jidaigeki

In Japan in the year 1600, at the dawn of a century-defining civil war, Lord Yoshii Toranaga is fighting for his life as his enemies on the Council of Regents unite against him, when a ...

Blind traveler Zatoichi is a master swordsman and a masseur with a fondness for gambling on dice games. When he arrives in a village torn apart by warring gangs, he sets out to protect ...

In 1868, after the Bakumatsu war ends, the ex-assassin Kenshin Himura traverses Japan with an inverted sword, to defend the needy without killing.

Before he was a protector, Kenshin was a fearsome assassin known as Battosai. But when he meets gentle Tomoe Yukishiro, a beautiful young woman who carries a huge burden in her heart, ...

Seibei Iguchi leads a difficult life as a low ranking samurai at the turn of the nineteenth century. A widower with a meager income, Seibei struggles to take care of his two daughters ...

Akira Kurosawa's lauded feudal epic presents the tale of a petty thief who is recruited to impersonate Shingen, an aging warlord, in order to avoid attacks by competing clans. When ...

A nameless ronin, or samurai with no master, enters a small village in feudal Japan where two rival businessmen are struggling for control of the local gambling trade. Taking the name ...

Aspiring to an easy job as personal physician to a wealthy family, Noboru Yasumoto is disappointed when his first post after medical school takes him to a small country clinic under the ...

In feudal Japan, during a bloody war between clans, two cowardly and greedy peasants, soldiers of a defeated army, stumble upon a mysterious man who guides them to a fortress hidden in ...

Toshiro Mifune swaggers and snarls to brilliant comic effect in Kurosawa's tightly paced, beautifully composed "Sanjuro." In this companion piece and sequel to "Yojimbo," jaded samurai ...

Manji, a highly skilled samurai, becomes cursed with immortality after a legendary battle. Haunted by the brutal murder of his sister, Manji knows that only fighting evil will regain ...

In 16th century Japan, peasants Genjuro and Tobei sell their earthenware pots to a group of soldiers in a nearby village, in defiance of a local sage's warning against seeking to profit ...

Kenshin has settled into his new life with Kaoru and his other friends when he is approached with a request from the Meiji government. Makoto Shishio, a former assassin like Kenshin, ...

Shishio sets sail in his ironclad ship to bring down the government. In order to stop him, Kenshin trains with his old master to learn his final technique.

While her son, Kichi, is away at war, a woman and her daughter-in-law survive by killing samurai who stray into their swamp, then selling whatever valuables they find. Both are ...

Japan around 1860: popular courtesan Asagiri will be freed soon from her service, yet she cannot imagine any other existence. Until one day at a local festival, Asagiri meets the young ...

Returning to their lord's castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the spirit's prophecy comes true, ...

A bravado period action film set at the end of Japan's feudal era in which a group of unemployed samurai are enlisted to bring down a sadistic lord and prevent him from ascending to the ...

In 1879, Kenshin and his allies face their strongest enemy yet: his former brother-in-law Enishi Yukishiro and his minions, who've vowed their revenge.

With Ran, legendary director Akira Kurosawa reimagines Shakespeare's King Lear as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan. Majestic in scope, the film is Kurosawa's ...

Brimming with action while incisively examining the nature of truth, "Rashomon" is perhaps the finest film ever to investigate the philosophy of justice. Through an ingenious use of ...

When the brutal Boshin War breaks out in Japan, a group of inmates on death row unite to defend a fortress against the Imperial army.

Down-on-his-luck veteran Tsugumo Hanshirō enters the courtyard of the prosperous House of Iyi. Unemployed, and with no family, he hopes to find a place to commit seppuku—and a worthy ...

A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people ...