Based on a 1997 television drama, Bayside Shakedown begins as a corpse is found floating in the river near Bayside Precinct. Not only that, but their own commissioner has been kidnapped. To complicate matters, The Metropolitan Police Department gets put in charge of the case over the local cops, and refuse to clue them in on any of the details of their investigation. But Aoshima (Yuji Oda) will have none of that, and forces himself into the fray; much to the chagrin of the MPD. Luckily for Aoshima, his friend Muroi (Toshiro Yanagiba) is heading the MPD investigation, and had promised Aoshima long ago that he would do his best to use his position in the MPD to make things easier for beat cops—but will he keep his word? You can find the full trailer here.

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The first teaser for Hiroshi Nishitani’s Suspect X (Yougisha X no Kenshin) came out today and its official website was updated with more info. The story begins when a corpse is discovered with a smashed face and burned hands. Strangely, the cause of death is determined to be strangulation. When Detective Kaoru Utsumi (Kou Shibasaki) attempts to corroborate his ex-wife’s alibi she discovers the woman’s neighbor, a high school math teacher named Tetsuya Ishigami (Shinichi Tsutsumi), went to Teito University—the same school as genius physicist Manabu Yukawa, aka “Galileo” (Masaharu Fukuyama). She consults with Yukawa and he tells her that as far as he knows Ishigami is a true genius. Utsumi and Yukawa team up with only a few small clues and the victim’s personal effects to help them disprove a seemingly airtight alibi and figure out Ishigami’s role in all of it. Thus begins a battle of wits between geniuses.

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As a mysterious organization begins killing off a group of swindlers who witness a kidnapping and one of them decides to get revenge. You can find the teaser here.

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Tony and Max formed a bond as children living as mixed-race children in the Philippines, but when they grew older they took very different paths. Max went on to become an aspiring lawyer and Tony went on to become and aspiring drug lord. When Tony’s antics indirectly cost the life of a childhood friend’s lover, the events that follow eventually lead to a final confrontation between Tony and Max.

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Amongst fans of Japanese direct-to-video releases it’s pretty much set in stone that the first two actors of the “V-cinema big four” are Riki Takeuchi and Show Aikawa. There’s some room for argument beyond that, but it would be hard to dispute actor/director Hitoshi Ozawa being a solid #3. You’ve probably seen him before—he’s usually the hardboiled cop or vengeance-fueled Yakuza with a combed back mullet that isn’t Riki Takeuchi. Now 25 years into his career he’s had roles in over 200 movies, but most of those movies have never even been mentioned in the English-speaking world, let alone watched. Well no more, I say. It’s time for the well-coiffed sultan of shooting stuff to take his rightful place in the pantheon of V-cinema greats. As the first order of business on that front, we bring you two of his latest releases: the 2-part cliché-ridden gangster flick Taiyo ga Hajikeru hi followed by the slightly higher profile crime thriller Immoral: Kogoeru Shitai (frozen corpse) which he also directed.

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