In this humorous paean to the joys of food, a pair of truck drivers happen onto a decrepit roadside shop selling ramen noodles. The widowed owner, Tampopo, begs them to help her turn her establishment into a paragon of the "art of noodle-soup making". Interspersed are satirical vignettes about the...
Ginshiro, threatened by poor repute and upcoming star Tachibana, forces his friend Yasu to marry Konatsu, Ginshiro's pregnant mistress; Yasu becomes a stuntman to make ends meet.
A seemingly run-of-the-mill corporate salaryman leads a double life as a vicious criminal by night. In a delicious scheme of payback, he seeks to dominate the corporation that employs him by day.
A hustler who gets in trouble with a gang boss in the port town of Sukago agrees to make good with the don by putting him in contact with a mysterious hitman — an assassin the hustler has no idea how to contact. Instead, he hires an actor to play the role, though the thespian has no idea what...
In the setting of the Hokuriku region, where the snow and cold winds rage, for the first time in true-life yakuza film history, director Kinji Fukasaku shows battles among yakuza who value land over tradition. Hiroki Matsukata stars as Noboru Kawada, a Hokuriku yakuza who will use any measure for...
The neglected common-law wife of a Japanese librarian is repeatedly harassed by a young man with a heart condition who seduces her with the prospect of a better life.
Subu makes pornographic films. He sees nothing wrong with it. They are an aid to a repressed society, and he uses the money to support his landlady, Haru, and her family. From time to time, Haru shares her bed with Subu, though she believes her dead husband, reincarnated as a carp, disapproves....
A white woman from America suddenly shows up at the house of a tea ceremony teacher who had promised to marry her when he was traveling overseas. Complications ensue.
When a gold ingot and a severed human head are discovered in a small provincial town, the rush to solve the curious case wavers between tragic and darkly humorous.
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.
Filled with guilt over his forbidden desires, a young man leaves home and his studies. He finds a new smaller place to stay, a low-paying but satisfying job and a girlfriend. Then his mother, unable to fight her forbidden desires, shows up.
Yuka is a “good-time girl” from Yokohama who is persuaded by her papa to sleep with a foreign business executive so that he can close an important deal. Nakahira presents a shrewdly observed portrait of a modern, sexually assertive woman—an unsettling character for a changing but still...
Saheji, a man-about-town, gets stuck at a high-class brothel when he can’t pay the bill. He makes the best of his situation by performing various tasks amidst the tumult of the end of the shogunate—but always by making sure to get a “commission” for his troubles.
The world of secret sex performers is shown through the lives of a husband and wife team. Their manager must contend with pesky customers and a determined detective.
In historical times, the Shogun family employs a group of Iga ninjas to take over the Akizuki clan's lands. The Akizuki hire the Fumi ninjas, a group of female warriors who enhance their fighting ability with sexual magic such as the "white snake spell". When the Akizuki emerge victorious,...
