Baylen Out Loud - (Feb 18th)
Richard Osmans House of Games - (Feb 18th)
The Price Is Right - (Feb 18th)
University Challenge - (Feb 18th)
Geordie Shore - (Feb 18th)
First Dates - (Feb 17th)
Tipping Point - (Feb 17th)
Batch from Scratch- Cooking for Less - (Feb 17th)
The Bold and the Beautiful - (Feb 17th)
The Young and the Restless - (Feb 17th)
Love Island- All Stars - (Feb 17th)
Deadline- White House - (Feb 17th)
Murder- Suspect No.1 - (Feb 17th)
Piers Morgan Uncensored - (Feb 17th)
Chris Jansing Reports - (Feb 17th)
Katy Tur Reports - (Feb 17th)
Traffic Cops - (Feb 17th)
The Repair Shop on the Road - (Feb 17th)
Come Dine With Me- South Africa - (Feb 17th)
Four in a Bed - (Feb 17th)
A young man heeds the call of adventure in Yoshinari Nishikori's Tatara Samurai, leaving his idyllic village to become a soldier. He soon has second thoughts — but violence is coming his way, like it or not, in a movie that sometimes echoes its hero's ambivalence by toying with viewers' expectations of swordslinger cinema. Genre fans should respect the picture if not embrace it wholeheartedly, but history buffs will find something to appreciate as well in this 16th-century tale. Gosuke (Sho Aoyagi) comes from a family of men who make steel. Their village, Tatara, is renowned for the quality of that steel, whose strength is prized for swordmaking; its resistance to rust will make the commodity even more valuable as guns become a central part of warfare. With that transition beginning and clans battling each other nearby, Gosuke realizes that peasants are less bound than usual to their roles in feudal society. "Now is a time when anyone can move up," as one man puts it. And joining the ranks of Lord Oda's army is one path to a samurai's wealth and status. He says goodbye to his fiancee, breaks his father's heart and leaves. Dazed by his first serious encounter with carnage, Gosuke is told that he should return home and "embrace your destiny" as a metalworker. The readiness with which he agrees is a little puzzling given how eager he was to become a samurai, but this is a film that often leaves characters' motivations obscure, at least to a Western viewer's eyes. That can be frustrating on occasion, but it works well in the case of Yohei (Masahiko Tsugawa), an aging merchant who wants to convince Tatara's mayor to sell him steel for gunmaking. Soon after Gosuke's return, Yohei arrives with the news that Lord Oda intends to attack the town and take what he needs. He offers the town guns, mercenaries and training to defend themselves; though villagers argue about taking this sort of help, the die is cast as soon as one of them has his first experience firing a musket. If the film's first half didn't hew to the hero's-journey template we expected, neither does this section turn out to be a Seven Samurai-like tale of outsiders helping peasants defend themselves. Sinister things are afoot, and one happy consequence is that the dramatic burden ceases to fall exclusively on Aoyagi, who performs creditably but has a hard time expressing the character's interior conflicts. One of Gosuke's friends, Shinpei (Naoki Kobayashi), has a spark he lacks, but the film doesn't make the best use of the actor when Shinpei gets involved in third-act intrigue. Akira Sako's photography makes good use of very beautiful landscapes, lending weight to the script's talk of tradition and pride in craftsmanship. Though hardly a heart-thumping action pic, a few scenes of swordplay make the most of that precious Tatara steel.
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 and senile mother. New prospects seem to open up when the beautiful Tomoe, a childhood friend, comes back into he and his daughters' life, but as the Japanese feudal system unravels, Seibei is still bound by the code of honor of the samurai and by his own sense of social precedence. How can he find a way to do what is best for those he loves?
The life, adventures and exploits of warlord Date Masamune the One-eyed Dragon: his early youth as an aggressive warrior, the battles he won until subduing almost all his enemies, the lonely comprehension of knowing that he actually can not take over the whole country because he was born too late.
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 Sanjuro Kuwabatake, the ronin convinces both silk merchant Tazaemon and sake merchant Tokuemon to hire him as a personal bodyguard, then artfully sets in motion a full-scale gang war between the two ambitious and unscrupulous men.
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 late-life masterpiece, a profound examination of the folly of war and the crumbling of one family under the weight of betrayal, greed, and the insatiable thirst for power.
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 Sanjuro helps an idealistic group of young warriors weed out their clan's evil influences, and in the process turns their image of a proper samurai on its ear.
A group of travelers is stranded in a small country inn when the river floods during heavy rains. As the bad weather continues, tensions rise amongst the trapped travelers.
After a successful robbery leaves famed thief Lupin the Third and his partner Jigen with nothing but a large amount of expertly crafted counterfeit bills, he decides to track down the forgers responsible—and steal any other treasures he may find in the Castle of Cagliostro, including the 'damsel in distress' he finds imprisoned there.
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 Shingen dies, his generals reluctantly agree to have the impostor take over as the powerful ruler. He soon begins to appreciate life as Shingen, but his commitment to the role is tested when he must lead his troops into battle against the forces of a rival warlord.
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 second to deliver the coup de grâce in his suicide ritual. The senior counselor for the Iyi clan questions the ronin’s resolve and integrity, suspecting Hanshirō of seeking charity rather than an honorable end. What follows is a pair of interlocking stories which lay bare the difference between honor and respect, and promises to examine the legendary foundations of the Samurai code.
Kanichiro Yoshimura is a Samurai and Family man who can no longer support his wife and children on the the low pay he receives from his small town clan, he is forced by the love for his family to leave for the city in search of higher pay to support them.
Pursued by formidable Chinese assassins, young Kotaro and his dog run into No Name, a mysterious stranger who gets pulled into the chase. The unlikely companions form a bond over saving the dog from a poison attack, but chaos erupts when the assassins find Kotaro, and No Name must face his past before a horrible fate is met again.