Junzaburō Ban Movies

On a Tokyo dump’s shantytown edge, interwoven vignettes follow residents scraping by: a boy who “drives” an imaginary trolley, a...

Set in the 1860s, the final years of the Tokugawa Shogunate, The Fireflies focuses on Tose (Awashima Chikage), the mistress of the Teradaya, a small...

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...

Three robbers escape with loot from a heist before one of them kills the others. Their corpses wash up near the aftermath of a maritime calamity,...

When an American is murdered in a Japanese inn, Tokyo police detective Munesue follows the trail of the killer to New York. There he is joined by a...

The final film by Yuzo Kawashima.

Meiko Kaji reprises her role as Nami, a vengeful female gang leader, in the second installment of this high-action series that casts a new actor --...

Driven by greed and a desire for his cousin's wife, Jiro orchestrates a complex frame-up to have his cousin arrested for murder.

Three men, all named Masa, join forces to capitalize on each of their unique yet questionable talents against a hyper-competitive Tokyo underworld.

To solve the mystery of a murder of an old governess which takes place at a wealthy Daidoji family's country estate, family secrets and lies dating...

In Osaka's slum, capricious folks without futures engage in pilfering, assault and robbery, prostitution, and the trading of ID cards and blood.

Japanese comedy film.

This extraordinarily complex film is not only a send-up of every samurai film ever made, it is also an extrapolation of the value of life. The...

Comedy about residents of Shinjuku.

Tokyo at night. It has another face, different from the daytime. Gorgeous neon lights and dressed-up women decorate the city at night. And then,...

Comedy of an entertainment agent and strip-teasers.

A handsome young man infiltrates the Tanuki Kingdom, where conspiracies swirl around the Divine Mirror; he rescues the princess and turns the evil...

Reiko Oshida stars as a young wannabe gangster tough girl, just released from reform school. She tracks down one of her classmates fathers, who runs...

A comedy directed by Mitsumasa Saito about a pair of clumsy detectives who solve a case they become involved in by chance. Shosuke Ikashima and Ryuji...