The Yakuza Code Still Lives

Fireworks

October 1997 •Japanese

Beleaguered police detective Nishi takes desperate measures to try and set things right in a world gone wrong. With his wife suffering from leukemia and his business partner paralyzed from a brutal gangster attack, Nishi borrows from a yakuza loan shark and then robs a bank to clear his debt.

The Symbol of a Man

July 1963 •Japanese

A Japanese intelligence officer faces personal crises in the years preceding the Manchurian conflict.

Dead Angle

July 1979 •Japanese

Elite college graduates commit perfect financial crimes though loopholes in the law during the 1950s.

Motorpsycho!

August 1965 •English

A vengeful veterinarian and a grieving widow join forces to track down violent bikers after they commit heinous acts against their loved ones.

Overkill

December 1987 •English

A Tokyo cop is sent to Los Angeles to help an LAPD detective break up a yakuza ring operating in the city.

Dolls

October 2002 •Japanese

Dolls takes puppeteering as its overriding motif, which relates thematically to the action provided by the live characters. Chief among those tales is the story of Matsumoto and Sawako, a young couple whose relationship is about to be broken apart by the former's parents, who have insisted their son take part in an arranged marriage to his boss' daughter.

A Girl & Her Guard Dog

March 2025 •Japanese

Senagaki Isaku will be a first-year high school student starting in spring. Her grandfather is the third head of the Senagaki group, a yakuza organization, so she is feared by those around her. However, starting from spring, she hopes to make normal friends and normally fall in love. She is admitted into a high school further from her hometown, however, the overprotective young head of the Senagaki group, Utou Keiya, (26 years old) falsifies his age and enters the school with her through a backdoor admission…?! Keiya proclaims that love is too early for her although Isaku is perfectly ready. In truth, she has held an unrequited love for Keiya for quite some time.

Guard Dog

November 1997 •Japanese

A tough and violent battle ensues between Hikaru Gotokuji, who's been assigned as the bodyguard for a popular young entertainer, and the ex-mercenary who is aggressively intent on assassination.

Taxi 2

March 2000 •French

A cabdriver and a cop race to Paris to rescue a love interest and the Japanese minister of defense from kidnappers.

A Weapon in My Heart

October 1996 •Japanese

A detective and his partner track down a call girl with information about a drug cartel. After taking her into custody, they are attacked by cartel members. The detective and the woman manage to escape, but they are soon hounded by a professional hitman hired to eliminate them and recover the heroin stolen by the woman.

The Bad Boss

May 1968 •Japanese

The first in what would become Toei's most successful, longest-running bosozoku film series. It lasted from 1968 till 1972 through sixteen films.

Brother

December 2000 •Japanese

A Japanese Yakuza gangster's deadly existence in his homeland gets him exiled to Los Angeles, where he is taken in by his little brother and his brother's gang.

Wasabi

October 2001 •French

Hubert is a French policeman with very sharp methods. After being forced to take 2 months off by his boss, who doesn't share his view on working methods, he goes back to Japan, where he used to work 19 years ago, to settle the probate of his girlfriend who left him shortly after marriage without a trace.

Wicked Priest 2: Ballad of Murder

November 1968 •Japanese

The long awaited second film in the Wicked Priest series is a masterpiece of sword swinging fury as Shinkai is asked by a man on the run to bring his young son to live with his grandfather, the master of a ju-jitsu dojo during the Taisho period of the early 20th century. Shinkai then runs afoul of a gangster group using strong-arm tactics to take over the profits from local gambling. When he proves to be more than they can handle, they hire the one man who has the ability to kill Shinkai and exact revenge, Ryotatsu, the karate priest whom Shinkai blinded in the first film. This ultra-violent entry has long been considered the best movie in the series and never made its way to home video before. See a spectacular display of Wakayama Tomisaburo’s martial art expertise in this action packed film. The Holy Grail of sword movies has arrived at last! /Winterheart of CG

Oshidori kenkagasa

May 1957 •Japanese

Black Rain

September 1989 •English

Two New York cops get involved in a gang war between members of the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia. They arrest one of their killers and are ordered to escort him back to Japan. However, in Japan he manages to escape, and as they try to track him down, they get deeper and deeper into the Japanese Mafia scene and they have to learn that they can only win by playing the game—the Japanese way.

Painful Bliss: Final Twist

February 1977 •Japanese

A young executive has a really bad night after an encounter with a crazed bisexual wannabe yakuza and his horny girlfriend.

Kill Bill: Vol. 1

October 2003 •English

An assassin is shot by her ruthless employer, Bill, and other members of their assassination circle – but she lives to plot her vengeance.

Sonatine

May 1993 •Japanese

Murakawa, an aging Tokyo yakuza tiring of gangster life, is sent by his boss to Okinawa along with a few of his henchmen to help end a gang war, supposedly as mediators between two warring clans. He finds that the dispute between the clans is insignificant and whilst wondering why he was sent to Okinawa at all, his group is attacked in an ambush. The survivors flee and make a decision to lay low at the beach while they await further instructions.

Gambler's Code - Loyalty Offering

August 1970 •Japanese

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 again pick up a sword and join fellow anti-hero Sugawara in wiping out Evil.