William Ross
2021
仁義の墓場
Kinji Fukasaku
Tetsuya Watari, Tatsuo Umemiya
A look at the life of renegade yakuza, Rikio Ishikawa, particularly the years from 1946 to 1950 when his violent antics get him in trouble with his own clan, Kawada, and then with the clan of his protector, Kozaburo Imai. In these years, he can rely on Chieko, a young Tokyo courtesan who gives him shelter. He's banished to Osaka, where he picks up a drug habit. Through it all, he keeps his friends and enemies off balance with unpredictable behavior - and he seems indestructible.
Graveyard of Honor
Too Late the Hero
Robert Aldrich
Michael Caine, Cliff Robertson
A WWII film set on a Pacific island. Japanese and allied forces occupy different parts of the island. When a group of British soldiers are sent on a mission behind enemy lines, things don't go exactly to plan. This film differs in that some of the 'heroes' are very reluctant, but they come good when they are pursued by the Japanese who are determined to prevent them returning to base.
Too Late the Hero
太平洋戦争 謎の戦艦陸奥
Kiyoshi Komori
Shigeru Amachi, Bunta Sugawara
During the naval battle of Midway in WWII, the battleship Mutsu was in its home port in Japan. The ship's officers and crew were frustrated at not being able to take part in the fighting. They had been held back by orders from the Naval Ministry, but there was also a plot by saboteurs, who were trying to prevent the sailing of the Mutsu. Director Komori developed a suspenseful plot by including a fictional adaptation of the Russian spy Richard Sorge, who had been captured in Japan and subsequently executed. Komori brings a fictional Russian spy to the screen by portraying him as a military attaché at the German embassy. As Germany was an ally of Japan in WWII, a secret agent being a mole in the German embassy is a perfect cover. The interaction of the saboteurs and the officers and crew of the Mutsu make an exciting story.
Enigmatic Explosion of the Battleship Mutsu
Flight from Ashiya
Michael Anderson
Yul Brynner, Richard Widmark
Featuring an all-star cast and on-location shooting in Japan, where the story is set, three US Air Force rescue pilots must overcome their personal problems and differences to embark upon a dangerous mission to save raft-bound Japanese survivors from a murderous storm-tossed sea. As they head for their location, the film flashes back to chronicle the pasts of each pilot to make clear their mixed feelings about their upcoming assignment.
Flight from Ashiya
蟻の街のマリア
Heinosuke Gosho
Kakuko Chino, Kôji Nanbara
Alongside Tokyo's Sumida River is a ragpickers' settlement known as Ant Village. One night, a young Catholic girl, Satoko Kitahara, who has been baptized under the name of Maria, comes to offer her services. However, Ant Village is not just an ordinary vagrants' community but a fine autonomous organization, and as the municipal authorities have long been demanding that the people of Ant Village leave the site, Satoko is utilized to publicize the Village and win public sympathy. While being utilized in this manner, Satoko is nevertheless glad to be able to help the people of Ant Village, especially the children, and when the summer vacation comes she decides to take the children on an excursion to Hakone. To raise funds for this purpose she becomes a rag-picker herself.
Maria of the Ant Village
惑星大戦争
Jun Fukuda
Kensaku Morita, Yuko Asano
The year is 1988, and in the midst of recovering from a near-miss with a large comet, Earth finds that there are much worse matters at hand: the sudden arrival of a strange army of aliens and their fleet of unstoppable warships.
The War in Space
ピンクレディーの活動大写真
Tsugunobu Kotani
Keiko Masuda, Mie
An awkward attempt to build a movie around Pink Lady, the name given to a Japanese pop music duo consisting of the very pretty short-haired Mie and the long-haired Kei. Their popularity in Japan lasted from 1976 to 1979 before their attempt to break into the American market with the ill-fated TV show, "Pink Lady and Jeff" (1980), which wound up setting back the cause of J-pop in America by nearly 30 years. Pink Lady they gained a certain amount of attention from the sexy disco-inspired outfits they wore in concert, generally featuring shiny scanty tops, tight hot pants and gold or silver boots, seen to good advantage in some segments of the movie. This musical features the Pink Ladies as circus performers who show kindness toward a captured "monster," a sad, furry being (played by a man in a bulky, over-sized pink acrylic costume) who suffers acts of unusual cruelty by the keeper and ringmaster before the girls escape with the creature in a circus trailer.
Pink Lady's Motion Picture
