Kill or Be Killed

The Pinkie

Since they were both five, Ryosuke has been stalked by Momoko - the ugliest girl in the village. Her love for Ryosuke is so boundless that she has her face surgically altered to suit his taste - but still he wants nothing to do with her. Ryosuke goes in for fleeting romance - for example, with the girlfriend of a gangster boss. But when he finds out about their affair, he has Ryosuke's little finger hacked off. Magically, the finger falls into Momoko's hands, and she uses it to clone Ryosuke, so she can finally have him (or almost him) for herself. And this is just the first five minutes of Lisa Takeba's short-but-powerful feature debut. Just like in her previous short films, the director - who cut her teeth in the advertising world and as the writer of a video game - throws a lot of genres and techniques into the mix: from science fiction to gangster films, from hospital eroticism to animation. Hectic and absurd, but with its heart in the right place. © IFFR

Dolls

Dolls takes puppeteering as its overriding motif, which relates thematically to the action provided by the live characters. Chief among those tales is the story of Matsumoto and Sawako, a young couple whose relationship is about to be broken apart by the former's parents, who have insisted their son take part in an arranged marriage to his boss' daughter.

The Great Okinawa Yakuza War

Chiba, looking gnarly, and acting as animalistic as ever, stars alongside Matsukata as violent gangsters battling their way through fight after bloody fight with rival yakuza on the streets of Okinawa.

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Jin gets kicked out of the Ranko's apartment and uses his gigolo skills to find a place to stay for the night. He meets an absolutely gorgeous hostess club girl and she offers a deal: if Jin "finishes" first, he becomes her kept man. Jin wants to be taken care of, but his pride won’t let him lose like that. In the end, though, he’s completely defeated. Now, while his new "owner" keeps Jin around, she’s also being pursued by two men: Toyama, a brainy yakuza, and Oba, the man who sold her to a brothel. As Jin watches the situation unfold, he ends up caught in a dangerous incident far beyond his expectations!

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Urged to quit the gigolo life, Jin sets out to prove he’s still got it. But his pride gets him into increasingly risky situations, including a disastrously public tryst. While fleeing a group of Yokohama punks, he hides in a car and meets Akiko, a fierce, beautiful woman who immediately becomes his new obsession. There’s just one problem: Akiko is the leader of a rival biker gang. And when Jin seduces the girlfriend of the opposing gang’s boss, he becomes the target of a dangerous vendetta. To make things worse... Ranko is kidnapped!

Sonatine

Murakawa, an aging Tokyo yakuza tiring of gangster life, is sent by his boss to Okinawa along with a few of his henchmen to help end a gang war, supposedly as mediators between two warring clans. He finds that the dispute between the clans is insignificant and whilst wondering why he was sent to Okinawa at all, his group is attacked in an ambush. The survivors flee and make a decision to lay low at the beach while they await further instructions.

Black Rain

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, they get deeper and deeper into the Japanese Mafia scene and they have to learn that they can only win by playing the game—the Japanese way.

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The Haozakura-kai continues to relentlessly tail Jin every day, but now, a yakuza from the Enshin-gumi, Mizuno Tetsuo, appears. Just as they share a cup of sake as blood brothers, an assassin from the Tendo-gumi attacks and kills Mizuno, leaving behind his only sister, Rei. This is where Jin's days of agony begins, entrusted with Rei.

Japan's Most Chivalrous

Fireworks

Beleaguered police detective Nishi takes desperate measures to try and set things right in a world gone wrong. With his wife suffering from leukemia and his business partner paralyzed from a brutal gangster attack, Nishi borrows from a yakuza loan shark and then robs a bank to clear his debt.

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One day, Shimoda of the Minato Shinkai gang, appears before Jin. He begs him to buy out his childhood friend, who works at a soapland, on his behalf. Although Jin refuses on the spot, Shimoda's unnatural behavior bothers Jin. Just then, a shooting happens involving the boss of the Hongo-gumi, which is in conflict with the Minato Shinkai. The gruesome image of the gunman, Shimoda, who was shot dead, is shown on television, along with an outline of the incident. However, behind this seemingly simple incident, an unexpected truth is hidden...