Masaki Kobayashi's classic 'jidai-geki' samurai drama is set in 17th-century Japan. Tatsuya Nakadai stars as Hanshiro Tsugumo, an aging and disenfranchised samurai warrior who enters the house of a feudal lord asking to commit the act of hara-kiri (ritual suicide) on his land according to the ancient samurai code. On arrival, Hanshiro begins to tell his tragic life story, which is played out in flashback, culminating in Hanshiro's violent revenge upon those whose hypocrisy and authoritarianism robbed him and his family of life, love and happiness.

Cult Japanese thriller directed by and starring Shin'ya Tsukamoto. When Kiriko (Kyôka Suzuki), his girlfriend of ten years, commits suicide by a gunshot wound to the head, Goda (Tsukamoto) goes in search of the reasons behind her death. Owing to Japan's strict laws, Goda knows that for Kiriko to acquire a pistol she would have needed contacts in the criminal underworld. Before long Goda is in the midst of ongoing gang warfare and while questioning Kiriko's death he comes face to face with his own mortality...