"Actor: Asao Koike"

• 18 Years in Prison (Limited Edition) | Blu Ray | (29/07/2024) from £17.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Trying to survive in the ruins of post-war Japan, Kawada (Noboru Ando, By a Man's Face Shall You Know Him) and Tsukada (Asao Koike, Sympathy the Underdog) run afoul of the military police after stealing valuable copper wire. Kawada is arrested and sent to prison, but Tsukada uses their gains to start a yakuza gang. Facing violent inmates and a cruel warden (Tomisaburo Wakayama, Big Time Gambling Boss), Kawada vows to escape and stop his former partner. Tai Kato directs this epic prison story with characteristic visual flair, while gangster-turned-actor Ando delivers a stunning performance charged with real-life gravitas. As an examination of the deep scars of wartime, this genre classic is also a clear precursor to Kinji Fukasaku's epoch-making Battles Without Honour and Humanity series.

• Hanzo The Razor (3 DVD Special Edition Box Set) (UNCUT) | DVD | (06/04/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Love samurai films? Wish they were... dirtier? Welcome to Hanzo the Razor'sderanged world of crazy swordplay and sexploitation set to a 1970s funk soundtrack. Uncut for the first time ever in the UK this cult 1970s Japanese pinku trilogy was seemingly influenced by Dirty Harry and Shaft but there's no doubt who has the 'longer arm of the law'! Shintaro Katsu (best known as the blind swordsman in the original Zatoichi) stars as Hanzo - a rebellious yet obsessively moral samurai police officer who slashes his way through the backbone of crime uncovers corruption at higher levels and tortures relentlessly using his own unique techniques. Shocking audiences even today the hardest man in Edo regularly unleashes his special weapon in the form of his oversized penis which he uses to 'interrogate' female suspects into pleasured compliance. Despite the knuckle-biting graphic violence there is an underlying social commentary testifying to the noble honour of the samurai and emphasising Hanzo's status as the people's champion. In Sword of Justice Hanzo overturns his own gutless superiors; in The Snare he breaks into a temple used by local magistrates for the sadistic torture of young girls. In Who's Got the Gold? the shogunate treasury is being looted by its own officials. From the creator of the Lone Wolf and Cub series (used as the basis for Shogun Assassin and a direct influence on Tarantino's Kill Bill) the Hanzo the Razor trilogy is presented here for the first time in the UK complete and uncut.

• The Sun's Burial | DVD | (26/05/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Set in the post-war slums of Osaka The Sun's Burial follows the lives and fates of the denizens of this hellish ghetto. Pimps prostitutes drug addicts vagrants hustlers and gangsters struggle to survive amidst the poverty and decay of 1950's Japan. Unflinching in it's portrayal of life in these slums the film goes beyond a documentary-style realism to achieve a garish lurid Cinemascope aesthetic that is at once repulsive and yet mesmerising. It's a pitiless and dispassionate portrait of a living hell that lurks behind the facade of a prosperous new Japan a place where everything - food sex even blood - is simply a commodity to be stolen and sold.

• Sonny Chiba Collection - Vol. 1 | DVD | (29/08/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The Killing Machine (Dir. Norifumi Suzuki 1975): Sonny Chiba stars as real life master Doshin So originator of Shorinji Kenpo who comes to the aid of orphans and a young girl forced into prostitution in post-war Japan. However corrupt authorities are unwilling to allow him to open a martial arts school and the stage is set for a bloody showdown... Yakuza Deka (Dir. Yukio Noda 1970): Tough thriller starring the inimitable unstoppable force of Japanese action cinema

• Zatoichi In Desperation | DVD | (02/02/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  On his ceaseless journey Zatoichi crosses paths with an old woman on an ancient bridge. Unintentionally causing her death Zatoichi charges himself with the task of finding the old woman's daughter Nishikigi to give her the tragic news. The blind swordsman sets off to the town of Chosi. There he finds the daughter working in a geisha house and a bond of fifty ryo has her trapped until it has been repaid. The town is ruled over by an ambitious boss Mangoro who has bullied the

• Sonny Chiba Collection - Vol. 2 | DVD | (19/09/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Three great films from the Japanese king of hardboiled ass-kicking Sonny Chiba! Timeslip (aka G.I. Samurai) (1979): A Japanese Army unit is mysteriously transported 400 years back in time to the warring states period of Japanese history and ends up facing an army of Samurai warriors... Golgo 13 (1973): Sonny Chiba stars as the underworld's no.1 hitman in this hardboiled action-packed adaptation of Japan's all-time bestselling manga... The Bullet Train (1975):

• Street Mobster | DVD | (21/10/2002) from £6.98   |  Saving you £9.01 (129.08%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Explosive Japanese cool hits the retail DVD market in the shape of Eureka Video's 'Street Mobster'. Internationally acclaimed guru director Kinji Fukasaku the highly distinguished exponent of ultra violence with a purpose. Street mobster Isamu Okita likes fighting and girls and is just out of prison for killing a rival in a bath-house. On release he finds things have changed: old gangs no longer have the power they once enjoyed. So he teams up with Kizaki an aspiring gangster who suggests he revive his old gang to take on existing mobs and claim their territory.

• The Killing Machine | DVD | (29/08/2005) from £5.38   |  Saving you £7.61 (141.45%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Sonny Chiba stars as real life master Doshin So originator of Shorinji Kenpo who comes to the aid of orphans and a young girl forced into prostitution in post-war Japan. However corrupt authorities are unwilling to allow him to open a martial arts school and the stage is set for a bloody showdown... Regarded by action aficionados as ranking alongside the very finest films cult martial arts hero Sonny Chiba produced during his 70s heyday ""The Killing Machine"" features some of the

• G.I. Samurai | DVD | (21/03/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A Japanese Army unit somehow warps itself 400 years back in time and ends up facing an army of Samurai warriors. Time to send in Sonny Chiba!