Quote:
A noir drama depicting the downfall of a veteran detective who hates evil and falls into its depths. Sugai (Oki Minoru), who is said to be a demon detective, indulges in lust with Chiyo (Hara Chisako), the mistress of a man who was arrested for extortion, and takes advantage of her weakness. However, as his colleague Tokumochi (Hisashi Igawa) and others look at him with suspicion, he is tormented by remorse.
(Google translate)

The.Desperate.1964.576p.HDTVRip.AAC.x264-KG.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 33 min
Size: 	2.23 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1024x432 
Aspect ratio:  	2.40:1
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	3 226 kb/s
BPP: 	0.304
Audio
#1:  	Japanese 2.0ch AAC LC @ 192 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/59D49F00A9CFC57/The.Desperate.1964.576p.HDTVRip.AAC.x264-KG.mkv

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English

The post Takaharu Saeki – Doro inu AKA The Desperate (1964) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
The central characters are elderly men, former soldiers in the Pacific War, one of whom is still haunted by guilt for abandoning a wounded colleague to die. When the ‘religious’ cult Utopia turns up and starts swindling old people out of their savings and homes, the veterans are goaded into action one last time.

Not Forgotten (2000) -- Makoto Shinozaki.mkv 1.82GB

Container: Matroska
Runtime: 2 h 0 min
Size: 1.82 GiB
Video Codec: x264
Resolution: 716x454 ~> 839x454
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Frame rate: 23.976 fps
Bit rate: 1 950 kb/s
BPP: 0.250
Audio#1: Japanese 2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/C8E5AE738585E13/Not_Forgotten_(2000)_–_Makoto_Shinozaki.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/85E9C19E5101598/Not_Forgotten_(2000)_–_Makoto_Shinozaki.srt

https://fikper.com/YVS60MDCRJ/Not_Forgotten_(2000)_–_Makoto_Shinozaki.mkv
https://fikper.com/qEKCyhrfAo/Not_Forgotten_(2000)_–_Makoto_Shinozaki.srt

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles: English,Japanese (muxed),English (srt)

The post Makoto Shinozaki – Wasurerarenu hitobito AKA Not Forgotten (2000) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

An elaborate criminal tango based around treasure hidden during WWII.

Write-up by sketchesofcinema:
Sonny Chiba and Kinji Fukasaku head to Taiwan in this international action thriller influenced by spy films and Hitchcock movies. Chiba is a playboy pilot who is mistaken for someone who he isn’t after witnessing a murder in ski centre. The other witness is a Taiwanese lady who is vacationing in Japan. Chiba agrees to fly her back home, but as soon as they land they run into gangsters who are searching for a lost WWII treasure and believe Chiba is the key to finding it.

Kamikaze Man is, first and foremost, an action showcase for Chiba, who designed all the action sequences which contain car chases, boat chases, fist fights, gunplay, and hanging on to a plane that is about to take off. One of the stunts – Chiba trying to hold on to a speeding car – sent him flying through the air and landed him in a Taiwanese hospital.

There’s a lot of fun to be had, although some of the chases suffer from minor under-cranking. In many ways, Kamikaze Man was a predecessor to Chiba’s action work in the television series Key Hunter (1967-1972), which finally made him an Asian action super star and earned him fans like Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan.

The action scenes and foreign locations do pretty good job covering up for the screenplay, which is frankly a bit of a mess. For a film that intentionally plays with its audience, the final revelations are disappointingly simple. A clever storyline is not a necessity for a good action film, but it would be advisable to keep it simple from the beginning to avoid disappointment when there is no reward waiting at the end.

It’s also obvious this was a “fun project” for Fukasaku, who helms solid action entertainment but doesn’t invest too much care or ambition into the film, especially when compared to some of his later work.

As an interesting note, Kamikaze Man was the first time three major Toei stars (Fukasaku, Chiba, and guest star Ken Takakura) worked outside their own studio. Most Japanese filmmakers at the time were studio employees, who would work on any films their studio assigned them to. There was an unwritten rule among the major studios, that they would not try to steal each other’s stars, except maybe for a guest appearance. Although (technically speaking) this system came to an end in the early 70s, much of the industry, especially Toei, kept operating much in the same way until around 1977.

Kamikaze Man packed Toei’s top talent, but wasn’t produced by Toei. It was mainly financed by Ninjin Club, a small independent studio founded by three women in the 1950s to provide actors and filmmakers possibilities to do original films outside of their normal employers. Ninjin Club was able to exist because big studios wouldn’t really take notice of such a small independent studio, and the finished products would still be sold to (the filmmakers’ native) studios for distribution . The rest of the money came from Taiwan, where most of the filming took place. The majority of the supporting cast were Taiwanese actors, including the female lead. Toei would only distribute after acquiring the completed movie.

Though hardly a great movie, Kamikaze Man is a fun film that travelled quite a bit after its release. Japan and Taiwan aside, it also appears to have been released at least in Germany, Spain and Mexico – sometimes with highly misleading advertising campaigns (in the Spanish language poster Chiba has become a white man… and has a machine gun!). The filmmakers also all headed to international arenas: Fukasaku was involved in Japanese-American co-productions such as The Green Slime (1968) and Tora Tora Tora (1970), Takakura starred in Sidney Pollack’s The Yakuza (1974), and Chiba, who had already appeared in an international co-production before (Terror Beneath the Sea, 1966), would soon hook up with Bruce Lee girl Nora Miao in Tokyo-Seoul-Bangkok Drug Triangle (1973).

1.46GB | 1h 30m | 828×368 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/9AF8AA44057F91E/Kamikaze.Man.Duel.At.Noon.DVDRip.x264-KG.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/1604CB079B25B20/Kamikaze.Man.Duel.At.Noon.DVDRip.x264-KG.srt

Language:Japanese
Subtitles:English

The post Kinji Fukasaku – Kamikaze yarô AKA Kamikaze Man: Duel At Noon (1966) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
Based on the best-selling manga series, the six intensely kinetic Lone Wolf and Cub films elevated chanbara to bloody new heights. The shogun’s executioner, Itto Ogami (Tomisaburo Wakayama), takes to wandering the countryside as an assassin—along with his infant son Daigoro (Akihiro Tomikawa) and a seemingly infinitely weaponized perambulator—helping those he encounters while seeking vengeance for his murdered wife. Delivering stylish thrills and a body count that defies belief, Lone Wolf and Cub is beloved for its brilliantly choreographed action sequences as well as its tender depiction of the bonds between a parent and a child.

In the second film of the Lone Wolf and Cub series, Ogami Itto battles a group of female ninja in the employ of the Yagyu clan, and must assassinate a traitor who plans to sell his clan’s secrets to the Shogunate who is guarded by the three “Gods of Death”.

1.79GB | 1h 21mn | 1024×428 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/C957223BCDFD149/Lone.Wolf.and.Cub.2.Baby.Cart.At.The.River.Styx.1972.576p.BluRay.x264.AC3.2.0-TBB.mkv

Language:Japanese
Subtitles:English (muxed)

The post Kenji Misumi – Kozure Ôkami: Sanzu no kawa no ubaguruma AKA Lone Wolf and Cub II: Baby Cart at the River Styx (1972) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

A sort of remake of Lone Wolf and Cub for the western market condensing the series in one film. In 1980, Americans David Weisman (producer) and Robert Houston (director) stumbled upon the Japanese Lone Wolf and Cub films (in turn based on a hugely successful manga comic book), and realised that while Western Audiences at the time would lap up the violent battles, they might not be ready for the Chanbara genre’s comparatively slow pacing and period politics. They decided to take the best bits of Lone Wolf and Cub parts 1 and 2, and add their own dubbing and simplified plot. Shogun Assassin was born, and is probably responsible to this day for the Chanbara movie’s arrival in the West. Best approached as an introduction to the Lone Wolf and Cub legend.

The story is of a great samurai warrior who served his Shogun honorably. The Shogun however grew paranoid as he became more and more senile. The Shogun sought to destroy all those who might stand to oppose his rule, and so he sent his ninja spies to the samurai’s home. The ninjas failed to kill the samurai, but did kill his beloved wife. From then on, the samurai swore on his honor to seek out the Shogun and avenge the death of his love. Hr roams the countryside with his toddler son taking on mercenary work for money until the final battle with the Shogun’s three Masters of Death.

Robert Houston - (1980) Shogun Assassin.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 24 min
Size: 	1.95 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1024x420 
Aspect ratio:  	2.40:1
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	2 962 kb/s
BPP: 	0.287
Audio
#1:  	English 2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 kb/s
#2:  	English 2.0ch AAC @ 66.2 kb/s (Commentary with (film scholar) Ric Meyers and (martial arts expert) Steve Watson)
#3:  	English 2.0ch AAC @ 64.0 kb/s (Commentary with (producer) David Weisman, (illustrator) Jim Evans and (actor) Gibran Evans (the voice of Daigoro))

https://nitro.download/view/336660BC71E5100/Robert_Houston_-_(1980)_Shogun_Assassin.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:None

The post Robert Houston & Kenji Misumi – Shogun Assassin (1980) first appeared on Cinema of the World.