Japan's Violent Gangs: The Boss and the Killers

City with Beasts

Fierce struggle between brothers and sisters in a lawless land where violence is the norm.

1958

Two Lives, Two Yakuza

An early ninkyo film from before the genre had truly established its form. Koji Tsuruta plays an honourable outlaw who saves an older man from an ambu

1964

Postman Blues

Sawaki is a postman who's not quite thrilled about his boring way of life. But his life is about to change when he delivers mail to his old schoolmate

1997

Blues Harp

Ambitious Yakuza Kenji befriends harmonica-playing bartender Chuji, who moonlights as a part-time drug-dealer for the opposing gang. Their friendship

1998

Rainy Dog

A Japanese assassin stranded in Taiwan must take work from a local crime boss to make ends meet when suddenly a woman from his past delivers a son to

1997

Monday

A simple funeral turns a man's world Topsy turvy. He wakes up in a posh hotel room, totally clueless about how he got there. Slowly, he recalls what h

2000

Shinjuku Triad Society

Tatsuhito, a cop, pursues Chinese warlord Wang through the underworld of Shinjuku and over to Taiwan.

1995

The Man in White

After his father figure - a yakuza boss, is murdered, Azusa Moribe goes on a killing spree to exact revenge.

2003

Silver

The story in "Silver" is about a female wrestler who is really an undercover agent. Disguised as a wrestling warrior, heroine Jun Shirogane (Atsuko Sa

1999

Tale of the Last Japanese Yakuza

Yakuza drama with Meiko Kaji directed by Masahiro Makino

1969

Young Lord Yakuza

Young Lord Taihei goes to Edo to find the lost family treasure, a plover incense burner, under the disguise of a ronin.

1961

Bowery Blitzkrieg

The East Side Kids discover that one of their own, Danny, is torn between staying in school and becoming a boxer, and is getting mixed up with gangste

1941

A Serious Man

It is 1967, and Larry Gopnik, a physics professor at a quiet Midwestern university, has just been informed by his wife Judith that she is leaving him.

2009

Gang vs. Gang

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 form

1962

Gozu

Minami mistakenly kills a gangster associate of his named Brother. Almost as soon as the murder takes place, the body of the deceased man is gone, pro

2003

Ivan the Terrible, Part I

Set during the early part of his reign, Ivan faces betrayal from the aristocracy and even his closest friends as he seeks to unite the Russian people.

1944

Ichi the Killer

As sadomasochistic yakuza enforcer Kakihara searches for his missing boss he comes across Ichi, a repressed and psychotic killer who may be able to in

2001

Tattoo

Marc Schrader, a rookie cop caught red-handed with drugs in a police raid of an illegal rave, joins a homicide investigation conducted by Chief Inspec

2002

Dead or Alive

Ryūichi and his small gang of Triad vie for control of the Japanese underworld in a crime-ridden Shinjuku quarter while Detective Jojima tries to brin

1999

Snake Eyes

All bets are off when shady homicide cop Rick Santoro witnesses a murder during a boxing match. Determined to solve the crime, he quickly learns that

1998