Miho Jo

Five years after the end of the Second World War, Reikichi, a repatriated veteran, translates love letters for Japanese women to American GIs, while searching for his lost love, Michiko.

War drama about army nurses.

A sensual love-story between two lesbian nuns.

After the war, Noboru Ando, a former kamikaze soldier, returns to a devastated Tokyo. Enraged by the violence prevalent in society, he immerses himself in the yakuza world, believing that "violence must be met with violence." Gaining notoriety for his natural bravery and fighting skills, he becomes known as the "intellectual yakuza" and creates the Ando-gumi, a gang that controls the Shibuya district. Ando's first series of yakuza films is based on his autobiography. He labored at his first studio, Shochiku, to only minor success before leaving and going onto true stardom at Toei Studios. These films were awfully early in Ando’s career - a novice actor and former yakuza given immense notoriety by his newspaper-serialized bio upon his release from prison. 1 of 5 films.

In the first year of Chōroku, Satomi Yoshimi, lord of Takita Castle in Awa, faces defeat by neighboring lord Anzai Kagesuren. As the castle nears collapse, Anzai demands a seed from Yoshimi’s lineage, specifically from his wife, Fushihime. Outraged but facing annihilation, Yoshimi gives Fushihime a string of eight ancestral beads and urges her to escape to loyal retainer Inuda Kobungo. Instead, she goes alone to Anzai, followed by her dog, Hachibo. In a twist, Hachibo attacks and kills Anzai, allowing Fushihime to escape. She later reveals that the beads protected her and predicts that eight warriors bearing these beads will someday defend the Satomi family before passing away. Yoshimi finds one of the beads in Inuzuka Nobuno’s armor and convinces her to serve him. Meanwhile, Baka Daiki, plotting to overthrow Satomi, imprisons Inukawa Shosuke, who tries to intervene, under the watch of vassal Aminen Saomojiro.

Freelance reporter “Scoop” Machida is hot on the trail of a prostitution ring called the Black Line, when he is framed for the murder of a young woman. Forced to clear his own name, the handsome journalist sinks deeper into the Black Line’s rotten swamp of drugs, prostitution, and murder and finds unexpected help in Maya, a steamy female gambler familiar with the neon-lit streets, shadowy alleyways, and seedy nightclubs he must navigate. The closest film in the Line series to classic American film noir, Ishii’s Black Line is a pulpy assortment of crime film conventions including the starkly expressionistic black and white cinematography by Jûgyô Yoshida, a jazzy music score by Michiaki Watanabe, and a sleazy screenplay by Ishii and Ichirô Miyagawa.