Movies: Japanese noir

In this loose adaptation of "Hamlet," illegitimate son Kôichi Nishi climbs to a high position within a Japanese corporation and marries the crippled daughter of company vice president Iwabuchi. At the reception, the wedding cake is a replica of their...

In the midst of an attempt to take over his company, a powerhouse executive is hit with a huge ransom demand when his chauffeur's son is kidnapped by mistake....

Japanese police detective Saburo Fujioka is suspected of corruption, demoted, and sent to the city of Kojin. Kojin is the scene of fierce fighting between rival gangs. Fujioka is assigned to investigate the death of the wife of gangster Tetsuo Maruya...

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 invit...

A gangster gets released from prison and has to cope with the recent shifts of power between the gangs, while taking care of a thrill-seeking young woman, who got in bad company while gambling....

After yakuza boss Kurata dissolves his own criminal empire, a rival kingpin offers a position to Kurata's top operative, Tetsuya "Phoenix Tetsu" Hondo. When the fiercely loyal Tetsu declines, Otsuka taps unstoppable Tatsuzo the "Viper", a ruthless gu...

A promising post-graduate literature student is transformed into a psychotic killer following the suicide of his father and a sleazy affair by his mother with a younger man....

Gang of robbers quarrel about the loot, but when one of them gets killed, his younger brother seeks them out to ice them one by one....

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 ye...

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....

Suspense drama about a married salaryman whose affair with one of his co-workers is compromised when, returning from a clandestine meeting with his lover, he runs into a neighbor who is later accused of murder. Questioned by police about the neighbor...

Journalist Kuroki is investigating clandestine arms sales to Southeast Asia. He discovers that the point man in an arms trade was also involved in the cover-up of a murder on an American base during the Allied Occupation. The film rolls along as a su...

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

A sniper kills two prisoners in a police van, and the driver sets out to find the killer....

A juvenile delinquent gets out of the pen and immediately embarks on a rampage of untethered anger, most of it directed at the girlfriend of the journalist who helped send him up....

Set in post-war Japan, a group of five, four men and one woman, gathers in the basement of a butcher shop to dig up a cache of morphine buried during the war. A grimly humorous tale of twisted relationships as one by one each of the group is eliminat...

Udaka is a new, post-war city where corruption has already taken hold. A persistent district attorney wants to arrest and convict Katsumata, a laughing, self-confident thug. The D.A. gets an anonymous letter about the suicide five years' before of a ...

Before leaving prison, Oida uncomfortably enters into an agreement with his cell mate: in exchange for a half-share of 30,000,000 yen, he is to assassinate three strangers given to him on a list. However, upon meeting his first potential victim, Oida...

A former boxer gets involved with a club hostess trying to escape the clutches of her gangster employer....

When two brothers steal a valuable heirloom from an elderly Japanese woman, they unknowingly awaken her demigod son, Osaru, who does not take kindly to thieves....