A young executive hunts down his father’s killer in director Akira Kurosawa’s scathing The Bad Sleep Well. Continuing his legendary collaboration with actor Toshiro Mifune, Kurosawa combines elements of Hamlet and American film noir to chilling effect in exposing the corrupt boardrooms of postwar corporate Japan.Read More »
Sammy Hogarth, a vaudeville comedian who now has his own TV show, is a ruthless egomaniac who demands instant obedience from his staff and heaps abuse on those in lesser positions than his. His most vituperative behavior, however, is reserved for his weak-willed brother, Lester, whom Sammy has hired as his assistant but whom he really uses as his whipping boy.Read More »
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“Jess Franco women in prison flick, which deals more with a robbery than the actual prison. A woman (Lina Romay) gets six years in prison after killing her jewel thief boyfriend. Once behind bars she has all sorts of wicked people trying to get her to tell where the boyfriend hid the diamonds before she shot him. This is a somewhat interesting film since Franco decided to concentrate more on the jewels rather than the behind the bars stuff. There’s still some dirty moments including tons of nudity, a lesbian scene and a couple torture sequences but this is still fairly clear for a Franco WIP film. Read More »
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Vincent Karbone is a leading construction magnate in Philadelphia and a suspected leader of one of the city’s most notorious criminal gangs. Several of his thugs are on trial, and the key witness is Michael, a mild-mannered judo instructor with a wife and kids. Karbone will stop at nothing to keep the muscles of his organization out of prison, including striking at Michael’s family to keep him from testifying.Read More »
This is an unusual work from the transitional period of “Toei’s realistic line”, depicting the life of corporate racketeers, a variant of modern yakuza. The protagonist is modeled on Ogawa Kaoru, who screenwriter Kasahara Kazuo became interested in after learning about her existence while researching “Battles Without Honor and Humanity” (non-fiction series). Kasahara closely interviewed Ogawa and wrote the script. The “economic yakuza,” who had only appeared in supporting episodes until then, are now fully featured as the main theme and protagonist, and the film is said to have been a precursor to later Hiroshima jingi: Hitojichi dakkai sakusen (1976) and Nippon no Don: Yabohen (1977), as well as the “financial yakuza films” and “economic yakuza films” that were mass-produced on original videoRead More »
A group of popular teenagers trick three unsuspecting classmates into the woods to see what it’s like to kill someone. Based on a trio of true stories.Read More »
Plot: When the Japanese Metropolitan Police Department is confronted by a series of mysterious kidnappings of the teenage children of some various wealthy and powerful businessmen, they call upon the services of a vary unique crime fighting taskforce. While officially referred to simply as “PG” (The Private Government), they call themselves the “Playgirl”. Lead by former L.A.P.D. policewoman Sagara Haruka, the team is comprised of a bevy of sexy and beautiful undercover agents, each specializing in various skills. Kaoru is the statuesque and leggy beauty who is a master of disguise; Yumiko is the tough as nails, CSI technician and computer whiz; Natsumi is the lethal yet stunning and hip ko-gal and Aya is the motorcycle riding young rookie.Read More »
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After being run down by a car, a man asks a passer-by for a last kiss before dying. The other man, full of pity for him, obliges his wish. Soon it becomes the talk of the town, and perverted society starts implying that the two men were lovers, affecting his life and his marriage.Read More »
A washed-up Marseilles cop (Auteuil) earns a chance at redemption by protecting a woman from the man who killed her parents as he is about to be released from prison.Read More »