"Actor: Tamio Kawaji"

• Battles Without Honor and Humanity | Blu Ray | (06/09/2021) from £26.79   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Kinji Fukasaku (Battle Royale) gave the world Japan's answer to The Godfather with this violent yakuza saga, influencing filmmakers from Quentin Tarantino (Kill Bill, Reservoir Dogs) to Takashi Miike (Graveyard of Honor, Audition). Made within just two years, the five-film series brought a new kind of realism and ferocity to the crime genre in Japan, revitalising the industry and leading to unprecedented commercial and critical success.Literally exploding on screen with a mushroom cloud, and ending with Hiroshima's A-bomb Dome, the epic story of Battles Without Honour and Humanity follows over 100 characters through twenty years of gang wars, alliances, betrayals, and assassinations, in an exciting exploration of criminal power and politics in Japan. In the opening episode, ex-soldier Shôzô Hirono escapes from the post-war black markets to become a key member of the Yamamori gang, but soon finds himself disillusioned by the selfish duplicity of his bosses. Hiroshima Death Match focuses on a demobilised kamikaze pilot drifting through the early 1950s, whose suicidal impulses find good use as a mob assassin. Proxy War and Police Tactics form a labyrinthine, two-part story of ambition and betrayal set against Japan's rapid economic growth of the 1960s, with Shôzô caught between warring factions. Final Episode concludes the series in the 1970s as the former Yamamori gang transforms itself into an economic conglomerate called the Tensei Group, in a bid for mainstream respectability.Fukasaku and his team broke with the longstanding studio tradition of casting marquee idols as honourable, kimono-clad heroes, defending their gang bosses against unscrupulous villains, and instead adapted true accounts torn from the headlines, shot in a documentary-like style, and with few clear-cut heroes or villains. The vibrancy and dynamism of the filmmaking, plus its shocking violence, Shakespearean plotlines, and wide tapestry of characters, launched a revolutionary new genre, establishing the series as one of the great masterpieces of world crime cinema.Special Features:High Definition Blu-ray™ (1080p) presentation of all five original filmsOriginal Mono audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-rays)Optional English subtitles for all five filmsReversible sleeves featuring newly commissioned artwork by Reinhard KleistDisc 1: Battles Without Honor and HumanityAudio commentary by critic and author Stuart Galbraith IVYakuza Graveyard an interview with Takashi Miike about Kinji Fukasaku and the yakuza film genreOriginal trailers for all five filmsDisc 2: Hiroshima Death MatchMan of Action an interview with series fight choreographer Ryūzō UenoOriginal TrailerDisc 3: Proxy WarSecrets of the Piranha Army a documentary about the troupe of supporting actors who appeared throughout the series, featuring interviews with original Piranha members Masaru Shiga and Takashi Noguchi, plus second-generation Piranha, Takashi Nishina and Akira MurotaTales of a Bit Player an interview with supporting actor and stuntman Seizô FukumotoOriginal TrailerDisc 4: Police TacticsRemembering Kinji a featurette about director Kinji Fukasaku and his work, featuring interviews with Kenta Fukasaku and film critic and Fukasaku biographer Sadao YamaneFukasaku Family an interview with Proxy War and Police Tactics assistant director Tôru Dobashi Original TrailerDisc 5: Final EpisodeLast Days of the Boss an interview with Final Episode screenwriter Kôji Takada Original poster gallery for the seriesOriginal Trailer

• Detective Bureau 2-3 Go To Hell Bastards! | Blu Ray | (09/07/2018) from £17.25   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Starring original Diamond Guy, Jo Shishido, Seijun Suzuki's Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards! is a hard hitting, rapid-fire yakuza film that redefined the Japanese crime drama. Detective Tajima (Shishido) is tasked with tracking down a consignment of stolen firearms, as the investigation progresses things take an anarchic, blood-drenched grudge match. Rapidly paced, darkly funny, and extremely stylish, Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards! is unlike anything seen before and rightly deserves its cult status. Suzuki's send up of post-war greed would go on to cement his domestic and international status as one of the leading directors to come out of Japan. SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS: High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Newly translated optional English subtitles Interview with historian and Japanese cinema expert Tony Rayns Gallery of original production stills Theatrical trailer Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Matthew Griffin

• Cruel Gun Story | Blu Ray | (23/06/2025) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Togawa (Joe Shishido, Branded to Kill) is released from prison early by his underworld bosses. They make him execute a daring heist on an armoured vehicle, knowing he has no choice but to do it, as he needs the money for his sister's surgery. With multiple partners and facets to the operation, much is at risk and all is never as it seems. A riff on Stanley Kubrick's The Killing from Nikkatsu's ˜Action' line, Takumi Furukawa directs this yakuza tale with every bit of the deftness found in classic American noir of the 1950s, featuring hard-boiled characters and enough twists to make your fedora spin. SPECIAL FEATURES High-Definition digital transfer of Cruel Gun Story, presented on Blu-ray for the first time in the world Original uncompressed mono PCM audio Audio commentary by author and filmmaker Jasper Sharp (2024) New introduction by critic and programmer Tony Rayns (2024, 21 mins) Visual essay by Japanese cinema expert Hayley Scanlon on Nikkatsu's noir films of the 1960s (2024, 12 mins) Archival interview with actor Joe Shishido (2006, 9 mins) Optional English subtitles

• Gozu | DVD | (25/10/2004) from £8.99   |  Saving you £6.00 (66.74%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Minami a member of the Azamawari crew highly respects his Aniki (brother) Ozaki who has saved his life in the past. However lately Ozaki's eccentricities have been making everyone wonder about his sanity... A typically skewed take on the Japanese Yakuza lifestyle from maverick director Takashi Miike.

• The Flowers And the Angry Waves | DVD | (26/03/2007) from £19.75   |  Saving you £0.24 (1.22%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In early 20-century industrial Japan Yakuza member Kikuju flees to Tokyo with his master's proposed bride leaving more than a few corpses in his wake. Settling down to work with some corrupt building contractors Kikuju is unaware that an assassin from his old gang is in town looking for him... Seijun Suzuki's blistering run of off-the-wall subverted genre movies continued with this scathing look at the stand-off between Japanese big business and no less corrupt trade unions while throwing in some stunning cinematography characteristic camera moves and of course a tattoed bandit geisha femme fatale!

• Yakuza Papers | DVD | (23/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  This nihilistic chronicle of the gang-wars that ravaged Hiroshima in post-war Japan centres on the character Sugawara. Based on the prison diary of a yakuza involved in the wars (Kozo Mino) Sugawara is distinguished through extreme callous brutality. The villainous godfather Yamamoru initiates him into his ruthless gang which inevitably wins the power struggle through titanic gruesome battles. Once more with 'The Yakuza Papers' director Kinji Fukasaku elevates brutality and abrup

• Yakuza Papers / Yakuza Graveyard / Street Mobster | DVD | (07/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Yakuza Papers: This nihilistic chronicle of the gang-wars that ravaged Hiroshima in post-war Japan centres on the character Sugawara. Based on the prison diary of a yakuza involved in the wars (Kozo Mino) Sugawara is distinguihed through extreme callous brutality. The villainous godfather Yamamoru initiates him into his ruthless gang which inevitably wins the power struggle through titanic gruesome battles. Once more with 'The Yakuza Papers' director Kinji Fukasaku elevate

• Tokyo Drifter | DVD | (25/02/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In Tokyo Drifter director Seijun Suzuki transforms the yakuza genre into a pop-art James Bond cartoon as directed by Jean-Luc Godard. The near-incomprehensible plot is negligible: hitman "Phoenix" Tetsu (Tetsuya Watari), a cool killer in dark shades who whistles his own theme song, discovers his own mob has betrayed his code of ethics and hits the road like a questing warrior, with not one but two mobs hot on his trail. In a world of shifting loyalties Tetsu is the last honourable man, a character who might have stepped out of a Jean-Pierre Melville film and into the delirious, colour-soaked landscape of this Vincent Minnelli musical-turned-gangster war zone. The twisting narrative takes Tetsu from deliriously gaudy nightclubs, where killers hide behind every pillar, to the beautiful snowy plains of northern Japan and back again, leaving a trail of corpses in his wake. Suzuki opens the widescreen production in stark, high-contrast black and white with isolated eruptions of colour which finally explode in a screen glowing with oversaturated hues, like a comic book come to life. His extreme stylisation, jarring narrative leaps and wild plot devices combine to create pulp fiction on acid, equal parts gangster parody and post-modern deconstruction. Mere description cannot capture the visceral effect of Suzuki's surreal cinematic fireworks. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com