Teruo Ishii — Playwright (29)
Violent Fighters (1979) [Movie] IMDb WikiData TMDB
暴力戦士
director: Teruo Ishii actor: Ken Tanaka / Masanori Machida
other title: 暴力戦士
In 1979 Toei president Shigeru Okada saw the future. More precisely, he saw Walter Hill's The Warriors in the US prior to its Japanese opening. Okada rushed back to make his own version. "Towards the 80! Our era! Now filming!" the trailer exclaimed. The plot is roughly the same as in The Warriors except this time the chased gang has to make it from Kobe to Tokyo and the leader's got the enemy's sister handcuffed to him. Hardly great cinema, but undeniably entertaining with frantic pacing, loads of music and even a massive roller blade street chase! As a vision of future, it wasn't too far off if the future was defined as 80s rock, bad fashion and comic book films.
The Bullet and the Horse (1966) [Movie] TMDB IMDb
網走番外地 荒野の対決
director: Teruo Ishii actor: Ken Takakura / Kanjūrō Arashi
other title: 網走番外地 荒野の対決
A number of recently released prisoners become involved in a racket with a rancher who is a rival to a neighboring landowner and wants to use the convicts to seize his ranch. The rancher does not know, however, that he had years before killed the parents of one of their number.
Mist and Shadows (1961) [Movie] IMDb TMDB
霧と影
director: Teruo Ishii actor: Tetsuro Tamba / Tatsuo Umemiya
other title: 霧と影
A veteran reporter and a young journalist doggedly pursue clues through sheer persistence and intuition to unravel the mystery behind the sudden death of a teacher in the remote Hokuriku region. In pursuit of the truth, they are led to a web of corporate fraud, an inbred village, bundles of toilet paper, and flatfoots with something to hide as the bodies pile up.
Eleven Gangsters (1963) [Movie] TMDB IMDb
暗黒街の顔役 十一人のギャング
director: Teruo Ishii actor: Koji Tsuruta / Tetsuro Tamba
other title: 暗黒街の顔役 十一人のギャング
Two men head a team who steal a factory payroll valued at 500 million yen. Then a hoodlum gang goes after the team for the money.
Gang vs. Gang (1962) [Movie] IMDb TMDB
ギャング対ギャング
director: Teruo Ishii actor: Koji Tsuruta / Tatsuo Umemiya
other title: Die Killer von Tokio / ギャング対ギャング
The plot opens with the hero (Tsuruta) leaving prison, having served time through taking the blame for a fellow gang member’s crime. However, his former gang boss seems to have gone to seed, with people now killing each other and dealing in drugs. The hero then teams up with a lone operator (Tamba) who specialises in shaking down gangsters.
Great Jailbreak (1975) [Movie] IMDb WikiData TMDB
大脱獄
director: Teruo Ishii actor: Ken Takakura / Nana Kinomi
other title: 大脱獄
A group of prisoners attempts to break the Abashiri prison. This film can be considered a sequel to the Abashiri Bangaichi series, written and directed by Ishii Teruo. The friendship between two men on death row, a fleeting love affair with a traveling dancer and a deadly battle with the real culprit who has hunted him down filmed over a long period of time on location in Hokkaido.
Sexy Line (1961) [Movie] IMDb TMDB
セクシー地帯
director: Teruo Ishii actor: Yōko Mihara / Teruo Yoshida
other title: Sexy line / セクシー地帯
It tells the story of a couple who fall into a trap set up by a sinister organization. One of them is a guy who is framed for the murder of his lover. The other is a woman pick-pocket who is entrapped by the organization's schemes involving their crimes. Fate places them together, and they start to investigate the prostitution ring run by the organization...
Black Line (1960) [Movie] IMDb TMDB
黒線地帯
director: Teruo Ishii actor: Shigeru Amachi / Utako Mitsuya
other title: 黒線地帯
Freelance reporter “Scoop” Machida is hot on the trail of a prostitution ring called the Black Line, when he is framed for the murder of a young woman. Forced to clear his own name, the handsome journalist sinks deeper into the Black Line’s rotten swamp of drugs, prostitution, and murder and finds unexpected help in Maya, a steamy female gambler familiar with the neon-lit streets, shadowy alleyways, and seedy nightclubs he must navigate. The closest film in the Line series to classic American film noir, Ishii’s Black Line is a pulpy assortment of crime film conventions including the starkly expressionistic black and white cinematography by Jûgyô Yoshida, a jazzy music score by Michiaki Watanabe, and a sleazy screenplay by Ishii and Ichirô Miyagawa.