Kyoji Murayama

Ghost Stories of Wanderer at Honjo

A samurai rescues a mischievous tanuki from hunters and sets it free. When the samurai's wastrel son hatches a plot to kill his father for his fortune, the magical tanuki is determined to protect its rescuer.

The Ghosts of Kagami Pond

A store manager named Kinbei becomes enraged when the owners of the store decide to hand it down to an adopted son instead of him. He hatches a plot to murder them all, but as it turns out he has done this sort of thing before. As bodies pile up in the nearby Kagami Pond, a ghostly vengeance is about to be unleashed.

Black Line

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.

Mysterious Clouds: Legend of Satomi's Heroic Deed

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.

Fight to the Death in a Blizzard

1959 film directed by Teruo Ishii for Shintoho.

Female Thief and the Bomb

Emperor Meiji and the Great Russo-Japanese War

Meiji Tenno portrays the buildup to the Russo-Japan War. In addition to showing the political events that led to war, it also shows the era from the story of a farm family in rural Japan that sends their son off to war. As such, it could be considered an anti-war movie, showing how, while war is devised by governments, the people do not really understand what war is, and its combatants often do not know what they are fighting for.

The Military Policeman and the Dismembered Beauty

The year is 1937, and it has been six months since the Sendai Infantry left for Manchuria. The rotted corpse of a young woman is found at the bottom of a well, but her face and limbs are gone. The military police begin an investigation and search fervently for the person responsible, but they can't even determine the victim's identity, much less find any clues. However, the incident is made public when newspapers give wide coverage to the story, so Staff Sergeant Kosaka is dispatched from Tokyo to solve the case. Eventually, General Tsunekichi is taken into custody by local infantrymen because of the testimony of another unit, but the spirit of the dead woman appears before Staff Sergeant Kosaka, who continues to investigate on his own...