Movies: Tomisaburō Wakayama

The head clerk of a decorative shop that captivates Edo girls with goods from the Nanban trade is murdered. The weapon used is a Western longsword. The multifaceted exploits of the renowned Sakichi reveal the underlying complexities of a fierce fallo...

Ryotatsu, the wayward Priest blinded by Shinkai, the Wicked Priest, has his own story in this ultra-violent tale from the era of the Meiji Reconstruction. When a woman leaves her blind son at the Monastery, Ryotatsu is forced to teach the boy how to ...

Japanese film....

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A young lord lives against the will of his father Lord Tokugawa....

While imprisoned, Tatsu encounters Danshi, a man who is a big honcho in the prison pecking order. After initial conflict they become sworn brothers. Tatsu and the sworn brothers he acquires weren’t really gangsters before their prison time, just ruff...

Thriller about a gangster and an outlaw who become friends despite their different outlooks....

Inosuke, a former gangster, and his friends struggle to make a living as simple fishermen in this tale of chivalry and friendship among yakuza in the northern regions....

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1961 Japanese movie...

The fifth volume of the Ningyo Sana Torimonocho series. Based on the original work by Seishi Yokomizo, the film was adapted by Mitsuo Kaneda (The Nude Model Murder Case), directed by Tatsuo Yamada, who worked on The Golden Bugyo, and shot by Kikuzo K...

Everybody's chasing a diamond in Sadao Nakajima's crime/action/drama. It was a based on a novel by Tsusai Sugawara, who was a Japanese writer and political figure campaigning against drugs, prostitution and sexually transmitted diseases....

Lesser, but still modestly entertaining sequel. Wakayama is wonderfully bastardly here, but has to do without Chicago bros. Yamashiro & Watanabe and the film is just that much less fun. It's also a little bogged down by an out-of-place environmental ...

Nishina Saburouta is powerful but corrupted priest. One night, an old samurai who couldn't bear him any more, attempts to kill him, but without success. Saburouta is rescued by his niece, Keisuke at the last moment. Keisuke is a a good-for-nothing. S...

Early film directed by Eiichi Kudô....

Tomizo, a master storehouse-breaker who has been released from prison in Denmacho after serving five years plans to break into the Edo Castle gold storehouse to avenge the death of his father, who died a violent death at a gold mine on Sado Island. W...

Violent Gang Re-Arms is a rousing tale of friction in yakuza and labor interactions with Koji Tsurata as a yakuza supervising a dockworker's union. He finds himself between a rock and a hard place, at odds with both the dockworkers' leader (Tomisabur...

Famed detective Dandy Sashichi tries to solve who's behind the serial murders of six beautiful women under the aegis of local showman Ibaragiya. The film opens with the sextet humiliating a respected painter's portraits of them, driving the man to a ...

Gokudo goes politics. Gray-haired Bin Amatsu has Wakayama assist a politician, meaning trashing the opponent. But of course the opponent has a pretty daughter to have a crush on. Enter protective Bunta Sugawara and Gokudo’s gotta settle for a cheaper...

A fairly entertaining yarn told in somewhat broad strokes with Wakayama playing against type as a reformed-gambler-turned- Christian minister. Of course, before the tale is finished he is forced by the utterly nefarious, heinous villains to once agai...