赤穂浪士

After their lord is tricked into committing ritual suicide, forty-seven samurai warriors await the chance to avenge their master and reclaim their honor.

An adventure film with Benshi performers. Sometimes considered the 'first Japanese feature film', it survives today as a compilation of scenes from various different 1910s adaptations totaling nearly three hours in length. The bulk of the content comes from the 1911 adaptation by legendary Japanese filmmaker Makino Shozo.

Naosuke, a servant of Okajima Yasoemon, devoted himself to his master. One day, his master Okajima Yasoemon, lost his face in front of people. It was a revenge by Oono, a karo (minister) who lost his chance to earn money by selling a fake antique to the lord. Okajima told the lord it was fake. Okajima endured Oono's humiliation. But, his servant Naosuke, could not. But what could he do? Oono is superior of his master. Naosuke would not hesitate to lay down his life for his master. But killing Oono would ruin his master. He wanted to clear his master's disgrace. What to do?

This is the story of "The Forty-Seven Ronin." Based on historical events in 1701-2, the movie tells the tale of the Asano clan's downfall and the revenge of its former samurai on the perpetrator of the catastrophe. Lord Asano was goaded, or tricked, into drawing his sword inside the Shogun's palace - a crime which carried the death penalty. The newly installed Shogun was furious at Asano and ordered all his clan's assets seized, meaning some 20,000 samurai and commoners were unemployed and landless at a stroke. Forty-seven of these ronin (masterless samurai) banded together to take attempt revenge on Lord Kira, who had goaded Asano into drawing his sword.

In 1701, Lord Takuminokami Asano has a feud with Lord Kira and he tries to kill Kira in the corridors of the Shogun's palace. The Shogun sentences Lord Asano to commit suppuku and deprives the palace and lands from his clan, but does not punish Lord Kira. Lord Asano's vassals leave the land and his samurais become ronin and want to seek revenge against the dishonor of their Lord. But their leader Kuranosuke Oishi asks the Shogun to restore the Asano clan with his brother Daigaku Asano. One year later, the Shogun refuses his request and Oishi and forty-six ronin revenge their Lord.

Weaving two storylines together: the first is the story of 18th-century shogunate intrigue and loyalty, and the second is a ghost story about a beautiful woman who falls victim to passion and evil.

On February 4th of the 16th year of the Genroku era, Yatō Uemon no Shichi reminisces while waiting his turn for seppuku at the Mizuno residence. When news of his lord, Asano Naganori, attacking Kira Yoshinaka in the palace reached Akō, Uemon no Shichi was sixteen. The family elder, Ōishi Kuranosuke, determined to avenge, gathered allies, but Uemon no Shichi's father, Chōsuke, being sickly and considered too young, was not included. Chōsuke committed suicide.

Jan Kruga and his daughter Meta live on a farm in the Transvaal. The nearest neighbor, Sir John Morgan, lives 20 miles away, and it is only on rare intervals that she ever goes even that far away from her isolated home. Toddles, a work elephant on her father's farm, is her only pet and in the first part of our story we see her befriend him from a cruel keeper. Hans, a neighboring Boer farmer calls and asks for Meta's hand in marriage. The girl is ordered by her father to accept Hans' attentions. She has been taught to obey and when Hans gives her a love offering, a huge necklace of beads, she meekly offers her cheek for the betrothal kiss. Sir John's nephew, Hirshal, comes for a visit from England and Sir John brings him for a friendly call on the Krugas. Meta's heart awakens at the sight of the handsome, young Englishman, and she returns Hans's necklace. The father, however, orders her to marry Hans, or never darken his door again.

The captain of the "Alden Bessie" was a drunken tyrant who manhandled his men upon the slightest provocation, despite the pleadings of his daughter and the first mate who loved her in his rough way, but for whom she could feel only friendship. One night the crew killed him, and marooned the mate and the captain's daughter by sending them adrift in a small boat. Days passed upon the vast expanse of ocean, and their food was all gone and death near, when land was sighted and their boat was cast up on a coral reef, and they with difficulty made the shore. Fear of death was soon supplanted in the heart of the captain's daughter by fear of a man loving her all too well. The mate, seeing this and realizing the strength of his passion, decided to live on the side of the island, but as the months passed away his loneliness overcame him and he made his way to where she sat reading. He looked over her shoulder, and saw that she read the marriage service.

"What do you do when the spark touches down-brief and hot?" So begins award-winning director Rob Nilsson's (Permission to Touch, MVFF 2015; A Bridge to a Border, MVFF 2014) provocative meditation on the Möbius relationship of fiction to reality, and the notion of creative control. In Love Twice, Luz and Ken are star-crossed lovers in screenwriter Sal's script, until their desire takes shape, inscribing itself into a movie of their own design. Risking his sanity to save the screenplay, Sal struggles to regain control of his characters and satisfy the demands of his producer Lester (legendary Velvet Underground founder John Cale), driving a wedge between the lovers with a desperate attempt to seduce Luz.

Within the sunny little Mexican City of Juarez, Alonzo, the famous bull-fighter, is to match his skill against the bull from Chihuahua. Pretty Dolores wanders one day without the Plaza El Torres, hoping to get one peep at the wonderful animals. Juan, a young Mexican employed at the Plaza, sees the girl and attracted by her beauty, offers to show her the bulls. He takes her within the Plaza and shows her all the interesting sights. The young people are mutually interested in each other and it proves a case of love at first sight. Alonzo also meets the girl and proposes for her hand. While Dolores loves Juan, she is quickly given to understand by her parents that Alonzo is a much more desirable match and that she must give up poor Juan. This Dolores reluctantly agrees to do. Finally the eventful day arrives. Alonzo, however, reaches the Plaza far too drunk to enter the arena and the management is in despair.