Movies: Kyōichi Satō

Taking its title from an archaic Japanese word meaning "ghost story," this anthology adapts four folk tales. A penniless samurai marries for money with tragic results. A man stranded in a blizzard is saved by Yuki the Snow Maiden, but his rescue come...

After being used and betrayed by the detective she had fallen in love with, young Matsu is sent to a female prison full of sadistic guards and disobedient prisoners....

Set in the icy wilderness of Hokkaido during the early days of the Meiji era, where the brutal warden of Kabato Prison terrorizes convicts sentenced to forced labor to build the roads needed to open up the territory....

In this first film of the Lone Wolf and Cub series, adapted from the manga by Kazuo Koike, we are told the story of the Lone Wolf and Cub's origin. Ogami Itto, the official Shogunate executioner, has been framed for disloyalty to the Shogunate by the...

Zatoichi is a blind massage therapist and swordsman who finds out that something troubling is taking place on the outskirts of town. After discovering who the guilty parties are -- an accomplished Chinese martial artist named Wang Kang and his youthf...

In the sixth and final film of the Lone Wolf and Cub series, the final conflict between Ogami Itto and the Yagyu clan is carried out....

Legendary swordplay filmmaker Hideo Gosha's Sword of the Beast chronicles the flight of the low-level swordsman Gennosuke, who kills one of his ministers as part of a reform plot. His former comrades then turn on him, and this betrayal so shakes his ...

Shiba, a wandering ronin, encounters a band of peasants who have kidnapped the daughter of their dictatorial magistrate, in hopes of coercing from him a reduction in taxes. Shiba takes up their fight, joined by two renegades from the magistrate's gua...

In the fifth film of the Lone Wolf and Cub series, Ogami Itto is challenged by five warriors, each has one fifth of Ogami's assassin fee and one fifth of the information he needs to complete his assassination....

The quiet life of a mother and her young son living on a farm in Hokkaido is changed by the arrival of a man who ignites flames of romance in the heart of the mother and shows her boy the importance of grit and kindness, but then he leaves with the a...

A Ronin with a death wish reluctantly joins the Clan of the Forgotten Eight, a nasty crew of ronin who are wrapped up in a clan war over local prostitution....

A guilt-haunted samurai warrior attempts to stop a massacre taking place....

The upstart Godai family conglomerate plans to strengthen ties with the hardliners in the Kwantung Army as they plan military expansion into Manchuria....

A private detective is hired to find a missing man by his wife. While his search is unsuccessful, the detective's own life begins to resemble the man for whom he is searching....

A group of prisoners attempts to break the Abashiri prison. This film can be considered a sequel to the Abashiri Bangaichi series, written and directed by Ishii Teruo. The friendship between two men on death row, a fleeting love affair with a travel...

Bunta Sugawara is Miyoshi, a low-level assassin of the Yamamori gang who is sent to jail after a bungled hit. While in stir, family member Aoki attempts to seize power from the boss, and Miyoshi finds himself stuck between the two factions with no ho...

Kumokiri Nizaemon, a former samurai warrior, has abandoned his class to become the leader of a gang of thieves. He leads his outlaws in an attempt to rob the castle of his former clan....

Kiba Okaminosuke finds himself entangled with a group of prisoners being transported to their executions, one of whom oddly looks exactly like his dead father. There are crooked gold miners, a beautiful girl who is unfortunately a complete lunatic an...

A ronin desperately seeks a way out of financial straits; he allies with the Tosa clan under the ruthless leader Takechi, who quickly takes advantage....

With a Kansai syndicate setting their sights on Tokyo, a former yakuza boss gets dragged back into a world of violence....