Image Entertainment (Firm)
1) Godzilla
Series
Language
日本語
Description
It's also a remarkably humane and melancholy drama made in Japan at a time when the country was still reeling from nuclear attack and H-bomb testing. Its rampaging radioactive beast, the poignant embodiment of an entire populations fears, became a beloved international icon of destruction, spawning more than twenty sequels and spinoffs. Here, we present the original, 1954 Japanese version, along with Godzilla: King of the Monsters!, the 1956 American...
Series
Criterion collection volume 319
Language
日本語
Description
A young executive hunts down his father's killer. A tale about corruption in the boardrooms of postwar corporate Japan as seen through the rising executive eyes.
6) Tokyo story
Series
Language
日本語
Description
A self-centered couple is inconvenienced by a parental visit. When the mother falls ill, her children hasten to be with her.
Series
Language
日本語
Description
Zatoichi, the blind masseur and undefeatable swordsman, is caught in turf war between rival gangs, becomes a wanted man when he learns of a lord's dangerous secret, returns home to discover his teacher has been working for kidnappers, and seeks vengeance on a powerful ronin, dueling with his most skilled samurai.
Series
Criterion collection volume 386
Language
日本語
Description
When an idealistic governor disobeys the reigning feudal lord, he is cast into exile, his wife and children left to fend for themselves and eventually wrenched apart by vicious slave drivers.
Series
Criterion collection volume 645
Language
日本語
Appears on list
Formats
Description
This haunting, kabuki-inflected version of a Japanese folk legend is set in a remote mountain village, where food is scarce and tradition dictates that citizens who have reached their seventieth year must be carried to the summit of Mount Narayama and left there to die. The sacrificial elder at the center of the tale is Orin, a dignified and dutiful woman who spends her dwindling days securing the happiness of her loyal widowed son with a respectable...
Series
Zatōichi volume 1
Language
日本語
Description
This the movie that introduced the legend of Zatoichi, ushering in a new era of the Japanese samurai film. Practicing his trade as a masseur in a small province, Zatoichi finds himself caught in a turf war between rival yakuza gangs. Aware of Zatoichi's reputation as an undefeatable swordsman, yakuza leader Sukejoro tries to hire him--unsuccessfully--as a mercenary. But it's too late. The other gang leader, Shigezo, hires a warrior with an equally...
Series
Zatōichi volume 3
Language
日本語
Description
With more killer swordsmanship, romance and action-packed drama, the Blind Swordsman is back in the first color episode of the Zatoichi series. Masseur Ichi returns to his home village to discover that his former teacher has been hiring out his swordsmanship skills to a ruthless gang of kidnappers. Meanwhile, the mentor's sister offers herself in marriage to Zatoichi, who must decline because of the danger it would bring to any woman Ichi was known...
Series
Zatōichi volume 2
Language
日本語
Description
When Zatoichi discovers the lord who has hired him suffers from a madness that, if made public, would bring ruin to his empire and the livelihood of the samurai warriors he employs, the blind masseur becomes a wanted man for the secret he now possesses. Attacked at every turn by the crazed lord's samurais and hired yakuza thugs, Zatoichi manages to escape relatively unscathed. But in a final duel, masseur Ichi must face his old foe, the infamous one-armed...
Language
日本語
Description
Set in 18th century Japan, the film tells the story of a young lord, Asano, who travels to the capital city of Edo to assume state duties. After refusing to bribe the Grand Master of Ceremonies for teaching him official etiquette, he is goaded into drawing his sword in the Shogun's palace, a capital offense for which he is sentenced to commit harakiri suicide. This leaves the warriors of Ako as rōnin, masterless samurai, with nowhere to go and no...
Series
Zatōichi volume 4
Language
日本語
Description
Zatoichi seeks bloody vengeance on a ruthless gang and a powerful ronin. Arriving in the village of Shimonita, Ichi learns that a local gang has placed a bounty on his head. A powerful hired ronin attacks Ichi and nearly claims his life, but when a defenseless woman is slain by the assassin, Ichi can no longer control his rage. After laying waste to the entire gang, Ichi's final duel becomes a deadly meeting of the samurai's superior swordsmanship...