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An influence on the likes of Takashi Miike and Yoshiaki Kawajiri, director Hideo Gosha has often gone overlooked in the pantheon of Japanese directors, despite his samurai features Sword of the Beast and Three Outlaw Samurai getting the Criterion treatment. Now is a great time to discover his filmography as his 1966 crime drama Cash Calls Hell has been restored and is arriving at the end of the month. Led by legendary actor Tatsuya Nakadai, we’re pleased to exclusively premiere the new trailer ahead of Film Movement’s digital release beginning November 29.

Here’s the synopsis: “Facing the final days of his prison sentence for vehicular manslaughter, Oida (Tatsuya Nakadai) dreads reentering society as a ruined man with no future prospects. Sensing his street smarts, Oida’s cellmate promises him a pile of loot if he tracks down and kills three men whose names are on a list. Reluctantly accepting the task,...

“Goyokin,” which translates to “Official God,” is perhaps Hideo Gosha's finest film. Written by Gosha and Kei Tasaka, many of the director's regular players, including Tatsuya Nakadai and Tetsuro Tamba, star here. Toshiro Mifune was initially cast as the character Samon Fujimaki. However, production difficulties resulted in him being replaced by Kinnosuke Nakamura. “Goyokin” was a critical and financial hit upon release and remains a highly regarded piece of Japanese cinema.

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In snowy feudal Japan, Sado Island is home to gold mines that provide riches offered to the Tokugawa clan via ship delivery, which can be jeopardized due to poor weather on the waters. Meanwhile, a reclusive samurai named Magobei Wakizaka wanders, clearly troubled by something. The ronin finds himself the target of an assassination attempt, which he survives. He learns this attack was orchestrated by his former clan master,...

(Welcome to The Movies That Made "Star Wars," a series where we explore the films and television properties that inspired George Lucas' iconic universe. In this edition: The classic jidaigeki film "Three Outlaw Samurai.")

As the first feature film from the legendary Japanese filmmaker Hideo Gosha, "Three Outlaw Samurai," holds a special place in the pantheon of Japanese films. It tells the story of three samurai who battle corruption and balance their honor and obedience to the system that produced them with doing what's actually right — something that feels almost radical in this style of filmmaking. The movie's stars — Tetsurô Tanba, Isamu Nagato, and Mikijirô Hira as the titular samurai — were reprising their roles from a television show with the same name that had started the year before. According to the essay by Bilge Eberi that accompanies the Criterion Collection's excellent Blu-ray transfer of the film, the original show seems lost to time.

One of the best-kept secrets of Japanese genre filmmaking in the 1960s and ’70s, Hideo Gosha began his studio career in 1964 and quickly emerged as a peerless specialist in chambara (samurai) films. A few years later, a contemporary twist on the chambara formula appeared in the form of the yakuza film, and Gosha proved equally adept with modern dress action. Whether the weapons of choice were swords or snub-nose revolvers, few could match Gosha at his best for economic storytelling and sheer velocity—and these are three of his very best, arriving on two Blu-rays for the very first time in North America, featuring 2K digitally restored films from original broadcast elements.

Samurai Wolf 1 & 2 is available on Blu-ray and Digital on May 16.

Enter for your chance to win a Blu-ray of Samurai Wolf 1 & 2, courtesy of Film Movement. Three (3) winners will be selected at random.

Here’s how to enter:

Step 1: Follow us on Facebook,...

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,...

After the positive reception of the first “Samurai Wolf”, fans of the “Furious Wolf” did not have to wait long for the sequel, which was released just one year after the first feature, again starring Isao Natsuyagi as the titular hero and with Hideo Gosha as director. While the two movies about the wandering ronin may not be the director’s most commercially successful works at the time, perhaps due to the over-saturation of the market at that point in the 1960s, but there are most certainly in the same league as the “Zatoichi”-series or the tales of “Lone Wolf and Cub”. However, as with many sequels within the chanbara genre, Gosha not only built this new feature on the qualities of its predecessor, but also aimed to tell a new story including such themes as corruption, greed and betrayal, which is much more complex and contains some quite interesting characters.

In the history of Japanese cinema, the period drama, whether a chambara or jidaigeki, is a genre which many filmmakers want to explore for themselves at least once during their career, with many of them even building their bodies of work on just these types of features. While many cite directors such as Akira Kurosawa and Masaki Kobayashi as being the most important examples, cinephiles and people familiar with Japanese culture know the genre is far more varied and has a lot more names to offer. One of those directors has to be Hideo Gosha, who already made a strong impression at the beginning of his career with two lasting masterpieces of the genre, “Three Outlaw Samurai” and “Sword of the Beast”. In the years to come, he would continue making strong entries within the samurai genre, such as his two “Samurai Wolf”-movies, both starring actor Isao Natsuyagi as a ronin named Kiba,...

In the 1960s, when the Japanese film industry was at the beginning of a fundamental change structure-wise and regarding the stories out on screen, so were the traditional themes, characters and virtues represented by them. However, even the most famous figure of the samurai-genre, Akira Kurosawa, nearly always kept a certain skepticism towards the warrior code, the bushido, and the way it was put into practice, making films such as “Seven Samurai” or “Rashomon” also stories about human weakness and treachery as they are studies about the nature of the bushido, who it kept those with power in their place. Nevertheless, it was not until the 1960s when the tone and the design of the genre would fundamentally change, a reflection of the European version of the western in some way, with directors such as Hideo Gosha delivering their brand of chambara and yakuza films with works like “Three Outlaw Samurai”. Interestingly,...

In the 1960s, when the Japanese film industry was at the beginning of a fundamental change structure-wise and regarding the stories out on screen, so were the traditional themes, characters and virtues represented by them. However, even the most famous figure of the samurai-genre, Akira Kurosawa, nearly always kept a certain skepticism towards the warrior code, the bushido, and the way it was put into practice, making films such as “Seven Samurai” or “Rashomon” also stories about human weakness and treachery as they are studies about the nature of the bushido, who it kept those with power in their place. Nevertheless, it was not until the 1960s when the tone and the design of the genre would fundamentally change, a reflection of the European version of the western in some way, with directors such as Hideo Gosha delivering their brand of chambara and yakuza films with works like “Three Outlaw Samurai”. Interestingly,...

Tatsuya Nakadai, one of Japan's greatest actors who worked with several of the country's most notable filmmakers, is set to receive the lifetime achievement award at the Tokyo International Film Festival.

An icon of Japanese cinema, Nakadai's seven-decade-long career has seen him star in films that have become part of the cultural fabric in Japan and proved hugely influential internationally.

Nakadai worked with several of Japan's best-ever filmmakers, including Hiroshi Teshigahara (The Face of Another), Mikio Naruse (When a Woman Ascends the Stairs), Kihachi Okamoto (Kill! and The Sword of Doom), Hideo Gosha (Goyokin), Shirō ...

Tatsuya Nakadai, one of Japan's greatest actors who worked with several of the country's most notable filmmakers, is set to receive the lifetime achievement award at the Tokyo International Film Festival.

An icon of Japanese cinema, Nakadai's seven-decade-long career has seen him star in films that have become part of the cultural fabric in Japan and proved hugely influential internationally.

Nakadai worked with several of Japan's best-ever filmmakers, including Hiroshi Teshigahara (The Face of Another), Mikio Naruse (When a Woman Ascends the Stairs), Kihachi Okamoto (Kill! and The Sword of Doom), Hideo Gosha (Goyokin), Shirō ...

Author: Jon Lyus

Yesterday Lucasfilm announced the title of Star Wars Episode VIII as The Last Jedi. The internet instantly wound itself into a whirlwind of speculation about what bearing the title would have on the as-yet-unknown plot of the film. So hungry are we now for any tidbits of information that three simple words are be debated and amplified to extraordinary proportions. More of that coming up later.

Moments following the announcement the director tweeted this:

Excited (and relieved) to finally share this! https://t.co/QKzA21tuog

— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) January 23, 2017

Not as excited as the legion of Star Wars fans, buoyed by a stellar turn from Gareth Edwards’ Rogue One both critically and commercially, to have a great new title. The Force Awakens was a turning point for the saga. It was a search for Luke Skywalker, and the final moments revealed that the last jedi (as...

While the film that had the most direct influence on the forthcoming Star Wars: Episode VIII is certainly J.J. Abrams‘ The Force Awakens, director Rian Johnson has shared some key inspiration when it comes to the tone and themes of his upcoming sci-fi sequel. While he previously stated two inspirations for the Star Wars saga’s next installment, that list has expanded, thanks his talk at Star Wars Celebration Europe.

The list includes six titles that Johnson encouraged the story group of Lucasfilm to watch before filming began, a thematic lookbook that features a mixture of beloved classics such as The Bridge on the River Kwai and lesser-known gems such as 1943’s Sahara. However, Twelve O’Clock High still stands as Johnson’s top pick for most influential. The most recent film on this list is from 1960, suggesting Johnson’s cinematic influences are less peer-based than deeply embedded in a more classical style.

David’s Quick Take for the tl;dr Media Consumer:

Kill! is an entertaining and unusual take on the samurai/swordplay genre that plays for laughs many of the conventional tropes and set-ups common in the classic films from that tradition. I was fascinated observing how many of the fighting techniques, interpersonal conflicts, man vs. world showdowns and dramatic battle scenes that impact viewers with awe-inspiring tension can become a showcase of hilarity with just a slight exaggeration of tone, body language or facial expression (or simply cranking the fans that stir up dust clouds an extra notch or two.) Barking dialog that would come across as solemn and severe in more straightforward, traditional chanbara epics conveys much of the same surface meaning in advancing the story along in Kill! but also ends up generating a nice side helping of mirth in the process. Though at least one review considers...

Takashi Miike‘s The Happiness of the Katakuris begins with a woman probing a freshly delivered bowl of soup only to fish out a miniature angel/gargoyle/teletubby? whose presence seems to instigate the onscreen conversion of the world into claymation before tearing out the poor woman’s uvula and tossing it into the air to float away like a heart-shaped balloon. This is a film that, even in an oeuvre that includes works as disparate as gross out shocker Visitor Q and the kid friendly The Great Yokai War, is pure unpredictable insanity that baffles as much as it entertains. Essentially a horror comedy musical, Miike’s genre mashing farce is loosely based on Kim Jee-woon’s The Quiet Family, in which a family owns a remotely located bed and breakfast whose customers always happen to die during their stay, yet takes that simple premise to its outermost extremes in the silliest of ways.

Fandor, the premiere streaming service for independent, classic and critically-acclaimed films, shorts and documentaries, in a partnership with the Criterion Collection and Hulu Plus, is currently home to a rotation of uniquely curated bundles of Criterion films available to watch instantly via desktop, set top and mobile devices.

Every Tuesday, Fandor rolls out a new collection of films that share a common theme, genre, time period, film style, etc. These films are available on the site for 12 days before being replaced by a fresh new batch of featured Criterion masterpieces.

Fandor’S Criterion Picks For March

March 17-28: The Sixteenth Century

Carnival in Flanders(1935, Director Jacques Feyder): A small village in Flanders puts on a carnival to avoid the brutal consequences of the Spanish occupation. Ivan the Terrible(1944, DirectorSergei Eisenstein): As Ivan ascends to lead Russia, the Boyars are determined to disrupt his rule. Ivan’s relationship...

Tom Laughlin: ‘Billy Jack’ movie franchise comes to an end; U.S. government, Hollywood studios blamed (See previous post: “‘Billy Jack’: Tom Laughlin Revolutionized Film Distribution Sytem.”) In 1975, Tom Laughlin’s self-produced Western The Master Gunfighter — a remake of Hideo Gosha’s samurai actioner Goyokin, co-starring Ron O’Neal and Barbara Carrera — bombed at the box office after opening at more than 1,000 locations. Laughlin reportedly had spent $3.5 million to market the $3.5 million production, having hired John Rubel, assistant secretary of defense under Robert McNamara, to plan the film’s distribution tactics. Financially depleted and embroiled in more lawsuits against Warner Bros., Laughlin embarked on the Billy Jack series’ fourth — and, as it turned out — final film, Billy Jack Goes to Washington. A 1977 Frank Capra Jr.-produced reboot of Frank Capra’s 1939 classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Laughlin’s final directing effort was barely seen even in its drastically edited form.

Cinema is a kind of uber-art form that’s made up of a multitude of other forms of art including writing, directing, acting, drawing, design, photography and fashion. As such, film is, as all cinema aficionados know, a highly collaborative venture.

One of the most consistently fascinating collaborations in cinema is that of the director and actor.

This article will examine some of the great director & actor teams. It’s important to note that this piece is not intended as a film history survey detailing all the generally revered collaborations.

There is a wealth of information and study available on such duos as John Ford & John Wayne, Howard Hawks & John Wayne, Elia Kazan & Marlon Brando, Akira Kurosawa & Toshiro Mifune, Alfred Hitchcock & James Stewart, Ingmar Bergman & Max Von Sydow, Federico Fellini & Giulietta Masina/Marcello Mastroianni, Billy Wilder & Jack Lemmon, Francis Ford Coppola & Al Pacino, Woody Allen & Diane Keaton, Martin Scorsese & Robert DeNiro...

It was released almost two months ago, but I finally got around to savoring Criterion's Blu-ray restoration of Hiroshi Inagaki's The Samurai Trilogy over the last couple of weeks. I've made mention of it in a few posts here and there, but i wanted to make a special point to give it it's own space considering the massive upgrade we are talking about here over the previously released 2004 DVD editions. I can't remember how long ago it was that I bought the DVD editions, but I bought them blind without having seen any of the three films -- Musashi Miyamoto (winner of the 1955 Best Foreign Language Oscar), Duel at Ichijoji Temple and Duel at Ganryu Island -- but watching them those years ago I remember enjoying the films, but not at all moved by the imagery. The DVD presentations were hardly impressive and Criterion's packaging doesn't suggest they were remastered in any way.

Top Ten TV to Film Adaptations This weekend 21 Jump Street scored the top spot at the weekend box-office and Jonah Hill and Michael Bacall are busy preparing a sequel and after posting my review someone on Twitter told me one of the reasons they liked it was because it was a huge improvement compared to most TV-to-film adaptations. While I enjoyed it, I wasn't as excited over it as some people seem to be and I never even thought to compare it to other TV-to-film adaptations, especially considering a film needs to stand on its own, whether it's simply better than other films that tried to make the leap from the small screen to the silver screen is irrelevant. But it did get me to thinking... what are the best TV-to-film adaptations? So I started the process of compiling a list and while 21 Jump Street is a good flick, it...

Hideo Gosha’s Three Outlaw Samurai started as a television serial before Gosha took his chance as a filmmaker and adapted his show into a prequel of sorts. The film features Tetsuro Tanba, Isamu Nagato, and Mikijiro Hira reprising their roles from the show as three samurai who band together. The film reveals their motives for doing so and casts them in varying degrees along the scale of traditional heroism. Tanba, as the story’s main character, is quick to identify the social issue that has led a group of desperate farmers to rebel against the local lord, whereas his two counterparts need a bit more persuading. All of this occurs on land controlled by a dishonest bureaucrat whom, without really thinking of whether what the farmers has done is right or wrong, does whatever he must to rid himself of the problem and revert the matter to the status quo.

Chicago – Hideo Gosha’s spectacularly entertaining 1964 feature directorial debut, “Three Outlaw Samurai,” is a samurai film for moviegoers who aren’t necessarily fans of the samurai genre. At a running time of 93 minutes, the picture is briskly paced and packed with suspenseful set-pieces, while centering its narrative on a partnership between three men who could easily be dubbed, “Good,” “Bad” and “Ugly.”

Though the film essentially functions as a prequel to Gosha’s Japanese television show of the same name, moviegoers won’t need any familiarity with the material to get immediately caught up in the action. Tadashi Sakai’s in-your-face cinematography often slants to a diagonal angle while closing in on the agonized faces of foes as they fight to the death. When the sword meets flesh, Gosha doesn’t spare the audience of the blood that follows.

Blu-ray Rating: 4.0/5.0

Tetsurô Tamba, a veteran actor memorably featured in Masaki Kobayashi’s classic,...

DVD Playhouse—February 2012

By Allen Gardner

To Kill A Mockingbird 50th Anniversary Edition (Universal) Robert Mulligan’s film of Harper Lee’s landmark novel pits a liberal-minded lawyer (Gregory Peck) against a small Southern town’s racism when defending a black man (Brock Peters) on trumped-up rape charges. One of the 1960s’ first landmark films, a truly stirring human drama that hits all the right notes and isn’t dated a bit. Robert Duvall makes his screen debut (sans dialogue) as the enigmatic Boo Radley. DVD and Blu-ray double edition. Bonuses: Two feature-length documentaries: Fearful Symmetry and A Conversation with Gregory Peck; Featurettes; Excerpts and film clips from Gregory Peck’s Oscar acceptance speech and AFI Lifetime Achievement Award; Commentary by Mulligan and producer Alan J. Pakula; Trailer. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS 2.0 mono.

Outrage: Way Of The Yakuza (Magnolia) After a brief hiatus from his signature oeuvre of Japanese gangster flicks,...

Happy Valentine's Day! Sadly, there aren't too many romantic movies hitting DVD or Blu-ray today, but I suppose anything with Johnny Depp always makes for a perfect date flick... even if he happens to be playing an alcoholic. The Rum Diary is really the only major release of the week, with most of the other selections being indie and foreign films including Take Shelter starring Michael Shannon, Jose Padilha's Elite Squad: The Enemy Within and The Human Centipede II: Full Sequence. Criterion is also putting out Lena Dunham's Tiny Furniture and Hideo Gosha's Three Outlaw Samurai, and then there are a couple of acclaimed documentaries in The Interrupters and Urbanized. We'd also be remiss if we did not mention 50 Cent's cancer drama All Things Fall Apart... did someone say Oscar snub? What will you be buying or renting this week? Check out the list of new releases after the jump.

Three Outlaw Samurai (Criterion Collection) I just watched this last night and enjoyed it quite a bit, but for anyone that reads this site often you will frequently see me complimenting samurai features. This one is a bit of a Criterion rarity in that it is feature free outside of the trailer and one essay, but the pricing does reflect that fact as Amazon has the Blu-ray listed at $19.99.

Prior to seeing this film I had never seen anything from director Hideo Gosha, but the storytelling here makes me want to see more. Three Outlaw Samurai follows the story of a wandering ronin who happens upon a situation where a trio of peasants have kidnapped the daughter of a tyrannical magistrate in an attempt to have their demands heard and to stop the oppression that has befallen eight local villages. The situation escalates when the magistrate fights back and two other samurai,...

Three Outlaw Samurai Directed by Hideo Gosha Written by Kelichi Abe, Eizaburo Shiba, and Hideo Gosha Starring Tetsuro Tamba, Isamu Nagato, Mikijiro Hira, and Mikyuki Kuwano Hideo Gosha's 'Three Outlaw Samurai' is a competently told samurai story that never really reaches levels of brilliance, but manages to remain consistently intriguing and entertaining. Three samurais become caught up in a microscopic class-war uprising that plays out as part siege film and part revenge film. The film begins as a group of peasant men take the magistrate's daughter hostage in an attempt to force a change in the treatment of local farmers. One of the men has written A wandering Ronin named Sakon Shiba (Tetsuro Tamba) happens upon the disturbance and decides to bunk within the hut of the peasants, curious to see what transpires. The magistrate hires his own samurai to resolve the issue, only to find one of the two,...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Feb. 14, 2012

Price: DVD $19.99, Blu-ray $29.99

Studio: Criterion

Swords slash in the Japanese action-drama Three Outlaw Samurai.

Three Outlaw Samurai, the first film by legendary Japanese filmmaker Hideo Gosha (Sword of the Beast) is among the most canonized chambara (sword-fighting) films.

An origin-story offshoot of a Japanese television series phenomenon of the same name, the 1964 action-drama movie tells of a wandering, seen-it-all ronin (Tetsuro Tamba) who becomes entangled in the dangerous business of two other samurai (Isamu Nagato and Mikijiro Hira) who’ve been hired to execute a band of peasants who have kidnapped the daughter of a corrupt magistrate.

A tight story filled out with well-mounted action sequences, this classic revenge tale is presented in Japanese with English subtitles.

The Criterion Blu-ray and DVD doesn’t have a heap of special features like most of the supplier’s releases, but the movie did get a high-definition digital...

Back in September, we told you that there was a pretty good chance that Criterion would be releasing some classic Hideo Gosha samurai films in the near future and their recent February release scheduled proved that out. On February 14th, Gosha's debut feature Three Outlaw Samurai will hit shelves on DVD and Blu-ray. Though uncharacteristically sparse on special features, with only a trailer and an essay in a booklet, the movie alone is well worth the price of admission, which itself is somewhat discounted thanks to the lack of special features. What better way to tell someone you love them on Valentine's Day than the gift of this fantastic chanbara film? We can think of none.

[Editor's Note: Please welcome our newest contributor, Jordan Gass-Poore'!]

Here's the latest in Austin film news:

On the heels of its world premiere, the 10th anniversary reimagining of Richard Linklater's cult classic Slacker, Slacker 2011, joins Harris County native Robbie Pickering's Natural Selection and three other films at the 2011 Lone Star International Film Festival Nov. 9-13 in Fort Worth. Natural Selection, which premiered at SXSW 2011, is about a woman (Rachael Harris) who goes in search of her recently deceased husband's eldest biological son. Read Debbie Cerda's SXSW review for more details.Austin filmmaker Richard Linklater is set to direct the 1970s Karl Rove biopic, College Republicans. Paul Dano (Little Miss Sunshine) will star as a young Rove as he navigates his way to the top of the College Republican National Committee, under the guidance of Lee Atwater. According to TheWrap, filming begins in November in Austin. Fantastic Fest badgeholders can stop by the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz at 7 pm tonight (Sept.

No official announcement concerning physical releases has been made as of yet, but Criterion and Janus films are going to be screening two of director Hideo Gosha's best samurai films, Three Outlaw Samurai and Bandits Vs. Samurai Squadron at this year's Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas in a couple weeks. According to the Fantastic Fest blog, both films will be free for Ff pass holders. In addition to that, Criterion's Hulu channel includes a large number of films that have not yet been released physically, including two other Gosha samurai films, Death Shadows and Hunter In The Dark, recently added. Again, no announcement about a physical release of any of these films has been made, but we think it's a safe bet that it's only a matter of time now.

This one is coming up late, due to Criterion jam packing a ton of releases on Friday, right while I was finishing up the original post. I think they wanted to mess with me, which is very funny. But being the premier (and only) site that gives you the best coverage of Hulu Plus movies, I don’t mind taking the time at all. I’m hoping it has nothing to do with the recent shake-up going on that Josh just reported on the other day (here), and with Hulu wanting to be bought because of financial problems stemming from multiple sources, this makes one wonder what’s going to happen to the Criterion Collection and their deal with Hulu. I’m crossing my fingers that whoever buys the service, be it Amazon, Google or Yahoo (who is the frontrunner), it doesn’t ruin the deal in place for Criterion and its films.

There are Tons of new releases this past week, and as my co-host and friend Travis George said, it was going to be a hell of a time to write these up for all of you people out there who want to know about Criterion’s blossoming Hulu Plus page. And as usual, I’m elated to tell you all about these films, especially if you want to join up to the service, which helps us keep this weekly article series going. I mean, come on, there’s an Ingmar Bergman film that’s not in the collection yet! More on that at the end of the article. So let’s get right to it then.

The epic film The Human Condition (1959) has been put up, separated into three videos. Parts 1 & 2, Parts 3 & 4 and Parts 5 & 6 are there for your ease of watching, so if you have 574 minutes to kill watching the...

The Japanese director explains why he has returned to the chanbara samurai films of his youth for his new film 13 Assassins

It was two years ago, when I was watching the classic 1963 samurai film 13 Assassins, that I was struck by the sheer power and energy the Japanese film industry possessed in its heyday. But I also immediately felt sad, because we have lost the ability to make films like that. I wanted to resurrect this creative spirit. That's why I decided to do a remake.

I was only three years old when the original came out. It's popular among samurai movie fans – a legendary film for my father's generation, among the many fine chanbara (samurai films) made at the time. Most of all, I love the Zatoichi series about the blind swordsman, especially the first one, from 1962. It's a masterpiece. Then there are the films of Hideo Gosha: Kumokiri Nizaemon (Bandits vs Samurai Squad,...

The 2010 edition of the Sitges International Film Festival has just announced their next wave of programming, a wave anchored by a number of big names - none of them bigger than John Carpenter. Here's the full announcement.

Sitges 2010 - International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia confirms new films in the Festival´s Official Selection.

John Carpenter's latest film, The Ward, joins the Sitges 2010 Official Selection in its European premiere. Carpenter is back with a supernatural horror thriller set in a psychiatric hospital and starring Amber Heard, the new muse of fantastic cinema.

Two of the new incorporations are Spanish productions; Secuestrados (Kidnapped), European premiere, and Carne de Neón (Neon Flesh), world premiere. The first explains, in real time, the terrifying nightmare of a family held hostage in their home by a group of psychopaths. Miguel Ángel Vivas, renowned short film director, makes his second feature-length movie produced by the...

Nimród Antal is a B-film classicist whose sensibilties belong to a time before pervasive special effects and whose skills have little to do with "delivering the goods" and a lot to do with bluntly, crisply delineating characters, actions, relationships and group dynamics. A real metteur en scène, an arranger of bodies and eyelines, a kindred spirit to Neil Marshall, Michael J. Bassett and Bill Duke (all three of whom were considered as directors for this movie) but more formally rigid, he prefers not to film space, but the distances at which people stand or sit together (bunched up like a fist, or, more commonly, spread out like five splayed fingers). As modern multiplex fare, Predators probably comes off as baffling: deliberate, extremely careful about its framings and the placement of actors within them, generous towards its ensemble cast and sparing with its star, with a near-total lack of showmanship or...

AnimEigo has released a new Region 1 DVD of Hideo Gosha's Onimasa - A Japanese Godfather (Kiryûin Hanako no shôgai). The English title of Gosha's film, which was released in 1982 by Toei Studios, is an obvious attempt to invoke a certain set of works by Francis Ford Coppola. Onimasa has virtually nothing in common with those Mafia masterpieces. In truth, the film is a bloody epic drama that laces its story of an early 20th century Yakuza leader with a heavy dose of contemporary sleaze.

Tatsuya Nakadai plays Masagoro Kiryuin (aka Onimasa), who is the egotistical head of a small-time Yakuza gang. Onimasa's chivalrous self-image is contradicted by his criminal activities, and his desire to sleep with most any woman who isn't his wife (Shima Iwashita). One fateful day, Onimasa pays a visit to the Shirai home in order to adopt some children. He picks Hiraku and his sister Matsue...

Looks like Animeigo is going to be releasing Hideo Gosha's 1982 yakuza drama Onimasa on R1 DVD next year. No word yet on what special features might be available (and their website seems to be down as of this writing), but all you really need to know is that the film was directed by Gosha, stars Tatsuya Nakadai as a gangster who chooses justice over loyalty to his bosses (one of whom is played by Tetsuro Tamba) and it ends with a massive, bloody battle. The film also stars Shima Iwashita and Masako Natsume and was the official Japanese entry for the best foreign language film Academy Award that year.