Takeshi Kitano

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.

Dir. Takeshi Kitano · With Takeshi Kitano, Aya Kokumai, Tetsu Watanabe

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.

Dir. Takeshi Kitano · With Takeshi Kitano, Kayoko Kishimoto, Ren Osugi

Brash, loudmouthed and opportunistic, Kikujiro is the unlikely companion for Masao who is determined to see the mother he has never met. The two begin a series of adventures which soon turns out to be a whimsical journey of laughter and tears with a wide array of surprises and unique characters along the way.

Dir. Takeshi Kitano · With Takeshi Kitano, Yusuke Sekiguchi, Kayoko Kishimoto

Blind traveler Zatoichi is a master swordsman and a masseur with a fondness for gambling on dice games. When he arrives in a village torn apart by warring gangs, he sets out to protect the townspeople.

Dir. Takeshi Kitano · With Takeshi Kitano, Tadanobu Asano, Michiyo Yasuda

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.

Dir. Takeshi Kitano · With Miho Kanno, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Tatsuya Mihashi

As the police launch a full-scale crackdown on organized crime, it ignites a national yakuza struggle between the Sanno of the East and Hanabishi of the West. What started as an internal strife in Outrage has now become a nationwide war in Outrage Beyond.

Dir. Takeshi Kitano · With Takeshi Kitano, Ryo Kase, Toshiyuki Nishida

In the future, the Japanese government captures a class of ninth-grade students and forces them to kill each other under the revolutionary "Battle Royale" act.

Dir. Kinji Fukasaku · With Tatsuya Fujiwara, Aki Maeda, Takeshi Kitano

When a tough yakuza gangster is betrayed by his bosses, it means all out war. Bodies pile up as he takes out everyone in his way to the top in a brutal quest for revenge.

Dir. Takeshi Kitano · With Takeshi Kitano, Kippei Shiina, Ryo Kase

A deaf garbage collector happens upon a broken and discarded surfboard. The discovery plants in him dreams of becoming a surf champion. Encouraged by his also deaf girlfriend, he persists against all odds.

Dir. Takeshi Kitano · With Claude Maki, Hiroko Oshima, Sabu Kawahara

Island of Java, 1942, during World War II. British Major Jack Celliers arrives at a Japanese prison camp, run by the strict Captain Yonoi. Colonel John Lawrence, who has a profound knowledge of Japanese culture, and Sergeant Hara, brutal and simpleton, will witness the struggle of wills between two men from very different backgrounds who are tragically destined to clash.

Dir. Nagisa Ōshima · With David Bowie, Tom Conti, Ryuichi Sakamoto

A detective breaks all rules of ethical conduct while investigating a colleague’s involvement in drug pushing and yakuza activities.

Dir. Takeshi Kitano · With Takeshi Kitano, Maiko Kawakami, Makoto Ashikawa

Machisu is a painter. He never had the success he thinks he is entitled to. Regardless of this, he always remains trying to be successful. His wife Sachiko keeps supporting him, despite all setbacks.

Dir. Takeshi Kitano · With Takeshi Kitano, Kanako Higuchi, Yûrei Yanagi

Five years after the all-out war between the Sanno and Hanabishi crime families, former yakuza boss Otomo works in South Korea for Mr. Chang, a noted fixer. When tensions rise between Chang and the Hanabishi, and Chang's life is endangered, Otomo returns to Japan to settle things once and for all.

Dir. Takeshi Kitano · With Takeshi Kitano, Toshiyuki Nishida, Ken Mitsuishi

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.

Dir. Takeshi Kitano · With Takeshi Kitano, Omar Epps, Claude Maki

Masaki, a baseball player and gas-station attendant, gets into trouble with the local Yakuza and goes to Okinawa to get a gun to defend himself. There he meets Uehara, a tough gangster, who is in serious debt to the yakuza and planning revenge.

Dir. Takeshi Kitano · With Yûrei Yanagi, Yuriko Ishida, Takeshi Kitano

Shinji and Masaru spend most of their school days harassing fellow classmates and playing pranks. They drop out and Shinji becomes a small-time boxer, while Masaru joins up with a local yakuza gang. However, the world is a tough place.

Dir. Takeshi Kitano · With Masanobu Ando, Ken Kaneko, Leo Morimoto

Commissioned to mark the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival, "To Each His Own Cinema" brought together 33 of the world's pre-eminent filmmakers to produce short pieces exploring the multifarious facets of cinema and their perspective on the state of their chosen artform in the early 21st century.

Dir. Michael Cimino, Luc Dardenne, Atom Egoyan, Chen Kaige, Manoel de Oliveira, Bille August, Andrei Konchalovsky, Claude Lelouch, Walter Salles, Tsai Ming-liang, Theo Angelopoulos, Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Olivier Assayas, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Takeshi Kitano, Roman Polanski, Gus Van Sant, Abbas Kiarostami, David Cronenberg, David Lynch, Jane Campion, Raymond Depardon, Amos Gitai, Nanni Moretti, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Elia Suleiman, Aki Kaurismäki, Raúl Ruiz, Lars von Trier, Wong Kar-Wai, Ken Loach, Wim Wenders, Youssef Chahine, Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Zhang Yimou · With Golshifteh Farahani, Taraneh Alidoosti, Pegah Ahangarani

Izo is an assassin in the service of a Tosa lord and Imperial supporter. After killing dozens of the Shogun's men, Izo is captured and crucified. Instead of being extinguished, his rage propels him through the space-time continuum to present-day Tokyo. Here Izo transforms himself into a new, improved killing machine.

Dir. Takashi Miike · With Kazuya Nakayama, Kaori Momoi, Ryuhei Matsuda

Set during Japan's Shogun era, this film looks at life in a samurai compound where young warriors are trained in swordfighting. A number of interpersonal conflicts are brewing in the training room, all centering around a handsome young samurai named Sozaburo Kano. The school's stern master can choose to intervene, or to let Kano decide his own path.

Dir. Nagisa Ōshima · With Takeshi Kitano, Ryuhei Matsuda, Tadanobu Asano

In the near future, Major is the first of her kind: a human saved from a terrible crash, then cyber-enhanced to be a perfect soldier devoted to stopping the world's most dangerous criminals.

Dir. Rupert Sanders · With Scarlett Johansson, Takeshi Kitano, Pilou Asbæk

In a dystopian 2021, Johnny is a data trafficker who has an implant that allows him to securely store data too sensitive for regular computer networks. On one delivery run, he accepts a package that not only exceeds the implant's safety limits—and will kill him if the data is not removed in time—but also contains information far more important and valuable than he had ever imagined. On a race against time, he must avoid the assassins sent to kill him and remove the data before it, too, ends his life.

Dir. Robert Longo · With Keanu Reeves, Dina Meyer, Takeshi Kitano

It's three years after the events of the original Battle Royale, and Shuya Nanahara is now an internationally-known terrorist determined to bring down the government. His terrorist group, Wild Seven, stages an attack that levels several buildings in Tokyo on Christmas Day, killing 8000 people. In order for the government to study the benefits of "teamwork", the new students work in pairs, with their collars electronically linked so that if one of them is killed, the other dies as well. They must kill Nanahara in three days - or die.

Dir. Kenta Fukasaku, Kinji Fukasaku · With Shugo Oshinari, Ai Maeda, Tatsuya Fujiwara