Movies: Iwao Ôtani

Brimming with action while incisively examining the nature of truth, "Rashomon" is perhaps the finest film ever to investigate the philosophy of justice. Through an ingenious use of camera and flashbacks, Kurosawa reveals the complexities of human na...

The adventures of a blind, gambling masseur and master swordsman. Zatoichi targets a yakuza-controlled village, because war with a neighbouring town's smaller gang is brewing....

In 16th century Japan, peasants Genjuro and Tobei sell their earthenware pots to a group of soldiers in a nearby village, in defiance of a local sage's warning against seeking to profit from warfare. Genjuro's pursuit of both riches and the mysteriou...

When the wife of a 17th century Kyoto scroll-maker is falsely accused of having an affair with his best employee, the pair flee the city and find themselves falling for one another....

In medieval Japan, a woman and her children journey to find the family's patriarch, who was exiled years before....

In Edo Japan, a kabuki actor seeks revenge against the three men who drove his parents to their deaths years ago....

Shinnosuke is introduced to Shizu as a prospective marriage partner, but he falls in love with her widowed sister Oyu. Convention forbids Oyu to marry because she has to raise her son as the head of her husband's family. Oyu convinces Shinnosuke and ...

Zatoichi's trek through 88 temples to atone for his violent past is interrupted as he stumbles into a village terrorized by a violent yakuza boss....

Eiko seeks out Miyoharu, a geisha, and asks to be her apprentice. When she is ready to receive clients, both women want the right to refuse certain men....

Zatoichi is a blind massage therapist and swordsman who finds out that something troubling is taking place on the outskirts of town. After discovering who the guilty parties are -- an accomplished Chinese martial artist named Wang Kang and his youthf...

Ichi is staying at an inn when a woman dies. Her dying wish is that Ichi take her son to his father, an artist living in a nearby town. After arriving in the town, Ichi finds out that the father has been forced by a local boss to create illegal porno...

In a mountainous region of Japan, Lord Arakawa kidnaps the men of nearby villages to use as slave labor, producing gunpowder from his sulfur pits. A band of young boys decide to rescue their enslaved fathers on their own....

Zatoichi runs afoul of some evil fugitives, working for a corrupt law official....

Japan, 1137. The Taira family, a samurai clan, becomes involved in the disputes between Emperor Toba and the monks of Mount Hiei....

The Great White Tiger Platoon was part of the Aizu clan's last ditch efforts to stop the advance of Imperial troops after the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Meant to be a reserve unit as it was made of the young, 16-17 year old sons of Aizu samurai....

Rin Jyoshima lost her father to death-by-gambling; years later, she's grown up in the Kosugi household and has fallen victim to gambling herself....

When a fugitive begins a romance with the woman hiding him from the law, it becomes uncertain whether he will ever escape the shadow of his heinous crimes--or the detectives hot on his trail....

Three men sentenced to death are spared and changed into “shadows executioners”, a group of ruthless ninja working for mysterious high ranking officials. During their investigation on some illegal business, one of them, called “Yazuke the Viper”, fin...

An intellectual couple in a staid and tedious marriage are surprised when the wife’s niece, who has run away from home, turns up unexpectedly to stay with them. Their mundane lives are sent into disarray by the emotional and energetic Ako....

In one of Japan's most frequently-told ghost stories, a murdered wife returns in an act of vengeance....