Tomisaburō Wakayama's Films on Terracotta
Big Time Gambling Boss | 1968
Tokyo, 1934. Gang boss Arakawa is too ill and a successor must be named. The choice falls on Nakai, but being an outsider he refuses and suggests senior clansman Matsuda instead. An atmospheric tale of gangland intrigue written by Kazuo Kasahara, Big Time Gambling Boss is one of the all-time classics of the yakuza genre.
The Bounty Hunter Trilogy | 1969-72
Before he made his name in LONE WOLF AND CUB, Tomisaburo Wakayama starred in this triptych of violent samurai spectacles that draw on James Bond and Spaghetti Westerns for inspiration yet feature the familiar style and blood-spattering action of the period.
Shinobi
It’s the 16th century and Japan is in chaos. Samurai clans engage each other in battle over who gets to rule the nation, while warlords call upon the ninja to spy on and assassinate their rivals.
Battle without Honour & Humanity
In the early 1970s, Kinji Fukasaku's five-film Battles Without Honor and Humanity series was a massive hit in Japan, and kicked off a boom in realistic, modern yakuza films based on true stories. Although Fukasaku had intended to end the series, Toei Studio convinced him to return to the director's chair for this unconnected, follow-up trilogy of films, each starring Battles leading man Bunta Sugawara and telling separate, but fictional stories about the yakuza in different locations in Japan.