A group of assassins come together for a suicide mission to kill an evil lord in Miike Takashi's latest offering. Having cut his teeth on action movies, he returns to the Samurai mission genre with gusto and the climax is an irresistable blend of exquisite choreography and bloodlust. The plot takes a backseat, but the interesting guy driving, Action-San, is who you want to watch anyway. find out more...

'Azumi' is a frantic CGI-assisted Japanese period drama from cult director Ryuhei Kitamura starring pop siren Aya Ueto as a teenage assassin who begins the film as the only girl among 10 warriors who have been trained from childhood by Jiji, a grey-bearded samurai. One day, Jiji tells them they must pass a final test before they embark on the mission they have prepared for all these years. He pairs them up and the five that survive, led by Jiji, descend from the mountain that is the only world t find out more...

Benkei, a master fighter and killer, vows never to take another life after his conversion to a syncretic form of Buddhism, but he lives in the time of the Genji-Heike clan wars and it becomes his fate to clash with a trio of fighters known only as "the demons". Taking up his sword once more, he sets out to end their murderous terror. This mix of sword and sorcery and samurai traditions is visibly resplendent and musically resonant, and lots of swords clash and blood squirts, not bad really. find out more...

find out more...

The heroes are back; Chapter One 'Four Months Later...'; Claire, HRG and family try to lie low in their new town, Matt and Mohinder are now guardians of Molly, Kaito and Angela receive death notices, Nathan is in a very dark place, Peter is alive and in Ireland. find out more...

A group of idealistic young men, determined to clean up the corruption in their town, are aided by a scruffy, cynical samurai, Sanjuro, who does not at all fit their concept of a noble warrior, but, of course, runs rings round the baddies. Kurosawa's sequel to his Japanese "Western" (Yojimbo), a fast-paced classic of Japanese cinema with a frenetic finale find out more...

Set in remote north-west China at the birth of the Qing Dynasty in the late seventeenth century. A new law has banned martial arts on pain of death, and an army of bounty hunters, led by balding psycho Fire-Wind, targets Martial Village, where rebel lovers Wu and Han have won the friendship of a retired executioner who convinces to seek help from a master swordsmen from distant Mount Heaven. He agrees, sending four of his disciples to assist them, but as they lead the village to a safer place, t find out more...

A hardened veteran of the American civil war, Captain Nathan Algren is a man who's lost his way. A hero to many, he is haunted by some of the things he has done and when offered the chance to teach the art of modern warfare to a Japan in the grip of modernisation, he sees an opportunity to escape his past. Plunged into a war against the Samurai, Nathan is captured but allowed to live so that the warriors may learn the ways of their new enemy. From here on in it's mutual admiration all round; Nat find out more...

In Persia in the 11th Century, a surgeon's apprentice disguises himself as a Jew to study at a school that does not admit Christians.

find out more...

Kanichiro Yoshimura has escaped a famine in northern Japan and found himself work as a guardian in the Imperial Capital. At first scorned by his fellow Samurai, because his first concern is his starving family rather than his duty, Kanichiro nonetheless excels at his job, a peerless swordsman, he shows no fear in the face of battle, and it is not long before his fellow warriors start to understand the true nature of his honour. When The Last Sword Is Drawn is a sumptuous and epic sweep of the en find out more...