Eiji Yoshikawa

Best friends Gentaro and Sanpei become fateful enemies when Sanpei steals a secret document revealing the identity of the chosen successor to the...

Struggling to elevate himself from his low caste in 17th century Japan, Miyamoto trains to become a mighty samurai warrior.

After years on the road establishing his reputation as Japan's greatest fencer, Takezo returns to Kyoto. Otsu waits for him, yet he has come not for...

A humble and simple Takezo abandons his life as a knight errant. He's sought as a teacher and vassal by Shogun, Japan's most powerful clan leader....

In this first episode, we are introduced to Takezo, what Musashi used to be before he became the man of legend. His beginning are not exactly...

The remake of Yoshikawa's novel continues with the second installment in which Takezo, soon to be Miyamoto Musashi, emerges from the Himeji Castle...

The fifth and final installment with the build up of the epic battle between Sasaki Kojiro and Miyamoto Musashi. With all the familiar characters...

In the third installment of Yoshikawa's novel Musashi, things continue from the 2nd film at the end of battle, where Miyamoto continues on a mission...

In the sixth and final episode Rentaro Mikuni steals the show as Baiken Shishido, Musashi's nemesis. Mikuni is the nominal villain of the film, but...

In the fourth installment, Musashi's potentially greatest opponent Kojiro jumps in and out of the story at the oddest and most coincidental moments....

Jirokichi the Rat is wanted in Edo for robbing the mansions of the rich. While on the run, he falls for Osen, a girl who has been sold to a brothel...

The film tells about the life of the former vassal of the Ako clan - Fuwa Katsuemon Masatane.

During the era of the third Tokugawa shogun, Iemitsu, to strengthen the shogunate, many daimyo clans that did not align with the central power were...

A 1950 film by director 原研吉.

Aboard a ship connecting Kyoto and Osaka, Osan was pickpocketed by a sham blind biwa player. A man who looked like a merchant retrieved the wallet...

From birth Hideyoshi was a restless, defiant spirit--a child of the poorest of the poor. Cast out of his peasant cottage, he would live by his wits,...

film directed by Tai Katô

Early jidaigeki by Tai Kato

1956 Japanese film, originally released in two parts.

Continuation of the biographical film about the monk Shinran, based on the novel by Eiji Yoshikawa. Shinran, born of the fading aristocratic class,...

The story of Yoshinaka during the tumultuous period of warring related to us in the Heike Monogatari. Close in setting to Kinugasa’s famous...

1942 Japanese movie

A biographical movie about Shinran

In Part I we see the young would-be swordsman setting out to achieve greatness in war, achieving nothing because fighting on the losing side, & then...

Ito Daisuke's wartime retelling of the Miyamoto Musashi story.

A man is brutally murdered and his famed shamisen (a three-stringed musical instrument) called the "Yamabiko" stolen. Prince Kogenta swears to avenge...

Special Forces commander Captain Tadamori returns to Kyoto after successfully defeating the uprising of pirates in the western sea of Japan. But...

From the pen of Yoshikawa Eiji comes this exciting story. The Naruto Strait separates Tokushima from the islands of Awaji and Honshu. On Tokushima...