Jūzō Itami

A young widow Tanpopo runs a small ramen noodle shop. Gorō, a cowboy-hat-wearing truck driver who happens to drop by her ramen noodle shop, helps her to make the perfect bowl of top ramen.

"It's death, Japanese style, in the rollicking and wistful first feature from maverick writer-director Juzo Itami. In the wake of her lascivious father's sudden passing, a successful actor (Itami's wife and frequent collaborator, Nobuko Miyamoto) and her husband (Tsutomu Yamazaki) leave Tokyo and return to their family house to oversee a traditional funeral. Over the course of three days of mourning that bring illicit escapades in the woods, a surprisingly...

A young woman, trained from childhood as an assassin and hellbent on revenge for her father₂s murder and her mother₂s rape, hacks and slashes her way to gory satisfaction. Rampant with inventive violence and spectacularly choreographed swordplay, the influential cult classic Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance, set in early twentieth century Japan, is bloody, and beautiful.

Japan, 1938. War is looming on the horizon, but the Makioka sisters are far more concerned with their domestic troubles. The sisters live in Osaka, and are well off, traveling together to view the changing of the seasons--cherry blossoms in Kyoto, brilliant leaves in the fall. Tsuruko and Sachiko, the older two, have been married for quite some time. Tradition demands that they marry in order of their birth, but marrying off the shy, conservative...

Collection includes: Pleasures of the Flesh (Etsuraku, 1965, color); Violence at Noon (Hakuchu No Torima, 1966, B & W); Sing a Song of Sex (Nihon Shunka-Ko, 1967, color); Japanese Summer: Double Suicide (Muri Shin Ju: Nihon No Natsu, 1967, B & W); and Three Resurrected Drunkards (Kaette Kita Yopparai, 1968, color).