Hideyo Amamoto
1926 - 2003
用心棒
Akira Kurosawa
Toshirō Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai
A nameless ronin, or samurai with no master, enters a small village in feudal Japan where two rival businessmen are struggling for control of the local gambling trade. Taking the name Sanjuro Kuwabatake, the ronin convinces both silk merchant Tazaemon and sake merchant Tokuemon to hire him as a personal bodyguard, then artfully sets in motion a full-scale gang war between the two ambitious and unscrupulous men.
Yojimbo
Kwaidan
Masaki Kobayashi
Michiyo Aratama, Misako Watanabe
Taking its title from an archaic Japanese word meaning "ghost story," this anthology adapts four folk tales. A penniless samurai marries for money with tragic results. A man stranded in a blizzard is saved by Yuki the Snow Maiden, but his rescue comes at a cost. Blind musician Hoichi is forced to perform for an audience of ghosts. An author relates the story of a samurai who sees another warrior's reflection in his teacup.
Kwaidan
Japan's Longest Day
Kihachi Okamoto
Seiji Miyaguchi, Rokkō Toura
Following the detonation of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese military and the government clash over the demand from the Allies for unconditional surrender. Minister of the Army Anami leads the military officers who propose to fight on, even to the death of every Japanese citizen. Emperor Hirohito, however, joins with his ministers in asking the unthinkable, the peaceful surrender of Japan. When the military plots a coup to overthrow the Emperor's civilian government, Anami must face the choice between his desires and loyalty to his Emperor.
Japan's Longest Day
47 Ronin
Hiroshi Inagaki
Toshirō Mifune, Takashi Shimura
The story tells of a group of samurai who were left leaderless (becoming ronin) after their daimyo (feudal lord) was forced to commit seppuku (ritual suicide) for assaulting a court official named Kira Yoshinaka, whose title was Kōzuke no suke. The ronin avenged their master's honor after patiently waiting and planning for over a year to kill Kira. In turn, the ronin were themselves forced to commit seppuku for committing the crime of murder.
47 Ronin
Fort Graveyard
Kihachi Okamoto
Toshirō Mifune, Makoto Satō
Charged with insubordination for punching a superior, Sergeant Kosugi is shipped to China in the last desperate days of the Second World War. His commander, Captain Sakuma, is vicious and dictatorial. Sakuma places Kosugi in charge of training for combat what once was the military band. Kosugi must somehow prepare his inept soldiers for the rigors of combat.
Fort Graveyard
Yamikin no teiou Gin to Kin 2
Shun Nakahara
Hideyo Amamoto, Mika Kaneko
Tetsuo was suddenly told goodbye by Ginji. As for the farewell, only one of the tables was a real wad of bills and a full trunk. And, in that, there is a letter saying "Replace all this with the real thing!" Tetsuo is at a loss and one day meets Emi who works at the gallery. She endures the gallery owner of an amorous artist and aspires to be a painter. Tetsuo learns from her that a painting of Cezanne with a market value of 600 million yen has been sold to a Japanese person, and contacts the owner, Domon, the president of Teijin Bank. Inspire the desires of collection enthusiasts and imitation art dealers, and come up with a large-scale money game that opens up ambitions!
Black Market Emperor: Silver and Gold 2
Samurai Assassin
Kihachi Okamoto
Toshirō Mifune, Keiju Kobayashi
Japan, 1860. The men of the Mito clan, victims of the Ansei purge, anxiously prowl around the Sakurada Gate of Edo Castle with the intention of assassinating Naosuke Ii of Hikone, tairō of the Tokugawa shogunate and responsible for their misfortune.
Samurai Assassin
Kill!
Kihachi Okamoto
Tatsuya Nakadai, Etsushi Takahashi
A pair of down-on-their-luck swordsmen arrive in a dusty, windblown town, where they become involved in a local clan dispute. One, previously a farmer, longs to become a noble samurai. The other, a former samurai haunted by his past, prefers living anonymously with gangsters. But when both men discover the wrongdoings of the nefarious clan leader, they side with a band of rebels who are under siege at a remote mountain cabin.
Kill!
Cash Calls Hell
Hideo Gosha
Tatsuya Nakadai, Hisashi Igawa
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 has second thoughts. Yet, even as he tries to back out, the body count starts climbing. Oida must now try to alert the people on his list of their impending danger, and find out why they are being targeted in the first place.
Cash Calls Hell
The Human Bullet
Kihachi Okamoto
Minori Terada, Naoko Ôtani
A soldier has been in the Japanese military for the entirety of WWII, and in that time, his dedication to the army has never faltered. However, as the war draws to a close, his commanding officers become increasingly desperate and push their men to ever more absurd extremes. The ridiculousness of the orders from above peak when the hero of the story is assigned to drive a one-man submarine straight into the hull of an enemy battleship.
The Human Bullet
