Joe Shishido

Seijun Suzuki became a cinema legend in the 1960s with a handful of pop-art films. So how can you make a portrait of this iconoclastic director without also adopting a 'style to kill' documentary convention, as well as testimonies from a variety of leading figures in contemporary Japanese and international filmmakers.

A beautiful mother and her two daughters run a bar in a town. They have a dream of becoming rich, reforming the building, and living as celebrities. With no chance of their dream coming true with just their everyday earnings, they had another face - blinding the elderly with their beauty, putting on insurance coverage and seeking to get rich quick by murdering. However, their scheme begins to collapse from one little mistake.

The beautiful Shizuko and her husband Toyama Takayoshi have a loving relationship, But Takayoshi is getting older and isn't always able to perform. His primary source of gratification involves observing his wife in sadomasochistic scenarios so he commissions a painter, skilled in the arts of bondage to bring these fantasies to life. Soon, Shiziko becomes a willing and submissive participant in fulfilling the S&M fantasies of not only her husband but a slew of rich lecherous men.

After his parent's divorce, Kazuo Saito moves with his mother from Onomichi and must leave his girlfriend behind. At his new school, Kazuo is surprised to reunite with his childhood friend Kazumi.

For 60 years, the group of detectives known as "Detective Office 5" has raised the bar for detective work. The agents of Detective Office 5 are a group of stellar detectives lead by the genius code breaker Detective 507. When an unknown client enlists 507 to crack his most difficult programming code yet, the detective embarks for Shanghai where he crosses paths with a sniper, an informant, the head of the Blue-Dragon Mafia, and beautiful singer on the run, Meilan. As 507 stumbles deeper into a twisted quagmire of intrigue he discovers the sad truth behind the mystery.

Takao, the owner of a coffee shop and brother-in-law to Anzai, the assistant manager of Hikari Bank, Osaka central branch, is caught in a scam by an online financial service.

Zenigata Rai is tracking down Detective Okano, who disappeared in the "Forest of Golgoda" in Akasaka, Minato Ward. However, she also gets involved in an incident and goes missing. Rai's cousin, Zenigata Rei, joins forces with Detective Matsuyama, who was once Okano's partner, to investigate the two cases.

The fanclub of a deceased Japanese idol gather together for the one year anniversary of her death. By combining forces they try to unearth the true circumstances surrounding her supposed suicide.

In the sequel to 1990's classic Neo Chinpira, Junko (Sho Aikawa) attempts to take out Kazama and then goes on the run. However, he quickly begins to feel homesick, and returns home to find that almost everything has changed. Noriko is now a bar mama with a lavish lifestyle, Yumeko is nowhere to be found, and his boss (Toru Minegishi) seems to have sinister plans involving Junko and his uncle (Jo Shishido).

Junko pretends to be a yakuza and gets more than he bargained for when he is tasked with avenging the murder of a fellow gang member. If he turns the task down, he will face the consequences for betrayal.

A middle-aged journalist looking to make her big break. After working the same beat on the "women's page", Yumiko gets promoted to editorials.

Broke, with his vintage Nash convertible repossessed, private eye Mike Hama is reduced to combing the mean streets of the Yokohama waterfront on a borrowed bicycle. But when Lily, a beautiful stripper from out of Hama's past, returns to town, the fuse is lit on a criminal powder keg set to blow the lid off the Yokohama underworld.

When a hooded stranger appears in private eye 'Mike' Hama's office with the cryptic challenge "I want you to look for me," Hama is drawn into a string of bizarre serial murders that have Yokohama's police baffled and the city terrified.

Nozomi is a former actress who moves back to Japan from New Zealand. Upon arriving, she meets her fellow high school student neighbor Ryotaro Shiba, who decides to join the high school boxing club. Adapted from Toshio's Nobe manga, with the same title.

A brilliant hitman and a veteran former hitman join forces to take revenge on the murdered woman and challenge the criminal organization.

Maiku Hama is a private detective working in Yokohama. Hama comes to the aid of a Taiwanese waiter named Yang and agrees to track down his missing brother. Through a series of double-crosses Hama gets embroiled in a gang war and a revenge plot between the two brothers

The world-famous woodblock artist Hokusai (1760-1849), a widower in need of a steady income, lives with his daughter Oei in the house of his friend Bakin.

A demonic reincarnation of a Japanese general from the 10th century appears in the early 20th century Tokyo with a mission to destroy the blooming city.

A demonic reincarnation of a Japanese general from the 10th century appears in the early 20th century Tokyo with a mission to destroy the blooming city.

9th-graders Kazuo and Kazumi take a tumble at a temple in a small seacoast town in Japan. Through supernatural intervention, their minds and bodies are switched, and the result is a touching and hilarious coming-of-age comedy as they attempt to survive the pressures of junior high school life.

A beautiful day Rokurou, a student, was to masturbate when a beautiful girl knocks on his door: You need a girl? And so begins the story. Rokurou did not know what it was that this beautiful girl was from a millionaire family.

During the fervently nationalist months leading up to World War II, a rebellious teenager is transferred to a new primary school in a small Inland Sea town. He vies with the school’s reigning bully, who takes a romantic interest in his older stepsister. When they learn she’s going to be sold to a brothel to pay off her father’s debts, they form an uneasy alliance to free her.

Meet Chika. She thinks she's been jinxed: she's going to be dumped on Christmas Eve. Enter Tomako, who likes reading and making pudding. Although they're total opposites, by a twist of fate, they become best friends. However, it turns out they both want to spend Christmas Eve with the same guy. Will they choose friendship? Or love?

The love story of an architect and a fashion designer in Mexico.

Global South guerrillas hijack the Japanese oil tanker Arabian Light, threatening to blow it up in Tokyo Bay, unless the Cabinet complies with an economically devastating ultimatum.

Story is about how a revolutionist, played by Cheng Pei Pei, taking on the identity of a Captain's (Ou Wei) long lost sister who is actually dead. Cheng manages to fool the Captain for a while, but little by little, the Captain catches on to her and the revolutionist's plan to stop Chinese-Japanese relations.

While Hirono is in prison, his rival Takeda turns his own crime organization into a political party, whose two executives stir up new tensions in their thirst for power.

A rookie golfer must cope with the stress of fame after a marketing executive transforms her into a sports celebrity.

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.

Terrorists hijack an oil tanker and threaten to blow it up unless Japan meets their demands.

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.

A reporter is framed for murder while investigating organized crime. Upon being released from prison the plan for his revenge unravels.

Patronized by a gang ruling the city, Mako delinquently plays around a night club every night with her bad company. One night, a guy Hideo gets closer to her for one-night stand, and they consequently fall in love. However, Hideo is killed by the gang. Mako swears vengeance on her beloved's murderer.

The Akiba and Shimura crime families run the streets of “K City”. With the construction of new buildings and new factories underway, the city has sprouted into a boomtown and business is good. Two of the most infamous mobs of Tokyo want a piece of the pie. As out-of-town yakuza flood the city overnight, the crime boss of the Akiba family, Tezuka (Joe Shishido), is released from prison after a five year sentence. He does not like the "change" he sees.

A man who became the third boss faces off against delinquent foreigners and villains vying to rule the underworld in order to develop the port city.

When a mysterious stranger muscles into two rival yakuza gangs, Tokyo's underworld explodes with violence.

After botching his latest assignment, a third-ranked Japanese hit man becomes the target of another assassin.

A gang lord hires Kamimura, a hit man, to take out a rival boss who's gotten greedy.

In the shady black markets and bombed-out hovels of post–World War II Tokyo, a tough band of prostitutes eke out a dog-eat-dog existence, maintaining tenuous friendships and a semblance of order in a world of chaos. But when a renegade ex-soldier stumbles into their midst, lusts and loyalties clash, with tragic results. With Gate of Flesh, visionary director Seijun Suzuki delivers a whirlwind of social critique and pulp drama, shot through with brilliant colors and raw emotions.

Plans to build a touristic hot spring on the island of Izu Oshima run afoul of the Kobe yakuza group, which intends to use the island as a relay base for drug smuggling.

Mineoka Group executive Okitsu Seiji is imprisoned for the 13th time for attacking rival Kuronuma. While in prison, he learns that the Kuronuma Group has retaliated by killing its leader and seizing territory. Upon his release, he embarks on a revenge campaign.

1969 Nikkatsu yakuza movie

Fourth installment of Nikkatsu's "Drifter" series, with Kobayashi Akira.

Emerging from a stint in prison, yakuza lieutenant Sumukawa discovers that his gang has disintegrated. An ambitious type, he quickly hooks up with another gang who promise him a prominent position if he helps them deal with a rival family. But bonds are made to be broken, and pledges of loyalty soon give way to competition, betrayal and — naturally — retaliation.

Businessmen arrange the early release from prison of Togawa, serving time for taking revenge on the truck driver whose carelessness confined Togawa's sister, Rie, to a wheelchair. They want Togawa to hijack an armored truck loaded with 120 million yen; their leverage is to promise him money for surgery for Rie. Togawa consents and plans the heist with three others. The plan is solid, but it doesn't go smoothly. Togawa must improvise, there are traitors somewhere, and double-crosses mount. Can Togawa escape with enough money to help his sister and ensure a passage out of Japan?

Tajima is a private detective in charge of his own company, Detective Bureau 2-3. When warring criminal gangs go overboard by robbing U.S. military munitions, Tajima steps in to stop what the cops can't.

Kuroda is a mob hitman who turns on his employers after being forced to execute his lover. Joining forces with his similarly wronged brothers, hot-headed Eiji and aspiring boxer Saburo, the trio escalate their mob retaliation to all-out turf war where no one will stop until one faction emerges victorious.

Hamada, Izumi, and Aki Jo, a rising singer from Toshiba Records, form a fresh trio who risk their youthful energy to bravely confront violence in this bright and cheerful coming-of-age action film.

1962 Japanese movie

Joe, Okita, and Serizawa hear of the armed robbery of a truck carrying one billion eighty million yen's worth of Mint paper. Knowing that the thugs will now need a counterfeiter to make the bogus bills, they each decide to cash in on it by selling them the idea that they need Sakamoto, the best counterfeiter in Japan. A seesaw game unfolds between the three men as each tries to outdo the other two in handing over Sakamoto for one million yen to Hijikata, the big boss, who intends to make counterfeit money with the stolen paper. A little belatedly, they realize it needs their combined forces to outwit Hijikata and they raid his place together. Outnumbered, however, they are thrown into a basement room and the gas is turned on. Certain death stares them in the face, but the three men are not ones to take things lying down....

A 1960 crime film

After getting out of prison, a young yakuza tries to find out who killed his girlfriend, attempts not to get drawn back into crime, and to find his missing sister.

Motozo Imamura, a.k.a. Gen, grew up in an upper-class family, but he never went to school and spent his days playing around. One day, he walked into an orgy of male-female sexual misconduct, and when he dropped off Roze, whom he had met there, he saw her sister, Kaoru, forgetting her impurity. One day, he went to an orgy where he met Roze, and he could not forget the purity of her older sister, Kaoru. A few days later, Gen went to the party again and was mistaken for the boss's brother.

The movie is about a man who started a brothel to make money out of his poor circumstances in the late Meiji period.

Eikichi Yamashiro, who is a former contender for the boxing title, works as a manager at a Club Champion owned by his fiancé Natsuko’s father. He lost a title match five years ago as he was besotted by Natsuko, but Eikichi actually cannot give up the dream of the championship. One day, he meets Shuntaro Fuma, who is a punk kid but a promising boxer, and realizes the dream that he himself could never fulfill. Then, they together start to train with the aim of the title. Mari Shiraki is an up-and-coming ballerina under the patronage of Eikichi as well. Eikichi forbids Shuntaro and Mari to be romantically involved with someone during their training, however, they start to go on a date.

A coming-of-age story about two newcomers to the world of professional baseball who compete for Rookie of the Year honors and love.

Chief editor Shiro Kamisaka (Hisaya Morishige) of Sankei Publishing Inc. is being tried for embezzlement and the staging of Chiyo Umehara's suicide. The victim is a woman who's said to have had sexual relations with the defendant. Four intertwined witnesses: a critic, Shiro's employee, a singer, and his wife, are all called to the stand. His destiny now lies in their hands.

Lending money, job hunting for civilians and babysitting. All these things are usually not listed on a policeman's job description. But for the officers of this local police station, it‘s part of their daily routine. One day, patrolman Yoshii (Hisaya Morishige) finds an abandoned baby and a six year old girl standing in front of the station. When he's declined by the welfare office, orphanage and local health clinic to take them in, he decides to take care of them himself.

In order to pay back Mrs. Kajiki for her good deed in the past, Hatsu moves from her village in Akita to Tokyo to start working as a maid for her family. She grows close to their youngest son Katsumi, experiencing things that will change her view on life.

At Shizumoto, a geisha shop not far from Ginza, a group of geisha are going about their day, putting up a modest resistance to the tragedies of life. The proprietress, Ikuyo, is a ridiculously good-natured woman who gives money to a poor but brilliant young man, Eisaku Yanoguchi, to attend college on the condition that he will take care of her in the future.