- published: 04 Mar 2016
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Akagi (アカギ?) is a mahjong centric Japanese manga, written by Nobuyuki Fukumoto and first published in 1992. It is featured in the weekly magazine Modern Mahjong, and is a prequel to the author's previous work Ten, in which Akagi's titular character also appears. Due to its popularity, the manga has been adopted into two live action movies (released in 1995 and 1997), and a 26 episode anime series which aired in Japan in the fall of 2005.
The story revolves around the Mahjong gambling exploits of Shigeru Akagi. After a death-defying game of chicken one evening in 1958, Akagi nonchalantly enters a Yakuza Mahjong parlor to shake the cops' trail. Even unfamiliar with the rules of Mahjong, his gambling intuition is enough to save a small time gambler, Nangou, and grant him a seat at the gambling table. As the night progresses, the stakes are raised both within the game and for Akagi, who is under the suspicion of local police. However, Akagi overcomes the situation with his tactics, defiant of both life and chance. When he leaves the gambling house, no one present is in doubt of his genius.
Actors: Atsurô Watabe (actor), Tatsuya Fujiwara (actor), Masaki Okada (actor), Sei Ashina (actress), Mirai Shida (actress), Masataka Kubota (actor), Hiroki Miyake (actor), Bin Konno (writer),
Genres: Thriller,Actors: Chihiro Kameyama (producer), Yukijirô Hotaru (actor), Shin'ichi Tsutsumi (actor), Kei Yamamoto (actor), Keisuke Horibe (actor), Teruyuki Kagawa (actor), Takeshi Ôbayashi (actor), Yôko Maki (actress), Tracey Grimes (miscellaneous crew), Yûgo Kanno (composer), Jun'ichi Okada (actor), Julie K. Fujishima (producer), Takashi Ishihara (producer), Daisuke Sekiguchi (producer), Yû Kamio (actor),
Genres: Drama,Actors: Joe Ma (director), Simon Yam (actor), Wai Chiu Chung (editor), Miki Mizuno (actress), Suet Lam (actor), Ryo Ishibashi (actor), Joe Ma (writer), Sam Lee (actor), Siu-Lung Leung (actor), Jun'ichi Matsushita (producer), Tooru Shinohara (writer), Tôji Katô (producer), Otto Wong (actor), Wai-Ming Pang (actor), Emme Wong (actress),
Plot: A ruthless pack of thugs force mild-mannered, caught-in-the-middle-of-something-bigger Nami to murder her fiance's sister, decidedly ruining her pending marriage and landing the poor girl in the most brutal women's prison ever seen. Inside the hellblocks, she decides to stop being a victim at all costs, and ends up becoming stronger and even more vicious than the craziest inmates in the pen. She eventually escapes in a most unusual way, gets valuable fight training from a mysterious mountain man and returns to the streets in order to make the thugs who ruined her life pay. By this time, Nami prefers to go by the name of Sasori (translation: Scorpion).
Keywords: based-on-manga, fighting, one-word-title, remake, revenge, women-in-prisonActors: Hiroshi Yamamoto (actor), Nagisa Katahira (actress), Hôka Kinoshita (actor), Kyûsaku Shimada (actor), Shôsuke Tanihara (actor), Noriko Eguchi (actress), Teruyuki Kagawa (actor), Akira Emoto (actor), Hirotarô Honda (actor), Hideo Sakaki (actor), Yôji Tanaka (actor), Masahiro Kômoto (actor), Kankurô Kudô (actor), Tetsu Watanabe (actor), Miki Nakatani (actress),
Plot: Shou's father Norio finds his son in a rather meaningless existence in Tokyo dominated by alcohol and porn videos. Having left home two years earlier to pursue life as a musician, Shou has left his band and his girlfriend has left him. His father asks a favor, that Shou clean out the apartment of his aunt Matsuko, who he says led a meaningless life until her murder at the age of 53. The apartment is filled with garbage bags and is even more unkempt than his apartment has become, and he becomes intrigued with his aunt as details of her life are supplied by a tattooed neighbor and others. Her feelings of neglect by her father Tsunehiro, who favored her chronically ill younger sister, Kumi, translated into becoming a dutiful junior high school teacher devoted to her students until being forced to resign after being blamed for the theft of some money by one of them. Leaving her family due to the disgrace, she had a series of affairs with lovers who physically abused her and did a stint as a massage parlor girl due to her beauty. After her pimp lover dumped her and gave her share of earnings to his new lover, they argued and after killing him she left by train and contemplated suicide. Dissuaded by a lonely barber, she happily set out to build a quiet life with him until the police came to charge her with murder. Upon her release from prison she silently slipped away after finding that the barber had started a new family. Becoming a "Yakusa Girl" she rationalized that it was better to be on the run with a mobster than be alone. However, her mobster lover rejected her after being released from a term in prison and she became an eccentric recluse. Shou concludes that his aunt fulfilled his ex-girlfriend's parting comment about it being better to give to others rather than expecting to receive.
Keywords: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, abused-woman, abusive-boyfriend, abusive-relationship, affair, alienation, based-on-novel, black-eyeActors: Tim Davis (actor), Jennifer Eddy (actress), David Harari (actor), Stephen Scaia (director), Stephen Scaia (writer), Eli Hardy (editor), Eli Hardy (actor), Stephen Boisvert (actor), Bryan Shukoff (actor), Bryan Shukoff (actor), Jon Soule (actor), Christopher McDonald (actor), Jon Soule (writer), Richard A. Dominicus (writer), Carrie Jacobson Voegele (actress),
Plot: Twenty Years ago, MetroCity's greatest Superhero disappeared. Now, his greatest foe is back to destroy the city, and it's up to two intrepid college students to save the city, and find the one man who can bring the evil Dr. Cyylus to justice: Gentleman.
Keywords: independent-film, superheroActors: Taiji Tonoyama (actor), Chieko Baishô (actress), Gin Maeda (actor), Takahiro Tamura (actor), Saburô Shinoda (actor), Mitsuo Kondô (editor), Mako Ishino (actress), Seijirô Kôyama (writer), Seijirô Kôyama (director), Seijirô Kôyama (producer), Ben Hiura (actor), Hiromi Iwasaki (actress), Fumie Noguchi (actress), Kazuo Andoh (actor), Mamiko Tayama (actress),
Plot: April 1954. 12 year old schoolgirl Sadako thinks her main problem is being unable to pass the baton in relay races. But just as her team starts winning, she starts getting tired more easily. She is sent back to the American Base Victory Hospital, where the diagnosis is lymphatic leukemia. And she has no more than a year left to live. Her parents agree with the doctor that Sadako should not be told, but will she find out anyway ?
Keywords: atom-bomb, baton, fear-of-ghosts, hospital, leukemia, peace, primary-school, terminal-illnessActors: Carl Macek (producer), Keita Amemiya (writer), Keita Amemiya (director), Masaya Nakamura (producer), Shôhei Yamamoto (actor), Fuyukichi Maki (actor), Makoto Yokoyama (actor), Mizuho Yoshida (actor), Katsuya Terada (costume designer), Satoshi Kitahara (writer), Satoshi Kitahara (writer), Hideki Sasaki (actor), Hiroki Ida (actor), Hanbei Kawai (actor), Satoshi Itô (actor),
Plot: A man's body and soul are stolen and used as part of a demon castle. What's left becomes Cyber Ninja. He teams up with the chi students whose cyber-earmuffs show matching red symbols. They fill their swords with ammunition, grab some neo-retro-cyber-antique guns and attack the demon robot expendable ninja squad. Each fight is won by whichever side uses more gratuitous special effects. They slay the Tron-like hover droids, who are destroyed in their shame. There's a showdown with a white-armored guy with dreadlocks, who is later reincarnated by the eclipse and a lot of multicolored lightning. After killing the make-up wearing effeminate spider person, the chi school fires a giant gun at the demon castle spider cyber robot. It blows up.
Keywords: lightning, ninjaActors: Taichirô Kosugi (composer), Ichirô Sugai (actor), Shôki Fukae (actor), Akira Suzuki (editor), Akitake Kôno (actor), Shinsuke Ashida (actor), Seijun Suzuki (director), Keisuke Yukioka (actor), Seizaburô Kawazu (actor), Akira Hisamatsu (actor), Takashi Koshiba (actor), Sanpei Mine (actor), Kiyoshi Kamoda (actor), Kyosuke Aihara (actor), Tatsuo Matsushita (actor),
Genres: Crime,you cage, you cage
you can sleep me down
once called from above, I sport your love
I spurn your hotel
I wear your hotel
so you own ugly hats, you wear them well
I wish the mood wouldn't hang so low