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The Japan Academy Film Prize Association held the 47th edition of its awards ceremony on March 8, 2024. The nominees are selected by the Nippon Academy-Sho Association of industry professionals from the pool of film releases between January 1 and December 31, 2023 which must have screened in Tokyo cinemas.

Following its success at the recent Blue Ribbon Awards and leading with 12 nominations, Toho Studios' and Takashi Yamazaki's kaiju cinema masterpiece “Godzilla Minus One” takes top honours winning Picture of the Year and a slew of technical awards. Sakura Ando cements her place as one of Japan's top actresses securing both awards for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (for “Monster”) as well as Supporting Role (for “Godzilla Minus One”).

The full list of winners is described below.

Picture of the Year

Monster

Godzilla Minus One

Mom, Is That You?!

September 1923

Perfect Days

Animation of the Year

Kitaro Tanjo – GeGeGe no...

The beginning of the 1970s marked a critical period for the Japanese film industry, as it finally realized it had to come to terms with a changing audience that was more than willing to switch to foreign productions or the television set if their demands were not met. It was also the start of an incredibly creative period in mainstream cinema, with many directors suddenly concentrating on other genres or finally experiencing a kind of freedom they felt they had been denied before. With Kinji Fukasaku’s highly successful “Battles Without Honor and Humanity”-series becoming a new milestone within the Japanese gangster film, many wanted to have their piece of the success. Having collected experiences in many genres besides chanbara, which he still stayed somewhat faithful to in the coming decade, director Hideo Gosha turned to the yakuza genre too with features such as his 1974 effort “Violent City”, which even stars Bunta Sugawara,...

The real-life character of Ishikuro “The Looter” Hikoichi has been a source of inspiration for many, starting with the great novelist Shiro Ozaki, who based a central character in his opus “Theatre of Life” on the notorious gambler/looter. The book has since been adapted various times in print and media. Shinji Murayama, however, does not look at Ozaki’s work for his 1974 feature “True Account of Hikashaku: A Wolf’s Honor and Humanity”. Instead, he bases his Ishikuro Hikoichi on the character from the homonymous work by writer/journalist Koichi Iiboshi, who is also responsible for the writings that inspired Kinji Fukasaku’s “Battles Without Honor and Humanity” series, a connection also reflected in the project’s title.

This retelling starts in the 1920 and journeys to the 1940s, from when Hikoichi came into the contact with the Yakuza through to his death in 1942. We see how, after striking and...

My thoughts and admiration for Mark Schilling’s work have already been shared in the review of “Art, Cult and Commerce“. In that regard, continuing with his bibliography was inevitable, and the fact that the present book deals with the oldest Japanese motion picture studio, and particularly its Action Cinema period, made its appeal even more intense. Even more so, since, during the latest years, there seems to be a renewal of interest regarding the genre, especially through the home video releases of companies like Arrow and Eureka.

The book begins with the history of Nikkatsu, focusing on the period from the late 50s until the early 60s, when the Nikkatsu Action genre started, flourished and declined. The second part deals with the main male protagonists of those movies, presenting detailed biographies of Yujiro Ishihara, Akira Kobayashi, Keiichiro Akagi and Tetsuya Watari, highlighting the concept of the...

Leader of the new generation of Nikkatsu directors in the late 1960s, Yasuharu Hasebe came up with a number of mostly realistic films about Yakuza life, of which “Retaliation” is a prominent sample, despite featuring a protagonist from the “old guard”, Akira Kobayashi.

As the story begins, Jiro is just being released from prison. However, his future looks anything but ideal. Before even walking a few meters from the prison door, Hino, another yakuza, takes him to a nearby area and attacks him, seeking revenge for a friend Jiro killed. Hino’s girlfriend stops the fight, but he is not deterred from seeking revenge. Furthermore, as soon as Jiro visits his old boss, he is informed that his gang is practically non-existent, a fact that forces him to approach the powerful Hasama family to ask for a job. Out of respect for his former boss, Hasama offers him a task,...

With the fifth and, as the title says, final episode in the “Battles Without Honor and Humanity” series, there was a major chance in the production. Whereas the former episodes had been scripted by Kazuo Kasahara based on the articles about the yakuza by writer Koichi Iboshi, Koji Takada took over the project. In an interview feature titled “Last Days of the Boss”, which can be found on the release of the film by Arrow Video, Takada reflects on how he convinced Fukasaku and the producers of his vision for the fifth film, which would not only continue the story of Shozo Hirono played by Bunta Sugawara, but which would also change the dynamics within the series, making it a legitimate sequel as well as a refreshing deviation from the formula of the series.

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After the events of the previous film, “Police Tactics”, Hirono (Sugawara) serves a...

Seijun Suzuki, The Early Years is now available on Blu-ray from Arrow Video

Youths On The Loose And Rebels Without Causes In The Unruly Seishun Eiga Youth Movies Of Japanese Iconoclast Seijun Suzuki

Making their home-video debuts outside Japan, this diverse selection of Nikkatsu youth movies (seishun eiga) charts the evolving style of the B-movie maverick best known for the cult classics Tokyo Drifter (1966) and Branded to Kill (1967).

The Boy Who Came Back (1958) marks the first appearances of Nikkatsu Diamond Guys and regular Suzuki collaborators Akira Kobayashi and Jo Shishido, with Kobayashi cast as the hot-headed hoodlum fresh out of reform school who struggles to make a clean break with his tearaway past.

The Wind-of-Youth Group Crosses the Mountain Pass (1961) is a carnivalesque tale of a young student who hooks up with a down-at-heels travelling circus troupe.

Teenage Yakuza (1962) stars Tamio Kawaji as the high-school vigilante protecting his...

Review by Roger Carpenter

After laboring for close to a decade as an assistant director for Nikkatsu Studios, Yasuharu Hasebe burst onto the scene as a lead director in 1966 with Black Tight Killers and 1967 with the more subdued but very good Massacre Gun. Retaliation, which starred some of Nikkatsu’s primary actors (called the “Diamond Line”), was an A-list film, in color, and was a return to a more violent yakuza tale than Hasebe’s previous Massacre Gun.

Akira Kobayashi stars as Jiro, a yakuza who has just been released from a long stint in prison. He returns to find his family dismantled, with only his ailing boss and one loyal yakuza member remaining. On top of this, Hino (Jo Shishido), brother of the man Jiro was imprisoned for killing, is tailing him and seeking revenge. Jiro reaches out to another family for help in rebuilding his gang and is...

In my review of the first “Diamond Guys” collection Arrow put out, I noted how, for all the ways those films tried to shake up the Nikkatsu formula, it was still a fairly representative look at what the studio was all about – widescreen, black-and-white, stoic men drawn into violent situations, corruptible women, and jazzy scores. Only the final film in that set – Rambling Guitarist – really managed to strike out and maintain a distinctive tone, but the narrative remained the same. With this second collection, the trajectory is quite the opposite. Rather than gradually move away from the formula, Volume 2 begins with a loose riff in the manner of Rambling Guitarist and gets more cartoonish, absurd, and unpredictable from there. Not that this precisely means the films are any more successful overall. The ratio remains the same – one solid bit of fun, one slog, and one that’s pretty near great.

Haryashu Noguchi's Murder UnincorporatedSTORY66%DIRECTION72%ACTING67%VISUALS74%POSITIVESSlapstick humorPreposterous CharactersGreat restoration NEGATIVESSpecifically addressing fans of slapstick humor2016-07-2970%Overall ScoreReader Rating: (1 Vote)65%

The third part of Arrow’s Diamond Guys Vol 2 is definitely the funniest, as suggested by the guy in the introduction, who threatens to shoot anyone who does not laugh, suggests.

The film revolves around a mysterious individual named Joe of Spades, who threatens the existence of a criminal syndicate, despite the fact that no one knows who he is. The crime syndicate, that comprises of five kingpins, each one in charge of various “fields” (prostitution, drugs, gamble, etc) decide to hire professional assassins to kill Joe of Spades, after one of their members is gunned down, with a card with the ace of spades lying next to his body. In order to choose ten of them, they use the Assassin’s office, which actually auditions professionals.

Buichi Saito's Danger PaysSTORY68%ACTING75%DIRECTING72%VISUALS74%POSITIVESHilarious parodyGreat comedic actingImpressive finaleNEGATIVESA bit nonsensical script2016-07-2372%Overall ScoreReader Rating: (0 Votes)0%

The second film in Arrow’s Diamond Guys Vol 2 takes a more definite turn towards the comical, being a parody of the crime noir film.

In the film’s intro, it is stated that “danger is where the money is,” and that is actually the main theme of the film, which deals with a case of counterfeiting, revolving around an expert forger and the efforts of a crime syndicate headed by Hijikata and various individuals, to have him working for them. The parody element of the film kicks right in, as these individuals have names like “Glass Headed” Joe (the protagonist), “Slide Rule” Tetsu, and “Dump-Truck” Ken, while the expert forger is comfortably named “The Expert.” The three aforementioned eventually team up, and along with Tomoko, an ex-secretary, skilled in Judo and Aikido,...

Buichi Saito's Tokyo Mighty GuySTORY65%ACTING72%DIRECTING70%VISUALS75%POSITIVESVery quick pace that makes the film easy to watchMany hilarious scenes and linesGreat restorationNEGATIVESThe script's nonsensicallity reveals its ageYou have to love Japanese cinema to watch it2016-07-1871%Overall ScoreReader Rating: (1 Vote)70%

Nikkatsu, the oldest film studio in Japan, inaugurated a star system in the late 1950s, finding talent and contracting them to a series of wild genre pictures. A prominent example of the tendency is “Tokyo Mighty Guy.”

Young Jiro returns to Tokyo after finishing his studies in French cuisine and opens a restaurant in Ginza. However, he stumbles upon many troubles as an ex-prime minister crashes his car in his restaurant, the Yakuza seems to demand money for protection, and Jiro does not seem able to stop helping everyone that comes across his way.

Buichi Saito directs a very entertaining film, which, although focuses on the comic element,...

Take a look @ the June 2016 home video releases from cult movie specialists Arrow Video Us, via Mvd Entertainment Group, including "Nikkatsu Diamond Guys Vol 2 on Blu-ray + DVD, June 14, "Suture" on Blu-ray + DVD, June 21 and "Return Of The Killer Tomatoes" on Blu-ray, June 28:

"Nikkatsu Diamond Guys Vol 2" available June 14, 2016, includes three classic films from directors Buichi Saito ("Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in Peril"), Ko Nakahira ("Crazed Fruit") and Haruyasu Noguchi.

In Saito's "Tokyo Mighty Guy" : "...Akira Kobayashi stars as 'Jiro' , a chef who opens a restaurant in the busy 'Ginza' district. His culinary skills and dashing good looks bring in the women as well as unwanted trouble, while an explosive political scandal builds around his girlfriend's business.

In Nakashira's "Danger Pays", actor Joe Shishido ("Massacre Gun", "Retaliation") stars in a crime caper about counterfeiting: 

"...when one billion yen goes Awol, 'Joe the Ace' (Shishido) spies an opportunity to get rich quick,...

In celebration of Japan’s oldest film studio, Nikkatsu, Arrow Video assembles its first collection of titles reflecting the late 1950s inauguration of a star system contracted for their ‘Diamond Line.’ This trio of features reflects the rising popularity of extravagant genre narratives in the evolving system, and includes obscure titles from master auteurs such as Seijun Suzuki, Toshio Masuda, and Buichi Saito (early titles from Suzuki and Masuda were also part of a notable 2009 Eclipse series set, Nikkatsu Noir).

The pearl of the collection is Suzuki’s Voice without a Shadow, a rare gem from the master director’s early period. One of four films he made in 1958 (another being the early classic Underworld Beauty), it feels rather heavily modeled after various American film noir tropes, but in true Suzuki fashion, much more complicated. If “Beauty” felt like a generous Sam Fuller riff, then “Voice” seems a recalibration of something like Sorry,...

Bloody havoc reigns! Kinji Fukasaku's no-holds-barred vision of ugly violence and uglier politics on the streets of Hiroshima is a five-film Yakuza epic that spans generations. The film amounts to an alternate history of postwar Japan, that puts an end to the glorification of the Yakuza code. The enormous cast includes Bunta Sugawara, Tetsuro Tanba, Sonny Chiba and Jo Shishido. Battles without Honor and Humanity Blu-ray + DVD Arrow Video 1973-74 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 760 min. / Limited Edition Boxed Set Street Date December 8, 2015 / 149.95 Starring Bunta Sugawara, Hiroki Matsukata, Tetsuro Tanba, Kunie Tanaka, Eiko Nakamura, Sonny Chiba, Meiko Kaji, Akira Kobayashi, Tsunehiko Watase, Reiko Ike, Jo Shishido Cinematography Sadaji Yoshida Production Designer Takatoshi Suzuki Original Music Toshiaki Tsushima Written by Koichi Iiboshi, Kazuo Kasahara Directed by Kinji Fukasaku

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

In the 1990s the American Cinematheque was headquartered in various places, but settled for a few years in a large...

Prior to helming a trio of the Meiko Kaji starred Stray Cat Rock series, the fourth and final film in the Female Convict Scorpion series, or a number of violent pink films after Nikkatsu studios slid into the gutter of softcore porno flicks, director Yasuharu Hasebe began his career with a trio of yakuza action quickies featuring budding genre standbys Jô Shishido and Akira Kobayashi. The second and third, 1967’s Massacre Gun and 1968’s Retaliation, respectively, have been lovingly released for the first time on home video by Arrow Video, restoring bit by bit Hasebe’s rather spotty oeuvre by highlighting his knack for stylish economy in his early work.

Essentially a downbeat yakuza film that covers all the basics in warring gangs over territory and reputation, Retaliation is unique in that it also dabbles in enemy bromance and the inevitable overtaking of nature by the unstoppable force of industry.

There are always new corners of cinema history to explore, and one very much worth investigating is the '50s and '60s output of Nikkatsu. The popular Japanese studio unleashed a wave of genre films, many of which are still unknown on this side of the ocean —"Retaliation," which has just arrived for the first time on home video, is ripe for discovery. Directed by Yasuharu Hasebe ("Massacre Gun," "Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter") before he made his name as a sexploitation director, the film stars the great Jo Shishido ("Tokyo Drifter," "Branded to Kill"), Akira Kobayashi and Meiko Kaji. The gritty tale follows a yakuza lieutenant recently released from jail only to find his old boss dying and a rival who wants him dead. Things get up close and personal in this clip in which a knife fight gets bloody. "Retaliation" is on Blu-ray right now, but you better get on it fast.

Stars: Akira Kobayashi, Jô Shishido, Hideaki Nitani, Tamio Kawachi, Eiji Gô, Tatsuya Fuji, Jirô Okazaki, Meiko Kaji, Shôki Fukae, Ryôji Hayama, Kaku Takashina | Written by Yoshihiro Ishimatsu, Keiji Kubota | Directed by Yasuharu Hasebe

There’s something about Japanese gangster movies, whether it be the Stray Cat Rock films or others like Massacre Gun. These movies are getting Arrow Video Blu-ray releases and as I review them I’m beginning to get a taste for the effortlessly cool style of not only the directors but also the actors, especially Jô Shishido. Retaliation is an excellent example of just why I am getting hooked.

Jiro (Akira Kobayashi) an ex-convict is released onto the streets after being in jail to find his gang all but disbanded with only the aging boss hanging in there on his sick-bed. Still loyal Jiro approaches the Hasama family for assistance. Hasama gives Jiro a job, to settle...

Mvd Entertainment Group  furthers the distribution of Arrow Video in North America with a strong schedule of May 2015 cult releases receiving the deluxe treatment in video, audio, supplements and artwork:

"Retaliation" - Limited Edition Dual Format Blu-ray & DVD, available May 12, 2015 is "...a tale of gang warfare with Akira Kobayashi  as a yakuza lieutenant who emerges from jail to find his gang dispersed and his aging boss in his sickbed, with a rival waiting to kill him and a young girl caught in the crossfire..."

This restored High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) (and Standard Definition DVD) presentation, is on Blu-ray for the first time, with original uncompressed mono Pcm audio, newly translated English subtitles, a new interview with star Jô Shishido, an interview with critic, historian Tony Rayns, the film's original theatrical trailer, a gallery featuring rare promotional images, a reversible sleeve with original and newly commissioned artwork by Ian MacEwan, a...

The Twitch curated Tokyo Drifters: 100 Years Of Nikkatsu screening series continues at the Tiff Bell Lightbox this Saturday with a rare screening of Hasebe Yasuharui's Retaliation. An early effort from a director who would go on to shape the pinky violence movement, this one features a young Kaji Meiko (Stray Cat Rock, Lady Snowblood) in a key role!Two years before they collaborated on the immortal Stray Cat Rock series, director Yasuharu Hasebe and soon-to-be-superstar Meiko Kaji teamed up for this potent gangster flick that also stars the great Joe Shishido (Branded to Kill) and Akira Kobayashi, who would shortly thereafter star in Kinji Fukasaku's epic yakuza series Battles Without Honor and Humanity. Emerging from a stint in prison, yakuza lieutenant Sumukawa (Kobayashi) discovers that...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Velvet Bullets and Steel Kisses: Celebrating the Nikkatsu Centennial was a sidebar at this year's New York Film Festival that Dan Sallitt, writing a couple of weeks ago, found "so exciting that it threatens to overshadow the main slate: a retrospective of the Japanese studio Nikkatsu, whose opportunistic shifts of focus always seemed to open doors for some of Japan's most creative filmmakers. Compare film magazine Kinema Junpo's 1999 and 2009 lists of all-time greatest Japanese films to the Lincoln Center series schedule, and count the overlaps." Last year in the Notebook, Dan reviewed one of the 37 films in the series, Tomu Uchida's Earth (1939).

"The sidebar is peppered with nearly impossible to see rediscoveries," notes Steve Dollar at GreenCine Daily: "early silent films like 1927's A Diary of Chuji's Travels and harshly realistic World War II dramas like Mud and Soldiers. Shot on location in China in 1939, the latter film blends...