It’s Greece, 1974, and a man clambers out of an upper story apartment window in a mad dash to escape the police pursuing him before leaping to his death on the street below. Meanwhile across the street is a travel agent going about his business, trying to sell a vacation package to a foreign couple….
Underworld Beauty [Radiance Films] Blu-ray Review
Miyamoto (Michitarô Mizushima) is fresh from a stint in prison due to a diamond heist. After collecting the hidden diamonds from the heist, he tells his yakuza boss Oyane (Shinsuke Ashida) that the profits from the diamonds are going to his old partner Mihara (Tôru Abe) who was crippled in the heist to get them….
Yokohama BJ Blues [Radiance Films] Blu-ray Review
BJ (Yusaku Matsuda) is a beaten down private detective who lurks in nightclubs singing the blues on the side. Although if you asked him, he’d probably tell you he’s a blues singer who happens to do a little P.I. work as a side hustle. Regardless, BJ finds himself embroiled in a killer case involving the…
Slap the Monster on Page One [Radiance Films] Blu-Ray Review
Giancarlo Bizanti (Gian Maria Volontè) is the editor-in-chief of the fiery Italian newspaper “Il Giornale”. When a teenage girl is found murdered, the far right-leaning owner of the paper works with Bizanti to undermine the police investigation by casting doubt on the main suspect, influencing a key witness and leading a conflicting campaign against a…
Japan Organized Crime Boss [Radiance Films] Blu-Ray Review
At a macro level, Japan Organized Crime Boss follows a yakuza proxy war waged by the Tokyo Alliance who uses the Sakurada family of Yokohama to attack the Hamanaka Family, also of Yokohama, who have aligned themselves with the Danno Organization out of the Kansai region. We follow Tsukamoto (played by the legendary Tsuruta Kôji…
Dogra Magra [Radiance Films] Blu-Ray Review
A man named Kure Ichiro (Yôji Matsuda) wakes up to find himself in a mental institution with no memory of who he is or why he is there. He is told by a Dr. Wakabayashi (Hideo Murota) that Ichiro has killed his fiancée on their wedding day, and his amnesia is caused by his brain’s…
A Man On His Knees [Radiance Films] Blu-ray Review
What would you do if you suddenly and inexplicably found yourself the potential target of a hitman? This is the precise situation that Nino Peralta (Giuliano Gemma), simple husband and father who works at a coffee stand, finds himself in when he is told that he is one of eight targets for elimination by one…
Tattooed Life [Radiance Films] Blu-ray Review
Tetsu (Hideki Takahashi) and Kenji (Kotobuki Hananamoto) are brothers, very different in temperament but bonded by blood. Tetsu is a hardened yakuza hitman who finds himself on the other end of a Yakuza altercation, but is saved by more sensitive and artistic Kenji, leaving Tetsu’s attacker dead. They are both forced to skip town for…
Viva La Muerte! [Radiance] Blu-ray Review
A young boy named Fando watches as his father is executed by firing squad after the Spanish Civil War under the Franco dictatorship. He comes to discover that it was his mother who actually turned his father in due to their conflicting political ideologies. The film follows Fando as his imagination conjures up bizarre and…
Tokijiro: Lone Yakuza [Radiance] Blu-ray Review
Tokijiro: Lone Yakuza, originally appearing as a stage play in the 1920s and being adapted to film several times since then, is the story of a wandering samurai named Tokijiro (Kinnosuke Nakamura) who works for gangsters in exchange for shelter for the night. They give him a bed and food, and he agrees to kill…