"Actor: Shima Iwashita"

• Harakiri (Dual Format Blu-ray & DVD) | Blu Ray | (26/09/2011) from £13.35   |  Saving you £6.64 (49.74%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Of all Masaki Kobayashi's attacks on the cruelty and inhumanity perpetrated by authoritarian power (including The Human Condition and Samurai Rebellion) perhaps none are more brilliant than his visceral mesmerising Harakiri [aka Seppuku]. In a magnificent performance Tatsuya Nakadai (Yojimbo The Face of Another Ran) stars as Hanshiro Tsugumo a masterless down-and-out samurai who enters the manor of Lord Iyi requesting to commit ritual suicide on his property. Suspected of simply fishing for charity Hanshiro is told the gruesome tale of the last samurai who made the same request - but Hanshiro will not be moved... With its intricate structure and pressure-cooker atmosphere Kobayashi's first jidai-geki period drama is a full-scale demolition job of samurai ideals and feudal hypocrisy filmed with artistry and surgical precision and scored by celebrated composer Toru Takemitsu. Adapted from the same source novel in 2011 by notorious auteur Takashi Miike the original - winner of the 1963 Special Jury Prize at Cannes - still stands as a startling moment in Japanese cinema.

• Yakuza Wives | Blu Ray | (21/04/2025) from £16.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Hideo Gosha (Samurai Wolf 1 & 2, Violent Streets) breathes new life into the yakuza genre in this epic tale of mob rivalry based on a serialized account of the lives of real-life wives of Japanese gangsters, released on home video by 88 Films for the very first time outside of Japan. Shima Iwashita puts in a commanding performance as Tamaki, who takes over the reins of the Domoto clan while her husband is doing time in jail. Family relations are strained past breaking point when her younger sister Makoto embarks on a relationship with a member of a rival gang

• An Autumn Afternoon | Blu Ray | (23/05/2011) from £8.99   |  Saving you £11.00 (122.36%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Yasujiro Ozu's captivating final film An Autumn Afternoon displays the master director's skills at their consummate best. Ozu regular Chishu Ryu (Tokyo Story) plays Shuhei Hirayama a concerned father eager to find a husband for his faithful daughter Michiko (Shima Iwashita) before she sees out her days caring for him. A cast of colourful characters weave seamlessly in and out of the story highlighting themes of loneliness and fear for the future with deep poignancy and ironic humour. Ozu's rarely-seen post-war film A Hen in the Wind (1948) is also included here. In a Japan recently devastated by WWII a devoted but near destitute mother waits for her husband's demobilisation. When her son falls seriously ill she turns to prostitution to pay his hospital bills.

• Silence (AKA Chinmoku) (Masters of Cinema) | DVD | (24/09/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Adapted from the renowned novel by Shusaku Endo Masahiro Shinoda's 1971 film Silence (Chinmoku co-written with Endo) explores the violent cultural conflict amid the arrival of Jesuit missionaries in seventeenth-century Japan. Shinoda's excellent direction - coupled with a pensive score by the legendary Toru Takemitsu - gives cinematic expression to inner spiritual paradox and imbues with religious mystery a landscape that seems already sentient with wind rain and light. Two Port

• Assassination | DVD | (23/01/2006) from £27.37   |  Saving you £-7.38 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Assassination (or Ansatsu) marked Masahiro Shinoda's first attempt at a period film and is widely considered to be his finest achievement. Previously gaining fame and status alongside Nagisa Oshima and Kiju Yoshida challenging established Japanese cinema with tales of reckless youth The Dry Lake (1960) and the seminal yakuza drama Pale Flower (1964) Shinoda graduated from Shochiku where like Shohei Imamura his grounding wa

• Red Lion | DVD | (18/06/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  With the winds of change sweeping through Japan overthrowing three centuries of Shogunate rule Gonzo (Toshiro Mifune) a peasant enlists in the Imperial Restoration Force which promises to reform the oppression of the past. Gonzo persuades his commander to lend him his Red Lion Mane a symbol of authority and rides into his old home town where he receives a hero's welcome. This tale both touching and hilarious traces the difficulties of a simple boastful humane man caught in the web of political intrigue. Casting a cold eye on politicians of all hues at its climax it achieves true tragic intensity.

• Gonza The Spearman | DVD | (30/08/2004) from £7.99   |  Saving you £12.00 (150.19%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A period drama adapted from the play by Monzaemon Chikamatsu (an 18th century playwright regarded as the Shakespeare of Japanese literature) telling of the tragic fate of handsome ladies man Gonza a master spearman in the Tokugawa Shogunate period. Forced to fight for his life when his repuation leads to false accusations of an affair with the daimyo's (local warlord) wife Gonza vows to clear his name. However in the process of proving his innocence love begins to take hold of th

• Ozu - Vol 4 | DVD | (29/01/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Late Autumn (aka: Akibiyori): Ayako Miwa (Yoko Tsukasa) gives up thoughts of marriage in order to care for her widowed mother Akiko (Setsuko Hara). However Akiko wishes her daughter to marry even though she will be left alone into old age and when the well-meaning relatives of her deceased husband step into the fray suitors are simultaneously sought for both generations of the Miwa family! An Autumn Afternoon (aka: Sanma No Aji): Widower Shuhei Hirayama (Chishu Ryu) gradually comes to realize that his 24 year-old daughter should not be obliged to look after him for the rest of his life and so prepares to arrange a marriage for her.