Kinji Fukasaku — Playwright (23)

Movie

Shanghai Rhapsody (1984) IMDb TMDB
上海バンスキング
other title: Rhapsodie de Shanghai / 上海バンスキング
Set in the 1930s in the international city of Shanghai, the film follows the extravagant life and times of a group of jazz musicians, living from one advance paycheck to the next, as the country teeters over the brink into the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Movie

Sure Death 4 (1987) IMDb TMDB
必殺4 恨みはらします
director: Kinji Fukasaku actor: Makoto Fujita / Kazuko Kato …
other title: La Vengeance du samouraï / 必殺4 恨みはらします
Having been demoted for failing to prevent the murder of one of his superiors, Mondo is startled by a group of masked thugs who are soon attacked in turn by an unseen force. He begins to suspect the work of assassins, but whose side are they on?

Movie

Wolves, Pigs & Men (1964) IMDb TMDB
狼と豚と人間
director: Kinji Fukasaku actor: Ken Takakura / Rentaro Mikuni …
other title: Hommes, porcs et loups / 狼と豚と人間
Sabu and his pals hold a pauper's funeral for Sabu's mother. His brother Jiro arrives home, fresh out of jail, and Sabu pointedly states that Jiro is not invited. Jiro meanwhile is planning a big job - steal 40 million in cash and drugs, and he invites Sabu and gang to act as decoys, for 50,000 each. The sting is a success, but the double-crossing starts almost immediately. Sabu discovers how little of the take they were promised and hides the stash. Jiro and his slimy partner pressure the kids to fess up. Meanwhile, their respectable elder brother Ichiro is being leaned on by the town's big boss, whose money it was.

Movie

Bloodstained Clan of Honor (1970) WikiData IMDb TMDB
血染の代紋
other title: Le Blason ensanglanté / 血染の代紋 …
The story takes place in the sunset days of the yakuza in 1965. The postwar turmoil that created the black market and lubricated illegal business opportunities was giving way to Japan Inc. A young Bunta Sugawara takes over as the oyabun of a crime syndicate in Yokohama, where he is struggling to keep operations at the port there alive. As his syndicate is eroding quickly, a major heavy industries company offers his gang the chance to chase some vagrants out of a shantytown where they are squatting on land where a factory is to be built. The job would secure steady profits for Bunta's crime ring for years to come. However, Bunta and other members of his outfit grew up in the shanty, and they would be muscling their friends and neighbors. This sets the stage for an internal struggle that complicates the violent struggle with a rival mafia organization in Tokyo.

Movie

Crest of Betrayal (1994)
忠臣蔵外伝 四谷怪談
director: Kinji Fukasaku actor: Koichi Sato / Saki Takaoka …
other title: Histoire de fantômes à Yotsuya / 忠臣蔵外伝 四谷怪談 …
Weaving two storylines together: the first is the story of 18th-century shogunate intrigue and loyalty, and the second is a ghost story about a beautiful woman who falls victim to passion and evil.

Movie

Japan Organized Crime Boss (1969) WikiData IMDb TMDB
日本暴力団 組長
director: Kinji Fukasaku actor: Koji Tsuruta / Bunta Sugawara …
other title: Le Caïd de Yokohama / 日本暴力団 組長 …
Coming out of jail and hoping for a quiet life, Yokohama yakuza has to take the lead of his gang after the death of his boss. His small group is is taken in a crossfire between a big yakuza group from Osaka at war with the Tokyo alliance for the control of the city. He tries to keep to the old yakuza code but he is no match for the new thugs who live and fight without honor.

Movie

A Chaos of Flowers (1988)
華の乱
director: Kinji Fukasaku actor: Sayuri Yoshinaga / 松田优作 …
other title: 华之乱 / 華の乱 …
Set in the Taisho era, which might be regarded as Japan's Hippie Phase, Hana no ran is a story about fashionable people without impulse control. Much of the action centers on a popular woman writer, the real-life poet Akiko Yosano, and her experiences among the literati of early 20th century Japan. Because of her independent, anti-war and often erotic poetry, she was a lightning rod for revolutionaries and other extremists, many of whom were destined to glamorous, yet ultimately pointless, deaths. The closest parallels might be the Byron/Shelley group or the people drawn to the Beat Generation.

Movie

Dissolution Rites (1967)
解散式
director: Kinji Fukasaku actor: Koji Tsuruta / Tetsuro Tamba …
other title: 解散式 / Kaisan shiki …
Sawaki is released from prison after serving eight years for murdering a rival gang leader in order to obtain the land rights to a landfill for the Kotaki clan and he discovers that the world has changed significantly in that time. The police have forced the disbanding of all yakuza groups in and around Tokyo and most of the former yakuza have moved on to legitimate jobs. Sawaki is disgusted that his yakuza brothers have abandoned their codes of honor and are abusing their newfound power in the legitimate business world to exploit the poor. Sawaki feels partly responsible for making them so powerful and enabling their corruption, so he decides to follow his traditional code of honor to save the residents of a small town where his former lover lives.

Movie

The Threat (1966) WikiData IMDb TMDB
脅迫
other title: Chantage / 脅迫
Two escaped criminals who kidnapped a baby break into the house of Misawa, a man who works in an advertising agency and lives quietly with his family. They will force him to collect the child's ransom for them.

Movie

Violent Panic: The Big Crash (1976) WikiData IMDb TMDB
暴走パニック 大激突
director: Kinji Fukasaku actor: Tsunehiko Watase / Miki Sugimoto …
other title: Violent Panic : The Big Crash / 暴走パニック 大激突
Takashi, a bank robber, dreams of his final heist and escaping to Brazil... but in his way, stands a woman that loves him, his dead partner's brother, a corrupt cop, a motorcycle gang and every police officer in the Kanto region.

Movie

Virus (1980) WikiData IMDb TMDB
復活の日
director: Kinji Fukasaku actor: Glenn Ford / Robert Vaughn …
other title: Ultimo rifugio: Antartide / Overkill - Durch die Hölle zur Ewigkeit …
Scientists in Antarctica desperately try to find a cure to a military virus that was released in a plane crash and has wiped out the rest of the world.

Movie

Samurai Reincarnation (1981) WikiData IMDb TMDB
魔界転生
director: Kinji Fukasaku actor: Sonny Chiba / Kenji Sawada …
other title: 魔界転生 / Makai tenshô: Samurai Reincarnation
After surviving the slaughter of many Christians 350 years ago, a samurai denounces God for ignoring the pleas of believers. He sells his soul to Satan and receives the power to resurrect the dead to join him in a murderous rampage.

Movie

Kaoyaku (1965)
顔役
director: Teruo Ishii actor: Koji Tsuruta / Ken Takakura …
other title: 顔役 / Underground Veepees …
Teruo Ishii portrays the bitter conflict over the right to develop land in a gripping and humorous way. Nakagami, the head of the Kanto Joseikai, is ordered to acquire the rights to work to level the reclaimed land and prevent the Doshikai from expanding from Kansai into Tokyo, but the interference of the Koda-gumi, associated with the Kansai Doshikai, intensifies. Nakagami's younger brother Hayami, unhappy that the situation is moving slowly, tries to blackmail the mayor into moving forward, but...
A true Toei gangster film with an all-star cast including Koji Tsuruta and Ken Takakura!