Masaru Shiga

Acting

Masaru Shiga

Born — Died

1942-01-13 — 2020-04-03

Place of birth

Kyōto, Kyōto Prefecture, Japan

Known for

Acting

Credits

63 titles

Japanese actor and singer.

Known for

Time Limit Investigator poster
6.7

Shūichirō Kiriyama works at the Limitation Task Force, the place where the cases which have reached the statute of limitations are destroyed. Getting bored of his job, he decides to find a hobby, because it seems important to him to have a hobby. So he decides to puzzle out the unsolved cases on his free time, helped by his coworker Mikazuki, who seems to have a crush on him.

Time Limit Investigator

2006

Pro Hunter poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Pro Hunter

1981

Sex and Fury poster
6.2

Sex & Fury chronicles Ocho's exploits as she searches for her father's killers, each identified by unique tattoos on their backs (a deer, a boar, and a butterfly). Along the way, she also crosses paths with Shunosuke, a radical set on murdering prominent politician Kurokawa, and Christina, an American spy posing as a gambler.

Sex and Fury

1973

Story of a Nymphomaniac poster
5.2

Natsu, the older of two sisters, has a relationship with Yonosuke, the local kimono trader. Unlike her more conservative sister Oshichi she tries to use sex as a means to climb to a better social position. To even attempt that she first needs to get out of the Buddhist monastery she is working at...

Story of a Nymphomaniac

1975

Yasei no Shōmei poster
NR

A girl survives a massacre of villagers by Japanese soldiers in a remote mountain village, and a member of the Self-Defense Force who stumbled upon the scene of the massacre during training - this suspenseful drama depicts a huge conspiracy in the Tohoku region centered on these two people.

Yasei no Shōmei

1979

Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Deadly Fight in Hiroshima poster
7.3

Repeatedly beat to a pulp by gamblers, cops, and gangsters, lone wolf Shoji Yamanaka finally finds a home as a Muraoka family hitman and falls in love with boss Muraoka's niece. Meanwhile, the ambitions of mad dog Katsutoshi Otomo draws our series' hero, Shozo Hirono, and the other yakuza into a new round of bloodshed.

Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Deadly Fight in Hiroshima

1973

Film credits

2000s · 7 titles

Hula Girls poster
6.8

Young women in a small Japanese town look to revive their home's declining fortunes by building a Hawaiian village tourist attraction.

Hula Girls

2006

Another Battle poster
6.0

Former childhood friends Kadoya Kaneo and Tochino Masatatsu cross paths again. Kaneo is now a yakuza member, while Masatatsu is a nightclub owner with a distaste for crime gangs. When a yakuza boss dies, a struggle for his position takes place between Kaneo's boss Awano and the young Nakahira. Nakahira's men try to extort money from Masatatsu, bringing him in between a yakuza battle.

Another Battle

2000

Deadly Outlaw: Rekka poster
6.6

After Kunisada's Yakuza leader and father figure is brutally murdered, he and his best friend go on a two-man mission to avenge his death, killing other Yakuza leaders leading to a final confrontation by the old man's killers.

Deadly Outlaw: Rekka

2002

Semi: Nakanai Semi poster
NR

A taxi driver becomes involved in the world of the mafia & their wars.

Semi: Nakanai Semi

2003

The Insects Unlisted in the Encyclopedia poster
6.8

A freelance writer is given a bizarre assignment by the sexy editor of "Black Book Monthly": find a bug with the power to bring humans back from the dead, in order to report on the afterlife. With his trusty companion Endo in tow, he sets off on a quest for the elusive insect and along the way meets the mysterious Sayoko, a former dominatrix and habitual wrist-cutter who delights in rubbing wasabi into her wounds.

The Insects Unlisted in the Encyclopedia

2007

Don Woman poster
NR

Yakuza Girl Boss film.

Don Woman

2001

Another Battle/Conspiracy poster
NR

Katsunori Takahashi and Ken Watanabe star in a modern yakuza tale in the classic Japanese film series, Battles Without Honor and Humanity, directed by Hajime Hashimoto.

Another Battle/Conspiracy

2003

1970s · 36 titles

Sex and Fury poster
6.2

Sex & Fury chronicles Ocho's exploits as she searches for her father's killers, each identified by unique tattoos on their backs (a deer, a boar, and a butterfly). Along the way, she also crosses paths with Shunosuke, a radical set on murdering prominent politician Kurokawa, and Christina, an American spy posing as a gambler.

Sex and Fury

1973

Story of a Nymphomaniac poster
5.2

Natsu, the older of two sisters, has a relationship with Yonosuke, the local kimono trader. Unlike her more conservative sister Oshichi she tries to use sex as a means to climb to a better social position. To even attempt that she first needs to get out of the Buddhist monastery she is working at...

Story of a Nymphomaniac

1975

Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Deadly Fight in Hiroshima poster
7.3

Repeatedly beat to a pulp by gamblers, cops, and gangsters, lone wolf Shoji Yamanaka finally finds a home as a Muraoka family hitman and falls in love with boss Muraoka's niece. Meanwhile, the ambitions of mad dog Katsutoshi Otomo draws our series' hero, Shozo Hirono, and the other yakuza into a new round of bloodshed.

Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Deadly Fight in Hiroshima

1973

Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades poster
7.1

Ogami Itto volunteers to be tortured by Yakuza in order to save a prostitute and is hired by their leader to kill an evil chamberlain.

Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades

1972

Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in the Land of Demons poster
7.2

Ogami Itto is challenged by a quintet of warriors, each armed with one fifth of Ogami's assassin fee and one fifth of the information he needs to complete his assignment.

Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in the Land of Demons

1973

Yakuza Graveyard poster
6.6

A police investigator cracks down on yakuza business, but once he realizes the police are in negotiations with certain factions, he sides with his own syndicate of choice.

Yakuza Graveyard

1976

Japanese Godfather: Conclusion poster
7.2

The three-film saga comes to a conclusion as three leaders of the underworld battle it out to determine who will become Don of Japan.

Japanese Godfather: Conclusion

1978

Battles Without Honor and Humanity poster
7.3

In the teeming black markets of postwar Japan, Shozo Hirono and his buddies find themselves in a new war between factious and ambitious yakuza.

Battles Without Honor and Humanity

1973

Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Police Tactics poster
7.0

As Japan gears up for the 1964 Olympic Games, the cops start to crack down on the gangs, under pressure from the public and the press, adding a new dimension in the war for power among the yakuza families of Hiroshima.

Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Police Tactics

1974

Violent Panic: The Big Crash poster
6.5

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.

Violent Panic: The Big Crash

1976

Company Buggers poster
7.0

Hiroshi, a small-time racketeer, makes a name for himself extorting vulnerable companies and their directors for financial gain.

Company Buggers

1975

Operation Plazma in Osaka poster
7.7

Amidst Japan's postwar economic boom, yakuza factions in Osaka fight for survival when Japan's largest crime syndicate plans a hostile takeover.

Operation Plazma in Osaka

1976

Japan's Don poster
7.2

A yakuza leader must balance his violent tactics necessary for the rough streets of 1960s Tokyo with the domestic needs of his daughters.

Japan's Don

1977

Code of Wolves poster
7.5

In gangster-infested 1920s Yokohama, gambler Ishiguro gets in with the local gang -- but his view of life changes after the Great Kanto Earthquake.

Code of Wolves

1974

The Rapacious Jailbreaker poster
6.6

Convicted of murder, Masayuki Ueda is sent to Hiroshima Prison along with his accomplice. But for a man like him, breaking out of prison is easy.

The Rapacious Jailbreaker

1974

The General and His Empire of Joy poster
4.6

Zenjiro (Masaru Shiga) is a lowlife criminal, roaming the country with his merry band of crooks, gamblers and rapists. When he gets done with his latest escapade of banging a samurai's wife, he finds that his love Okoyo (Eiko Matsuda), has managed to be recruited as one of Shogun Tokugawa Ietsuna's (Kantaro Suga) concubines. While attempting to win her back, Zenjiro becomes involved in increasingly murderous palace intrigues.

The General and His Empire of Joy

1977

Nuns That Bite poster
5.9

A woman on the run is raped, rescued, then raped again. Escaping, she heads for the hills and finds safe haven at a convent. After becoming a postulant (trainee nun), she catches her fellow sisters engaging in lesbianism, fighting over nothing, hurling snakes at each other, and engaging in mild flesh eating.

Nuns That Bite

1977

A 5,000 Kilometer Run under The Scorching Sun poster
8.0

Ninth movie in the Torakku Yarō series. Momojiro travels to Nagano to take Jonathan's place driving logging freight through the mountains. There he meets the wild and beautiful Natsu.

A 5,000 Kilometer Run under The Scorching Sun

1979

The Scoundler vs. The Viper Brothers poster
10.0

A crossover between Wakayama's Gokudo and Sugawara Mamushi series. Gokudo runs a restaurant and makes Takuzo Kawatani his kitchen bitch. He tries to do the same for the Mamushi bros. but the boys don't play along, which pisses Gokudo off. Things get worse when he starts helping a young teacher and Bunta has a crush on a pretty girl... and unbeknownst to them it's the same woman! Yes, the film has not one but two romantic subplots! Of course it all ends in bloodshed.

The Scoundler vs. The Viper Brothers

1974

The Silk Hat Boss 2 poster
6.5

The Silk Hat Boss becomes involved in a car imports business during his trip to Atami.

The Silk Hat Boss 2

1970

New Battles Without Honor and Humanity 1 poster
5.9

Bunta Sugawara is Miyoshi, a low-level assassin of the Yamamori gang who is sent to jail after a bungled hit. While in stir, family member Aoki attempts to seize power from the boss, and Miyoshi finds himself stuck between the two factions with no honorable way out.

New Battles Without Honor and Humanity 1

1974

The Viper Brothers: 18 Extortion Threats poster
10.0

Part 4 in a long running (8+1 films) action/comedy/melodrama series about a pair of short tempered, amoral, but not evil chinpira (Bunta Sugawara and Tamio Kawachi) thinking too big of themselves. Sugawara tries to overcome a traumatic experience of getting in bed blindfolded with a girl who turned out to be an old granny. Later he and Kawaji try to settle down in a neighbourhood harassed by businessman yakuza Bin Amatsu.

The Viper Brothers: 18 Extortion Threats

1972

The Tattooed Hitman poster
6.2

The most dangerous hired gun in Kyushu's underworld has managed to trigger a vicious gang war, and now, there's a contract on his life. Though nobody is more skilled in the arts of dealing death, can the tattooed hitman fend off the entire Japanese mafia as he searches for the man who wants him dead?

The Tattooed Hitman

1974

The Great Okinawa Yakuza War poster
7.6

Chiba, looking gnarly, and acting as animalistic as ever, stars alongside Matsukata as violent gangsters battling their way through fight after bloody fight with rival yakuza on the streets of Okinawa.

The Great Okinawa Yakuza War

1976

Red Peony Gambler: Here to Kill You poster
7.8

The seventh chapter of the stunning Hibotan Bakuto series. Many years have passed since Oryu the Red Peony began her soul-searching journey after her father was killed. In her travels, she meets villagers whose crops and livelihoods are being destroyed by pollution from a local factory. They seem to work out an agreement, but Oryu must help the poor villagers when the greedy factory owner and corrupt politicians betray them…

Red Peony Gambler: Here to Kill You

1971

Decapitation of an Evil Woman poster
6.2

An unusual blending of elements comes together in this crime story drawn from Japanese history. During the early Meiji period a number of “Dokufu” (Poison Women) committed a significant number of murders. These crimes were most often committed by wives on their husbands in order to be together with their lovers. At that time women were executed in the same manner as men, to wit: by being decapitated. This is the story of the most notorious of all, Takahashi Oden who, in 1879, was the last woman executed by decapitation in Japan.

Decapitation of an Evil Woman

1977

Dynamite Don-Don poster
7.8

Yakuza Gang War is at the height in North Kyūshū Area in the summer of 1950, particularly between the Okagen Group and the rising Hashiden Gang. Now with the mediation/interference of the Americans, they decide to settle it in a peaceful, *democratic* way, that is, to settle it with a baseball game. Now, with its money and power, The Hashiden group soon recruits a group of gamblers known to be good at baseball from the whole country. So, what is the Okagen Gumi gonna do?

Dynamite Don-Don

1978

Wicked Priest 4: The Killer Priest Comes Back poster
9.0

In Meiji Period Japan, the carrying of swords had been outlawed, so Shikai, the Killer Priest carries his sword disguised as a Priest?s staff. One of the strongest entries in the series, Shinkai is badly injured, and must face his worst enemy in what could be their final showdown.

Wicked Priest 4: The Killer Priest Comes Back

1970

The Shogun Assassins poster
5.4

This is a film about a real person. Sanada Yukimura fought a war against Tokugawa Ieyasu.

The Shogun Assassins

1979

Red Peony Gambler: Execution of Duty poster
7.9

The final chapter of the Hibotan Bakuto series. Oryu the Red Peony visits an old dying Boss of an ally family and promised her that she would help guide the new Boss. Meanwhile a turf war breaks out. When the family is betrayed from within and the rival family becomes violent, Oryu takes things into her own hands…

Red Peony Gambler: Execution of Duty

1972

The Viper Brothers and the Young General poster
9.0

The last in the series. Sugawara runs into two mahjong cheaters (Ichiro Araki and Mako Midori + sidekick Takuzo Kawatani) whom he takes for friends in need as his naivety prevents him from seeing their true nature.

The Viper Brothers and the Young General

1975

Japanese Godfather: Ambition poster
7.7

An ambitious Kansai yakuza don moves in on Tokyo using financial and political tactics, sparking conflict with a local criminal association.

Japanese Godfather: Ambition

1977

Doberman Cop poster
6.6

Joji Kano is a loose cannon cop from backwoods Okinawa, sent to Tokyo to investigate the grisly murder of an Okinawa woman. As he probes deeper into the sleazy world of flesh-peddling, talent agency corruption and mob influence, Kano uncovers the shocking truth.

Doberman Cop

1977

A Yakuza Has His Way poster
9.0

The eighth installment in the popular film series starring Tomisaburo Wakayama. Embarrassed by the chairman of the Seiyu-kai for not having a family crest, Seikichi Shimamura sets out with his henchmen on a journey to acquire the crest of a local bankrupt family. The local Iwahashi clan and the fishermen fought over the construction of the industrial complex, but when Seikichi learned that the Seiyu-kai was behind the Iwahashi clan, he sided with the fishermen...

A Yakuza Has His Way

1972

A Modern Yakuza: Three Decoy Blood Brothers poster
9.0

When a large crime syndicate seeks to invade Gifu's underworld, three brothers and their yakuza family are the only ones that stand in their way.

A Modern Yakuza: Three Decoy Blood Brothers

1971

A Savage Beast Goes Mad poster
6.9

Test driver Hayami loses control of his car and rolls over. His company then learns that he has kept secret that he is visually impaired, and he is fired. Without the prospect of returning to his old job he makes a plan to rob several jewelry stores. A few days later, Hayami escapes with stolen goods worth 80 million yen in a violin case on a Kyoto city bus. A wild chase ensues.

A Savage Beast Goes Mad

1976

1960s · 9 titles

Eleven Samurai poster
7.5

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.

Eleven Samurai

1967

Yakuza on Foot poster
7.5

An Osaka gangster Shimamura just got married. His new bride, Mineko is also involved in drug trafficking. When she goes to China to make a deal, things get botched pretty badly. Shimamura must travel to save her and recoup his employers’ losses.

Yakuza on Foot

1969

Return of the Outlaw poster
9.0

Second film of the Gokudo series starring Tomisaburô Wakayama

Return of the Outlaw

1968

Wicked Priest poster
6.2

Shinkai, a Buddhist monk with a penchant for drinking and gambling, sets sinners straight with judo throws rather than sermons. After fighting off a gang of street thugs, Shinkai is placed on probation but manages to escape his superiors’ watchful eyes to covertly indulge in life’s pleasures. But when he hears of rogue priests in his order consorting with yakuza, Shinkai must make them see the error of their ways and reach enlightenment, one punch at a time.

Wicked Priest

1968

The Marked Man poster
10.0

A man from Osaka comes up to Tokyo to fight gangsterism.

The Marked Man

1968

Scoundrel poster
7.0

Shimamura is a violent street thug who joins the yakuza & is merciless & unscrupulous on his rise, lacking any sense of either duty or chivalry. When imprisoned, he is repeatedly transferred from one prison to another, because no one can handle him.

Scoundrel

1968

The Fort of Death poster
6.5

The second Bounty Hunter film, when master killer Shikoro Ichibei takes up the cause of a group of farmers being driven to despair by the vile Lord Ozeki. The villainous lord has driven them to mounting their last stand at a deserted fort against an army of attackers. Wakayama Tomisaburo is superb as an expert in killing and military tactics, who leaves his medical practice at a clinic for the poor in order to counter the vicious tactics of that vile lord.

The Fort of Death

1969

Gamblers: The Dragon Tattoo poster
NR

The second part of the Gamblers series.

Gamblers: The Dragon Tattoo

1967

The Protector poster
8.5

Mine, the only daughter of Kiyagen, is faced with running the family's timber business when her father falls ill. Under a great deal of pressure to continue the five generation long run of the business, Mine is put to the ultimate test when a former gangster sets his sights on closing her down.

The Protector

1966

Series credits