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I just got my films from CK. I still haven't had a chance to watch them. I have the Nogaremono Orin special and also a yakuza eiga film New Prison Walls of Abashiri (the first one).

I just got through watching Year One In the North. This is available from Merlin (SamuraiDVD) and is a very compelling film.

Oooh, you will LOVE "Tengu Priest." I got that from CK about a year ago and I watch it frequently. See my review in the film review section.

I also enjoyed "Drunken Sword," which I got a few months ago.

I recently watched "Year One In The North." Not a lot of sword-fighting action, but that didn't matter to me. What mattered was the historical drama in it. The women characters were supurb, especially Shino and her daughter. One of the male characters winds up as a real cad at the end, though he redeems himself somewhat at the end.

I also watched the first of the "New Abashiri Prison" films, which I just got. It seems that "Abashiri Prison" is a new place in each film. In this one, it's a prison run by the American occupying forces to house both American and Japanese criminals. The film starts out in an interesting fashion, showing the relationship between the American and Japanese convicts. However, about a fourth of the way through the film, it suddenly goes into a different direction when the main Takakura Ken character is released and then it becomes a conventional yakuza eiga film. I would have liked to see the film more centered on the American and Japanese convicts without the sudden change in plot direction. I actually prefered the 2nd film, which I got earlier (which is completely independent of this one and Abashiri Prison is a completely different place).

I still have the Orin special to watch, which I'll do later this week.