s pop singer character meets Tôru Minegishi’s doomed racer when he happens along as she’s throwing her own records into the sea. From there things get even cheerier.

5.3/10

Can a sinful man change and find peace? It's unlikely in gang-plagued Japan. Jokichi of Mikogami, a drifter (and hired sword), goes straight after protecting a woman in distress: they marry, have a son, and Jokichi pursues his father's craft. After three years, the gangs he embarrassed when he saved his wife find the family and leave Jokichi in grief, vowing revenge. To parry his terrible swift sword, rival gangs join forces, hiring a prostitute to pose as a woman needing help and breaking the code of honor to double cross the drifter. He finds unlikely allies: a thief who aids him for fun and a one-eyed swordsman who may be Jokichi's equal in skill and honor.

6.7/10

In this intricately layered Japanese film, the nature of actresses and what they gain from acting is explored. The lives of three actresses are laid bare, and scenes from their lives are woven in and out of interviews with each of them. Each of them has experienced a traumatic event which contributes to their particular enjoyment of becoming someone else in dramatic roles.

6.9/10

A Japanese film directed by Michihiko Obimori. Released in 1971.

A talented man and a dull-witted one plan a big crime.

If You Were Young: Rage highlights the other side of post-war Japanese prosperity, focusing on the throngs of young people who missed out on the boom. We follow a group of young men that can't seem to get ahead, despite their willingness to try. Then one hits upon a plane - to work together to save for a dump truck and thus become independent contractors and be their own bosses at last. Ultimately life presents obstacles: jail for one, violence at the hands of the police for another and a girlfriend and subsequent children for the third. An early Kinji Fukasaku gem that imports the freewheeling style of the French New Wave and the hip detachment of American noir.

6.7/10

Takeshi Ijuin leaves for Chicago to be a cameraman, and a few years later returns to Japan. But he only learned the technique of homicide in Chicago. When he visits the graveyard with his father to pray at his mother's tomb, his father is shot by someone. Now he thirsts for revenge.

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.

7.3/10

Yuki cares for a sick old man Katakura who kept her mother as his mistress. Now she is the object of his ugly desires. When she falls in love with a young man Jun her long oppressed mind leads her to commit a murder with Jun for Katakura’s enormous fortune.

In the prewar days leading up to the Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937, head flight instructor Lt. Katō Tateo of the Imperial Japanese Army-Air Corps trains new volunteers from the Army's Infantry to become Japan's next generation of fighter pilots at the Tokorozawa Flying School. Flying Kawasaki Ko-4 biplanes, Lt. Katō will train both friend and future foe alike. But as war in China breaks out, Katō now in command of the 5th Rentai will take his untested men flying antiquated planes into aerial combat against the Chinese Air Force who is now headed by Lt. Cho who Katō both earlier befriended and personally trained himself. While Katō's squadron ultimately achieves air superiority over the skies of Manchuria, it comes at a high price in men to which each loss carries a heavy burden that he alone must carry. As the war widens into the Second World War, Captain Katō must battle an ever advancing array of deadlier new enemies flying ever more modern fighter planes.

7.6/10

A young man leaves his widowed mother on her improverished farm and makes his career in the Japanese navy.

6.7/10

A young woman (Dan) who worked as a prostitute in the days following World War II finds herself sexually dissatisfied with her husband and contemplates returning to an old lover who comes back into her life.

7.4/10

A youth action movie in which a student lone wolf who burns with unstoppable strength, courage, and a sense of justice rampages against a gangster.

7.2/10
5.9%