Genre: Chanbara

A grand tale of men banding together to fight an unrelenting evil, content to die if they can free their land from the marauding tyrant and his gargantuan army.

It may be a different genre but Kitamura proves he is not just a one trick pony and still knows how to successfully shoot the action and keep the characters interesting throughout.

A worthy follow up to Kitamura’s stylish original and certainly packs a punch in the Samurai action department.

Billed as Takashi Miike’s 100th film at the time of release, ‘Blade of the Immortal’ sees the enfant terrible deliver one of his best films of recent: both violently excessive and beautifully crafted.

‘Chanbara Beauty’ is an uncomplicated, intermittently fun, undead actioner that will please fans of the genre and the videogames.

Thanks to a mind-numbingly dull story and some weak leading performances, ‘Chanbara Beauty 2’ somehow manages to suck all of the fun out of bikini clad zombie slayers.

‘Chanbara Striptease’ is about topless women fighting with swords of which it has many scenes of, so if you want to see such a thing, then watch this film.

‘Chuji The Gambler’ is a superb marriage of a director’s craft and an actor with a transcendent charisma that seeps off the screen.

This version of ‘Hara-Kiri’ just simply pales in comparison to Kobayashi’s version and while it’s certainly good for a majority of its run time, you still may be wondering what’s the point of it.

An incredible samurai film and a classic piece of Japanese filmmaking this is old school filmmaking and storytelling at its best.

Unpretentious, well crafted, a great central performance and some excellent action make ‘Ichi’ a hugely enjoyable experience and refreshing take on the samurai genre.

Tsukamoto proves that he can stand with the filmic legends as he proudly represents a unique sense of style in a densely populated medium.