Best Japanese Films Kinema Junpo (1926-2025)

1982 film by Kinji Fukasaku

To satisfy her lover's fetish for tattooed women, Akane agrees to have her body covered in eloborate tattoos by Kyogoro, an old craftsman. Kyogoro has developed a special technique, by which his assistant, Harutsune, keeps Katsuko's mind off the pain while Kyogoro does his work. After the work is done, Harutsune makes the shocking discovery of how Kyogoro mastered his technique.

Two boys, whose parents ply their trade by the mouth of a muddy river in Osaka, become close friends.

A young man living on growing tomatoes in a greenhouse in a residential area. Tomato cultivation is as doomed as his personal life where he tries to keep alive his romance with the eccentric Kaede and parents selected fiancee Ayako.

1981 film by Seijun Suzuki

A detective goes out of his way to crack the case of a serial killer who specialises in murdering police officers.

Following a stint in reform school, Ryu (Shinsuke Shimada) returns to his home, the Minami area of Osaka, accompanied by his new friend Ko (Takeshi Masu). He's greeted by his friends, Chabo (Ryusuke Matsumoto) and Ken (Bang-ho Cho). They seek to forge their own path through a multitude of rival gangs in Kita and Minami, including the Hokushin Alliance, backed by the yakuza, the Hope Association, and various other minor factions, including Zainichi Korean groups. What follows is a wild, fast-paced story of violence, revenge, betrayal, and discrimination, that never loses its sense of humor.

The world-famous woodblock artist Hokusai (1760-1849), a widower in need of a steady income, lives with his daughter Oei in the house of his friend Bakin.

The film depicts carnivalesque atmosphere summed up by the cry "Ei ja nai ka" ("Why not?") in Japan in 1867 and 1868 in the days leading to the Meiji Restoration. It examines the effects of the political and social upheaval of the time, and culminates in a revelrous march on the Tokyo Imperial Palace, which turns into a massacre. Characteristically, Imamura focuses not on the leaders of the country, but on characters in the lower classes and on the fringes of society.

A young man gets thrown into detention after an episode of attempted rape. He soon meets several individuals claiming to be ministers of their own micronation…

1981 film by Yoshimitsu Morita

A working class young man, Tetsuo, who distrusts all rich people, falls in love with a girl, Chika, from an affluent family. He has a difficult time, but love survives despite the problems.

A high-school girl inherits a declining yakuza organization, which seeks to repair its fortunes under her leadership.

The story of Shinsuke, a young man who lives through a stormy life as a poverty-stricken coal miner. Ranging from Shinsuke's infanthood to his mid-teens. Coal workers and the mines dominate nearly every aspect of his life. Shinsuke's father a group leader at the mine, dies while bravely using dynamite to rescue a group of trapped Korean miners. Several older men attempt to help he and his mother cope, including a friendly Harley-riding yakuza boss. This movie has it all, drama, romance, sex, yakuza and violence! It is based on a story by Hiroyuki Itsuki that was originally serialized in the magazine Shukan Gendai in 1969-70.

Two men and a woman plan to steal 1.5 Billion yen.

A surreal period film following a university professor and his eerie nomad friend as they go through loose romantic triangles and face death in peculiar ways.

1980 film directed by Akira Kurosawa

The story revolves around Ogino, who is in the last year of his medical studies. Between lectures, exams, on field training, his commitment as a pro-reformist militant and his girlfriend, Ogino is starting to wonder if he's really cut out to be a doctor.

The quiet life of a mother and her young son living on a farm in Hokkaido is changed by the arrival of a man who ignites flames of romance in the heart of the mother and shows her boy the importance of grit and kindness, but then he leaves with the autumn wind.

A newspaper reporter investigates the lives of juvenile delinquents.