大暴れ五十三次

錦絵江戸姿 旗本と街奴

The Color Print of Edo is a 1939 black and white Japanese silent film with benshi accompaniment directed by Kazuo Mori. It is a cheerful period drama, sprinkled with comical scenes and tells the story of a loyal and handsome Edo period servant who fights to help his older brother marry the woman he loves. The star of this film, Utaemon Ichikawa, gained enormous popularity for his portrayal of a cheerful and chivalrous man.

八州遊侠伝 男の盃

This is one of the many films based on the legend of Chuji Kunisada, a wandering gambler and a defender of the weak in the Edo period. In other words, he was the Japanese Robin Hood. In this film Kunisada (Chiezo Kataoka) arrives to a small town terrorized by an evil gang. He insists that he is not Kunisada, as the word is Kunisada has been executed, but of course the audience know better. Sonny Chiba plays an unusual supporting role as a helpless young man unable to defend himself from the gangsters. He does, however, get to play taiko drums and dance with Junko Fuji (who makes her film debut here). Chiba's father, an old judge who helps Kunisada, is played by Takashi Shimura. The film hardly anything exceptional, but it's a pretty decent jidai geki / yakuza drama.

一心太助 男の中の男一匹

In the third entry into this mega-hit series, Isshin Tasuke, a spirited fishmonger in Edo who looks just like Shogun Iemitsu undergoes a series of unforeseen troubles in his newly wedded life.

地獄の剣豪　平手造酒

The man is chased by losing the beauty and preciousness of love and the foundation of life without overcoming the hardship of life.

嗤う伊右衛門

Having put down his sword and given up the will to fight, the masterless samurai Iemon lives in solitude while being haunted by his violent enigmatic past...

雨あがる

A group of travelers is stranded in a small country inn when the river floods during heavy rains. As the bad weather continues, tensions rise amongst the trapped travelers.

用心棒

A nameless ronin, or samurai with no master, enters a small village in feudal Japan where two rival businessmen are struggling for control of the local gambling trade. Taking the name Sanjuro Kuwabatake, the ronin convinces both silk merchant Tazaemon and sake merchant Tokuemon to hire him as a personal bodyguard, then artfully sets in motion a full-scale gang war between the two ambitious and unscrupulous men.

乱

Shakespeare's King Lear is reimagined as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan where an aging warlord divides his kingdom between his three sons.

椿三十郎

Toshiro Mifune swaggers and snarls to brilliant comic effect in Kurosawa's tightly paced, beautifully composed "Sanjuro." In this companion piece and sequel to "Yojimbo," jaded samurai Sanjuro helps an idealistic group of young warriors weed out their clan's evil influences, and in the process turns their image of a proper samurai on its ear.

座頭市喧嘩旅

Zatoichi is sworn to protect the life of a young girl and without any real allies finds himself in the middle of a bloody turf war.

必殺！ 主水死す

When an artist dies, the official cause of death is judged to be a stroke, but his daughter suspects foul play. She recruits the services of an assassin, who by chance encounters an old friend...

散り椿

During the Edo period, a gifted swordsman was exiled from his clan when he questioned the misconduct of his leader. Years after, his dying wife wish was for him to go back to his clan.

御用牙　かみそり半蔵地獄責め

Against the backdrop of the Edo treasury devaluing currency and driving many into poverty, Hanzo Itami enforces the law without regard to status. He shows inadequate respect to the treasurer, who wants him dead.

御用牙 鬼の半蔵やわ肌小判

Hanzo extracts a confession from a ghost using his assaulting methods, foils thieves, connects with Heisuke Takei a friend from his youth, offers protection to a forward-thinking physician Genan Sugino who has defamed his ruler, discovers a pleasure ring of young wives and a blind music teacher, and cuckolds a corrupt official under his very nose.

新・座頭市物語

Wishing to find peace, Zatoichi travels to his old village but only finds trouble when he ends up in a love triangle and finds old scores have followed him home.

座頭市兇状旅

After arriving in the town of Shimonita, Ichi finds that a price has been put on his head by a local yakuza boss. He's drawn into a trap, but after hearing of the slaying of a former love, Ichi furiously fights his way through the entire clan to face the killer, a hired ronin.

座頭市物語

The adventures of a blind, gambling masseur and master swordsman. Zatoichi targets a yakuza-controlled village, because war with a neighbouring town's smaller gang is brewing.

続・座頭市物語

Returning to the village where a year before he had killed Hirate, a much-admired opponent, Zatoichi encounters another swordsman and former rival in love.

御用牙

Fearless Edo-period police inspector Hanzo Itami, nicknamed The Razor, has developed his own unique way of extracting information for his inquiries. His first adventure sees him investigating his superior officer's mistress, whom he suspects of having ties with a reputed criminal on the loose.