Japanese cinema flourished early on and silent films were being made right through the 1930s. Most were accompanied by a 'benshi' or live narrator telling the story as well as live music. Very little survives from this era however; the 1923 earthquake, the bombings of WW2 and the country's high humidity destroyed many of these historical works. Of those that survive, the early works of Kenji Mizoguchi are highly regarded and he went on to make the classic 'The Life of Oharu' in 1952. Of course no discussion on Japanese cinema is possible without mention of their best known son, Akira Kurosawa. With a career spanning 60 years Kurosawa's ground-breaking films (e.g. 'Seven Samurai', 'Kagemusha', 'Ran') influenced film makers around the world. Most recently Japanese cinema hero 'Beat' Takeshi Kitano revitalised the Yakuza genre; and young mavericks like Takashi Miike ('Audition', 'Ichi the Killer) and Hideo Nakata ('Ring', 'Dark Water') have breathed new life into the horror flick, their films often (and promptly!) remade by US production houses. For Japanime, use the animation link to the left. Pictured: Kurosawa teamed once more with the incomparable Toshiro Mifune for 'Seven Samurai'
Sonny Chiba plays a hard-bitten undercover cop trying to win the confidence of two rival yakuza gangs in order to bust their illegal drugs operations.... Read more
Sonny Chiba returns as undercover cop Hayata. This time he's after a marijuana syndicate, and he's going to have to go very undercover to net these g... Read more
Gan Takada and his girlfriend Ai-chan are just normal teens who like to tinker away at robotic inventions - that is, when they're not out keeping the... Read more
Kurosawa's first full-length comedy. Toshiro Mifune is the unemployed samurai warrior who comes to a small village torn apart by two warring factions... Read more
A vaguely autobiographical and sometimes violent comedy/drama from the eclectic and prolific Takashi Miike which he followed with the prequel, 'Young... Read more
This prequel to 'Innocent Blood' has been called by director Takashi Miike his favourite of all his many films. Set in 1969 Japan, this gritty coming... Read more
Unique Japanese filmmaker Seijun Suzuki helms this audacious wild ride into the world of 1960s Japanese Yakuza. Police detective Jo Shishido winds up... Read more
Aka "The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi". The sightless Zatoichi - hero of over two dozen films from 1962 to 1989 - is revived by scripter/director/star Ta... Read more
Zatoichi, played of course by the brilliant Shintaro Katsu, wanders into yet another village in turmoil as rival gambling houses are putting the squee... Read more
One of the best of the original series of 25, this sees our blind hero deliver the baby of a dying mother (and breastfeed it!), then set off to find t... Read more