The best Kyôichi Satô’s movies

Taking its title from an archaic Japanese word meaning "ghost story," this anthology adapts four folk tales. A penniless samurai marries for money with tragic results. A man stranded in a blizzard is saved by Yuki the Snow Maiden, but his rescue comes at a cost. Blind musician Hoichi is forced to perform for an audience of ghosts. An author relates the story of a samurai who sees another warrior's reflection in his teacup.

In the fifth film of the Lone Wolf and Cub series, Ogami Itto is challenged by five warriors, each has one fifth of Ogami's assassin fee and one fifth of the information he needs to complete his assassination.

A guilt-haunted samurai warrior attempts to stop a massacre taking place.

In the sixth and final film of the Lone Wolf and Cub series, the final conflict between Ogami Itto and the Yagyu clan is carried out.

Teruo Ishii's Bohachi Bushido: Code of the Forgotten Eight tells the story of a Ronin with a death wish who reluctantly joins the Clan of the Forgotten Eight, a nasty crew of ronin who are wrapped up in a clan war over local prostitution. Teturo Tanba is well cast as the ronin who just wants to die in battle but does a good job taking a lot of gangsters with him. Drug trips, naked geisha and plenty of sword action make up this Teruo Ishii pinky violence film.

In this first film of the Lone Wolf and Cub series, adapted from the manga by Kazuo Koike, we are told the story of the Lone Wolf and Cub's origin. Ogami Itto, the official Shogunate executioner, has been framed for disloyalty to the Shogunate by the Yagyu clan, against whom he now is waging a one-man war, along with his infant son, Daigoro.

Matsu, known to the prisoners as Scorpion, is locked away in the bowels of the prison as revenge for disrupting the smooth operation of the prison and for her disfiguring attack on the warden. Granted a one day reprieve due to the visit of a dignitary, she takes advantage and attacks the warden again. This leads to more brutal punishment and humiliation. But the punishment gives her an oppurtunity to escape along with six other female prisoners. Their surreal flight from prison pits the convicts against the guards, the warden and each other.

Set in the icy wilderness of Hokkaido during the early days of the Meiji era, where the brutal warden of Kabato Prison terrorizes convicts sentenced to forced labor to build the roads needed to open up the territory.

Shiba, a wandering ronin, encounters a band of peasants who have kidnapped the daughter of their dictatorial magistrate, in hopes of coercing from him a reduction in taxes. Shiba takes up their fight, joined by two renegades from the magistrate's guard, Sakura and Kikyo. The three outlaws find themselves in a battle to the death.

Zatoichi is a blind massage therapist and swordsman who finds out that something troubling is taking place on the outskirts of town. After discovering who the guilty parties are -- an accomplished Chinese martial artist named Wang Kang and his youthful attendant -- Zatoichi finds them and discovers that the pair's mixed up with a dangerous bunch of terrorist samurai who murdered the boy's parents. Now, Zatoichi must step in to save the day.

After going to prison for killing the boss of the Kanno gang, Seji Iwahashi (Tatsuya Nakadai) gets released early -- only to find that his former gang has merged with the Kannos. But with bitter resentments lingering on both sides, how long will it be before the bloodshed begins anew? Set in 1926 Japan, this serpentine crime thriller from director Hideo Gosha also stars Toshio Kurosawa and Isao Natsuyagi as Iwahashi's closest ally.

A karate master played by Sonny Chiba is attacked and left crippled and blinded in one eye. He trains his daughter (Etsuko Shihomi) with the intention of her avenging not only himself but a murdered friend.

Legendary swordplay filmmaker Hideo Gosha's Sword of the Beast chronicles the flight of the low-level swordsman Gennosuke, who kills one of his ministers as part of a reform plot. His former comrades then turn on him, and this betrayal so shakes his sense of honor that he decides to live in the wild, like an animal. There he joins up with a motley group who are illegally mining the shogun’s gold, and, with the aid of another swordsman, gets a chance not just at survival but to recover his name and honor.

With a Kansai syndicate setting their sights on Tokyo, a former yakuza boss gets dragged back into a world of violence.

The lord of the Oshi fief is killed by his trespassing neighbour, the cruel and despotic Nariatsu, son of the former Shogun. After an investigation, the Oshi clan is blamed for what happened and sentenced to be disbanded. Eleven of the best samurai of the clan refuse the sentence and are willing to give their life for justice.

The quiet life of a mother and her young son living on a farm in Hokkaido is changed by the arrival of a man who ignites flames of romance in the heart of the mother and shows her boy the importance of grit and kindness, but then he leaves with the autumn wind...

Kumokiri Nizaemon, a former samurai warrior, has abandoned his class to become the leader of a gang of thieves. He leads his outlaws in an attempt to rob the castle of his former clan.

Three men sentenced to death are spared and changed into “shadows executioners”, a group of ruthless ninja working for mysterious high ranking officials. During their investigation on some illegal business, one of them, called “Yazuke the Viper”, finds his abandoned daughter, Ocho, who has now become a mistress of Denzo, a smuggler. After Yazuke’s death, Ocho is also recruited as a “shadows executioner”, with the task of completing her father’s mission.

Japanese sixties comedy featuring a cunning female jewel thief named Black Lizard who tries to kidnap Sanaye, a wealthy jeweler's beautiful daughter as part of a plot to steal the jeweler's expensive "Star of Egypt" diamond. To thwart the planned kidnapping, the jeweler hires Japan's number one detective, the brilliant Akechi. This sets off a dual between Black Lizard and Akechi as each tries to outwit the other. In the process, the two adversaries develop a mutual respect and affection for each other. Despite Akechi's efforts, Black Lizard and her crew are able to kidnap Sanaye and gain possession of the "Star of Egypt". Black Lizard takes Sanaye to her secret lair on a remote island which is populated by an eerie collection of naked human dolls. There Black Lizard plans to preserve Sanaye's beauty forever by turning her into one of her dolls. As Sanaye's doom quickly approaches, it is up to Akechi to save the day.

The sixth chapter of Jingi Naki Tatakai series With the endless power struggle. The extraordinary combination of Kinji Fukasaku and Bunta Sugawara, along with new ideas and a strong touch of realism, created the sixth movie of the series that describes 'The War of Hiroshima Gangsters' which had lasted almost 30 years after World War II. It can be called the Japanese secret post WWII history. It focuses on the ugly, violent inside struggle of the Yamamori Group of 1959 in Kure City, Hiroshima. Director Kinji Fukasaku, the master of portraying violence and humanity, said "Having making the five previous movies, I found those characters very interesting. So I took a deeper look into them this time." He made this shocking movie with high enthusiasm and revealed the core of gangster's struggle which has never been touched before.