Movies: Ken Takakura

Two New York cops get involved in a gang war between members of the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia. They arrest one of their killers and are ordered to escort him back to Japan. However, in Japan he manages to escape, and as they try to track him down, t...

American private eye Harry Kilmer returns to Japan to rescue a friend's kidnapped daughter from the clutches of the Yakuza....

The story is about a convict released from prison for an old murder who is thinking about returning to his ex-wife and his former life. If she puts a yellow handkerchief on the window, it would mean that she wants him back at home....

Two Japanese scientists, Ushioda and Ochi, develop a bond with their sled dogs while on an expedition in Antarctica....

Jack Elliot, a one-time MVP for the New York Yankees is now on the down side of his baseball career. With a falling batting average, does he have one good year left and can the manager of the Chunichi Dragons, a Japanese Central baseball league find ...

A Japanese bullet train is threatened with a bomb that will explode automatically if the train slows below 80 km/h, unless a ransom is paid. Police race to find the bombers so the train crew can learn how to defuse the bomb....

The karashi Botan returns in the third chapter of the incredible Showa Zankoden series. This time legendary actor Ken Takakura plays Takei Shigejiro of the Shimazu family. When the boss of the Shimazu is killed, Shigejiro takes revenge and is sent to...

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, provoking a policeman's interest....

Hidejiro is a wandering yakuza with a ‘karashi botan’ (Chinese lion and peony) tattoo. Owing a favor to the Soda Family, he kills the boss of the rival Sakaki Family. When the Soda attacks the Sakaki and double-crosses him, with sword in hand, Hideji...

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Kanno is a Yakuza. He had to kill Matsuoka who betrayed their boss. Kanno knew Matsuoka had a 3-year-old daughter named Youko. Before he gave himself to the police, he asked his trusted man to take care of her. While in prison, Kanno kept sending let...

Live-action adaptation of the hit manga. Golgo 13, also known by the pseudonym Duke Togo, is a professional assassin. His age and birthplace are unknown and there is no consensus in the worldwide intelligence community as to his true identity. Most o...

Takada, a Japanese fisherman has been estranged from his son for many years, but when the son is diagnosed with terminal cancer his daughter-in-law, Rie, summons him to the hospital. Through a series of obstacles and relationships, he is brought unex...

Ishihama is planning a casino robbery with his wife and mother-in-law. They meet a man named Tsuneda who is planning the same robbery and agree to work together....

In the fourth installment, Musashi's potentially greatest opponent Kojiro jumps in and out of the story at the oddest and most coincidental moments. As his great love Otsu has succumbed to madness. Musashi then sets off to beat the functionaries of a...

After World War II, their town was a pile of rubble. Gennosuke, the second generation boss of the Kamizu Group was upholding yakuza chivalry by keeping black-market and illegal items out of their open-air market. Taking advantage of the mess, Iwasa a...

With his penultimate film, Uchida revisited one of his popular prewar titles, 1936’s Theatre of Life, an adaptation of Shiro Ozaki’s eponymous novel. Three-time Seijun Suzuki collaborator Goro Tanada wrote a gangsterized adaptation of Ozaki’s story f...

A WWII film set on a Pacific island. Japanese and allied forces occupy different parts of the island. When a group of British soldiers are sent on a mission behind enemy lines, things don't go exactly to plan. This film differs in that some of the 'h...

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 a...

The fifth and final installment with the build up of the epic battle between Sasaki Kojiro and Miyamoto Musashi. With all the familiar characters making appearances: Otsu (Musashi's great love), Akemi, Matahachi (his former fellow soldier), old lady ...