A few simple rules ... limitless possibilities

 1) The Go Master (Wu Qingyuan) 
    Year: 2006
    Directed by: Tian Zhuangzhuang
    Cast: Chang Chen
    Source: Movie Homepage IMDB
    Comment: The life of Go Seigen (Wu Qingyuan), produced in China, was on
      international release in Autumn 2006 and shown at various film festivals,
      and is available on DVD with English subtitles (107 minutes).

      Go Seigen needs no introduction as one of the top players of the last
      century. The film tells his story how as a Chinese prodigy he has to 
      move to Japan to compete. When the two countries are at war his 
      allegiances are torn, but he remains in Japan and later gets sucked
      into a religious cult which tries to exploit his celebrity. However 
      he loyalty to the discipline of his vocation as a Go player. The film 
      has been described as "visually elegant and psychologically astute",
      but other reviews say the film was not up to expectations. 

      We see various professional Go games being played, a very elegant nigiri, 
      game records being studied, and a Go pupils' study group. 

      The film starts with modern-day footage of Go Seigen and his family
      in a garden discussing how the monkeys steal the persimmon fruit.
              

2) The Go Masters (Mikan no Taikyoku)
    Year: 1982
    Directed by: Ji-shun Duan, Junya Sato
    Cast: Rentaro Mikuni
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: A "Gone with the Wind" all about Go, the film examines how the 
      relationship between a Chinese and a Japanese Go player changes because 
      of events during the war, explained using flash backs when they meet 
      again after the war has ended. Many Go scenes including clubs and 
      tournaments, and a scene where the Chinese player prefers to have his 
      Go fingers cut off than play the enemy, the Japanese. 123 minutes.
 
3) Tokyo Newcomer 
    Year: 2012
    Directed by: Jiang Qinmin 
    Cast: Qin Hao, Chieko Baisho, Hiroyuki Ikeuchi
    Go Consultant: Li Ting 1p
    Source: IMDB
    Watch: Trailer YouTube 
    Comment: The latest film by Jiang Qinmin (who also directed "The Last Sunflower" and 
      "Sky Lovers") "Tokyo Newcomer" is "a touching drama about true communication,
      transcending national borders and generation gaps, through Go." Naturally it
      features quite a bit of Go.

      Chinese Go genius Yoshiryu (Qin Hao) comes to Japan to hone his skills 
      in the game, but finds he's too busy earning a living to study Go at all.        
       
      One day he drops his Go set (in a red lacquer box) on the street and an old 
      woman hawking vegetables helps him pick them up. They become friends and so 
      he becomes a close friend of her grandson. The grandson has a certain coolness 
      towards Go and gets involved in a fight which changes the course of the story. 
      Later on it turns out the old women is a descendant of a prestigious Go family. 

      At 38 minutes in, Yoshiryu enters a amateur tournament and we see scenes of this 
      in progress in the ground floor rooms of the Nihon Ki-in in Ichigaya. In this scene 
      the main character is playing against Matsumoto Takehisa, 7p.

      Later we see other games, including a game played in front of distinguished guests 
      with a proper goban and stones in an traditional Japanese building, as well as games
      at the woman's home, in a cubicle hotel and a Go club. 

      Another scene is filmed in the Nihon Ki-in's Go Museum. At one point Takemiya Yoko, 5p, 
      poses as a TV analyst. 

      Japanese with Chinese or English subtitles. 100 minutes.
                  

4) The Taste of Tea (Cha no Aji)
    Year: 2004
    Directed by: Katsuhito Ishii 
    Cast: Tadanobu Asana, Takahiro Sato
    Source: Wikipedia IMDB
    Comment: Although Go is not the only focus of the film, it is one of its essential 
      ingredients and appears more often than in other films like Pi and A Beautiful Mind.

      The film is concerned with the lives of the Haruno family, who live in rural Tochigi 
      prefecture, the countryside north of Tokyo. Nobuo is a hypnotherapist who teaches his 
      son, Hajime, to play Go. Hajime becomes an excellent Go player, but he has a rough 
      time with girls and puberty. Nobuo's wife, Yoshiko refuses to be an average housewife, 
      and works on animated film projects at home. She uses assistance from Grandfather Akira,   
      an eccentric old man who is a former animator and occasional model. 

      Uncle Ayano, a sound engineer and record producer, moves in with the family. He is 
      looking to restart his life again after living in Tokyo for several years. Meanwhile, 
      Yoshiko's daughter Sachiko, believes that she is followed around everywhere by a giant
      version of herself, and she searches for ways to rid herself of it. Go is played variously 
      at school, at home and in Go clubs.
              

 5) The Stone (Deo Seu-ton or Dol)
    Year: 2013
    Director: Cho Se-rae
    Source: IMDB
    Trailer: YouTube
    Comment: A gangster and Go movie. Coming to grips with the truth that he will never earn 
      a living playing Baduk, a young man's chance encounter with a local gangster finds him
      with a new pupil in Deo Seu-ton. This Korean drama is about the vastly different past 
      and future of the two men and contrasts Go to the gangster scene. At one point, while
      walking down a street, a character muses "If life is a game of Go, I wish I can place 
      my first stone again."
      

 6) The Divine Move (Shinui Hansu)
    Year: 2014
    Director: Jo Bum-Gu
    Cast: Jung Woo-Sung, Lee Beom-Soo
    Source: Wiki IMDB
    Trailer: YouTube
    Comment: A gangster and Go movie. Professional Go player Tae-Seok loses his brother to infamous
      underground gambler Sal-Soo after losing a high-stakes game. Framed for the murder of his own
      brother and locked up in prison, Tae-Seok vows revenge and trains ferociously. After serving 
      his seven-year sentence, Tae-Seok gets in touch with his brother's former associate Tricks, 
      hermit and blind master player Jesus and skillful junkyard owner Mok-Su, and begins formulating
      a plan to get back at Sal-Soo and his men. Slowly penetrating Sal-Soo's inner circle and his 
      gambling joint, Tae-Seok eliminates Sal-Soo's men one by one. But when Sal-Soo discovers 
      Tae-Seok's true identity, one final game will seal the fate of the two men. Also each section 
      of the movie is labelled according to the various phases of a game, opening, counting, etc.
      (Korean Language - English subtitled version available.)  
      

 7) White Vengeance (Hong Men Yan Chuan Qi)
    Year: 2011
    Directed by: Daniel Lee 
    Cast: Shao-Feng Feng, Leon Lai, Hanyu Zhang, Anthony Wong
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: This tells the story of two brothers contending for supremacy 
      during the fall of the Qin Dynasty in the 3rd century BC. At a banquet
      advisors Fan Zeng (Anthony Wong) and Zhang Liang (Zhang Hanyu) play a 
      long Go match that is supposed to mirror the path the warring brothers 
      have set out on. They play on a row of metre high Go tables with over-
      sized grey boards, the biconvex stones held in metal stands, the moves 
      called out by the players as the Go master playing them all is blind.
      To remove captured stones they bang the table with a sword and catch 
      the stones as they fly in the air (see 71 minutes in)! The philosophy 
      of I Ching is mentioned during the match. As usual the scene
      ends up as a bloody sword fight with the tables being knocked over.
      (Chinese language.)
      
 
 8) The Warlords (Tau Ming Chong)
    Year: 2007
    Directed by: Peter Chan and Wai Man Yip
    Cast: Jet Li, Andy Lau, Takeshi Kaneshiro
    Source: IMDB
    Watch: YouTube
    Comment: The movie is set in the 1860s during the Taiping Rebellion. 
      Of course there are battles and martial arts and a love triangle. 
      At 56:19, for about a minute, two of the Emperors' officials are 
      talking while playing Go, whilst a third sits back and discusses 
      with them. They are using their moves to refer to the fate of General
      Pang (played by Jet Li). We see a grey board from above and Chinese 
      stones, and they play a few moves, each with a sharp click.
      

 9) Hero (Ying Xiong)
    Year: 2002
    Directed by: Yimou Zhang
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: The main character fights against a bad guy and then plays a game
      that could be Go, but more likely Five-in-a-Row, outside on a large board,
      over which it rains, placing the stones inside the raised squares with 
      strange long forks.
      

10) Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
    Year: 1985
    Directed by: Paul Schrader
    Cast: Ken Ogata
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: This beautiful film is based on the works of Yukio Mishima, 
      At 23:28 in the master can be seen kneeling at a Goban in a tatami room.
      However mostly Go features in the deleted scenes section of the DVD. The 
      scene shows the main character of Yukio Mishima's 'Temple of the 
      Golden Pavilion' talking with his meditation master, while the 
      master is studying a Go board. One shot in the scene is of nothing
      but the board. In order to exaggerate the sense of perspective, the 
      Go board appears to be trapezoidally shaped and different sized stones
      are used across the board (larger stones are nearer). Since this portion 
      of the film is purportedly lifted from Yukio Mishima's novel, it 
      presumably features in that. The director's comments suggest that he 
      regretted cutting the scene, but it caused some introductory material 
      in the film to be "disproportionately long". 
      

11) Deadful Melody
    Year: 1994
    Directed by: Min Kun Ng
    Cast: Brigitte Lin, Biao Yuen
    Source: IMDB
    Watch: YouTube
    Comment: At 62:40 of this period fantasy adventure there is a one minute 
      scene where an old man in red and a younger man in black discuss a marriage
      while sitting at a table with refreshments and a grey thin Go board. There
      is a game underway but no more moves are played. The one in black crushes a 
      black stone with his fingers before magically rushing off to sort the marriage.
          

12) Zatoichi Seki-sho Yaburi (Adventures of Zatoichi 9 - Zatoichi Demolishes the Barrier)
    Year: 1964
    Directed by: Kimiyoshi Yasuda
    Cast: Shintarou Katsu
    Source: Zatoichi homepage IMDB
    Watch: YouTube
    Comment: Zatoichi was a character in a number of Japanese samurai films; he was 
      called "the blind swordsman". In this film, 25:45 in, two men, the Oyabun (boss)
      and his adviser, who takes white, are playing Go in a typical tatami-matted room.
      The Oyabun slaps his stones down in a complaining manner, whilst the adviser holds
      the wrongly. When Zatoichi enters to ask some kind of favour, the chief samurai 
      arrives and he and Zatoichi draw their swords and the blades pass, but apparently 
      no contact is made. Both sheath their swords, and the conversation continues. 
      The proverbial comment is supposed to be made: "A Go player's concentration is 
      such that they will miss their own parents funeral when playing Go". Zatoichi 
      leaves and the Oyabun and the adviser exchange some words. The adviser then 
      plays his next move. The board collapses, having been sliced through the middle, 
      without any of the stones being disturbed. All the stones pour on to the floor.
          

13) Zatoichi Abare-Himatsuri (Adventures of Zatoichi 21 - Zatoichi At the Fire Festival)
    Year: 1970
    Directed by: Kenji Misumi, Nakadai Tatsuya
    Cast: Shintarou Katsu
    Source: Zatoichi homepage IMDB
    Watch: YouTube
    Comment: There is a scene that lasts about 90 seconds at 77:03, where Zatoichi plays
      the Big Boss, who is also blind, in a game of Go. The scene opens in silhouette 
      and then moves in so we can see the goban and the position clearly. They know where
      the moves have been played by feel and sound; the moves are correctly played with a
      click. The boss does seem to rattle his bowl though and we get a close up of Zatoichi 
      picking a black stone from his elegantly lacquered and decorated bowl. 

      The boss drops a white stone into his left hand and then we see him play tiddlywinks
      to flick a black stone into Zatoichi's face. In retaliation Zatoichi then flicks a
      a stone to knock the last White move off the board and replace the lost black 
      stone in the correct position. They then both drink as the tension rises, but in
      the end they both laugh off the situation. 
                

14) You Seng (Temptation of a Monk)
    Year: 1993
    Directed by: Clara Law
    Cast: Joan Chen, Michael Lee, Lisa Lu
    Source: IMDB
    Watch: Excerpt on YouTube
    Comment: Set in 7th century China and featuring a monk, forbidden love and the 
      usual warfare, there are three Go scenes. In one scene a man is seen studying 
      moves (replaying a game) on a goban while a maid looks on; he tips the goban 
      over towards the camera in frustration. In another two men are seated on the 
      floor playing and placing the stone very elegantly.
          

15) Kwaidan (Ghost Stories, orig. Kaidan)
    Year: 1964
    Directed by: Masaki Kobayashi
    Cast: Michiyo Aratama, Keiko Kishi, Rentaro Mikuni
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: In one of the scenes the wife of the main character plays Go,
      loses and storms out with the words "What a stupid game". This is to
      illustrate the mean behaviour of the wife. The movie tells four horror
      stories from Japanese legends; the Go is believed to be in the first:
      "Black Hair".  

16) Tsubaki Sanjuro
    Year: 1962
    Directed by: Akira Kurosawa
    Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Keiju Kobayashi
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: Kurosawa classic featuring a samurai who saved a framed and
      imprisoned uncle. In a long sequence the main character rests next to a goban, 
      while others are rushing in and out, and then he perches atop it to instruct 
      his young samurai. 
      

17) Bakushuu (Early Summer)
    Year: 1951
    Directed by: Yasujiro Ozu
    Cast: Chikage Awajima, Setsuko Hara
    Source: IMDB
    Watch: YouTube
    Comment: Yasujiro Ozu's typical (that is, outstanding) family drama, known in the 
      west as "Early Summer". It is a story of romance, arranged marriages and family
      life in post-war Tokyo. The one Go scene at 48:25 has the head of the household, 
      a doctor, playing Go with a friend, talking, smoking and drinking, on a Sunday in,
      of course, early summer. The are seated with the goban on a table and a close up
      of the player with his back to the camera shows he holds the white stones properly
      whereas the other does not. At one point they discuss if a stone has moved and 
      the doctor says he has left his house as it is full of children (playing with an
      electric train set it turns out). 
      

18) The Fate of Lee Khan (Ying Chun Ge Zhi Fengbo)
    Year: 1973
    Directed by: King Hu
    Cast: Angela Mao, Hu Chin, Feng Tien
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: At 1:08:20 the hero brings a Go set to the table in the inn. 
      He tries to learn the game from another, but two soldiers take over 
      the board and play a few strange opening moves. At 72:10 we get a close
      up of the almost full board with some surrounded stones on it. The hero 
      tries kibitzing and is told not to meddle.
          

19) The Valiant Ones (Zhong Lei Tu)
    Year: 1975
    Directed by: King Hu
    Cast: Feng Hsu, Ying Bai, Roy Chiao
    Source: IMDB
    Watch: YouTube
    Comment: Historical drama where the Chinese try to defend their shores 
      from Japanese pirates. The characters are colour-coded (black or other 
      dark shades for the Chinese, white for the Japanese). At 21:53 two people
      are seen seated and playing Go in the background of an interrogation scene.
      From 29:04 a Go board is used by the Chinese to keep track of soldiers 
      prior to battle by placing black and white stones to represent each side
      (last seen at 33:52). The battles themselves are structured like a game. 
      (Chinese with English subtitles.)
          

20) Sex and Zen (Yu pu tuan zhi: Tou qing bao jian)
    Year: 1992
    Directed by: Michael Mak
    Cast: Lawrence Ng
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: A Go board can sometimes be seen.

21) Autumn Afternoon (Sanma no aji)
    Year: 1962
    Directed by: Yasujiro Ozu
    Cast: Shima Iwashita, Daisuke Kato, Kyoko Kishida,
      Rynji Kita, Noriko Maki, Shinichiro Mikami
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: Two men are shown seated on the floor at a Go ban with seemingly a real
      game in progress.

22) Godzilla (Gojira)
    Year: 1954
    Directed by: Ishiro Honda
    Cast: Akira Takarada, Momoko Kouchi, Akihiko Hirata,
      Takashi Shimura, Fuyuki Murakami, Sachio Sakai, Toranosuke Ogawa
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: The first classic Godzilla movie, in which a scene has 
      two sailors playing Go.

23) Tui Shou (Pushing Hands)
    Year: 1992
    Directed by: Ang Lee
    Cast: Bin Chao, Victor Chan,
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: This movie features a master of the martial art called 
      Pushing Hands who moves to New York where there is a clash of
      cultures. There is a scene where the father and son are playing
      Go and the son slaps a stone down (like a surprise checkmate)
      and captures a big group.

24) Hitman or Contract Killer (Sat Sau Ji Wong)
    Year: 1998
    Directed by: Wei Tung
    Cast: Jet Li, Simon Yam
    Source: IMDB
    Trailer: YouTube
    Comment: The final fight is staged in a Japanese style room where there
      is a goban, with wooden bowls and stones on the top (seen from 71:25).
      In the fight, a man is hurled across the room towards the goban 
      (at 74:13) and later there is a brief glimpse of the goban being 
      tipped over and used to hit the man. After this Go stones are seen
      scattered on the floor. In an earlier scene set in the room (seen in 
      the trailer) the goban is in the background, with bowls on the floor,
      and two women are lying down in the foreground.
      

25) Qi Yuan - Chun Qiu (Go Courtyard - Fall, Spring)
    Year: 1996?
    Comment: This movie has more Go in it than possibly any other!
      It is a 'bowl-boiler' Chinese-made-for-TV Go movie (four hours,
      five cassettes). The movie takes place in a palace during the
      Sung Dynasty period c. 1100 A.D. and is based on fact in a
      loose way. In the southern Manchurian kingdom of Liao, everyone
      in the court is mad about Go and in the courtyard there is a Go
      school. A princess is a top player. The top player in the Sung
      court is a man (a 'prince') who is looking for someone to play
      and ends up, so to say, 'courting' the princess. There is an 
      ongoing palace coup plot, of course, and the servant girl of 
      the princess is forced to play Go for her life.

26) Chushingura - Hana no maki yuki no maki
       (The 47 Ronin or The Loyal 47 Retainers or The 47 Faithful Samurai)
    Year: 1962
    Directed by: Hiroshi Inagaki
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: The film is about 3-1/2 hours long. At 3 hours, one of 
      the bad guys is trapped and he tosses a Go board at his attacker, 
      then a bowl of white stones. There is one scene toward the end of 
      the climactic fight where a trapped samurai picks up a full size 
      floor Goban and hurls it at his attacker who deflects it with a 
      swipe of his sword. The victim then hurls a bowl of white stones 
      at him with no effect at all. The stones fly like snow flakes.
      Two of the attacker's buddies crash in and that's all for the victim.
      This scene is depicted on numerous woodblock prints. The story is 
      a cherished legend and is one of the more popular kabuki stories.

27) So Close (Chik yeung tin sai)
    Year: 2002
    Directed by: Corey Yuen
    Cast: Shu Qi, Zhao Wei, Karen Mok
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: In this action movie from Singapore, where a girl cop takes on two 
      assassin sisters, there is a very short scene two guards are shown playing 
      Go on a mega screen inside a very high tech building.

28) Yapian Zhanzheng (The Opium War)
    Year: 1997
    Directed by: Jin Xie
    Cast: Bao Guoan, Debra Beaumont
    Original music by: Fuzai Jin
    Source: IMDB
    Watch: YouTube Part 1 Part 2
    Comment: 68:50 into the film (14:20 in part 2) Lin Xezu is playing Go in a 
      pavilion. The board is thin and sits on a round stone table with a central 
      leg. There are wooden bowls, but the edge-on view does not show the position.
      However the moves are played very elegantly as he fans himself. A man runs
      up to informed him about the arrival of the British fleet. The other player
      tells him to carry on playing. The film is interesting, especially as it 
      shows the Opium War period seen from the Chinese side. As a consequence of 
      the Chinese defeat, Hong Kong became a British colony. Bilingual Mandarin 
      and English, with both subtitled for Cantonese viewers. 
      

29) Volcano High (Hwasango)
    Year: 2001
    Directed by: Tae-gyun Kim
    Cast: Hyuk Jang, Min-a Shin, Su-ro Kim
    Source: IMDB
    Watch: YouTube
    Comment: 23:00 in, there is a long scene (2.5 minutes) where two teachers, Director
      Jang Oh-Ja and Subdirector Jang Hak-Sa, play Go together. A third man pours tea
      for them. It is quite a funny scene, at one point the director claims he can move
      the stones with his will-power and the board (seen from above) starts to shake. 
      The sub-director grabs the sides to stop it, revealing the Goban having three
      carved symbols on the side and the director removing his hands from the legs. 
          

        
30) Long Xing Tian Xia (The Master)
    Year: 1989
    Directed by: Tsui Hark
    Cast: Jet Li
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: Somewhere in the film you see a Go board.

31) Genji Monogatari
    Year: 1951
    Directed by: Kozaburo Yoshimura
    Cast: Kazuo Hasegawa, Michiyo Kogure
    Source: IMDB
    Watch: YouTube
    Comment: At 16:15 in there is the famous Go scene. The camera pans through a rainy
      courtyard to where Lady Fujitsubo and her maid are counting a game of Go. The 
      maid counts to 26 points and says it looks like she has lost. They agree, stating
      her last move was an error. As the maid packs away the stones, Fujitsubo goes to 
      the window to look at the rain and finds Genji watching. The maid completes the 
      packing up and caries the board away after bowing, revealing the goban to have
      decorated sides and an ornate frame base. Genji then enters to have his way with
      Fujitsubo.
          

32) Borei Kaibyo Yashiki (Mansion of the Ghost Cat)
    Year: 1958
    Directed by: Nobuo Nakagawa
    Cast: Toshio Hosakawa
    Source: IMDB
    Trailer: YouTube
    Comment: A violent ghost story featuring a samurai and haunted cat. 
      The trailer shows two men in a tatami room at a goban decorated with
      flowers on its side. One of the men is then run through by the other's
      sword and he grasps stones as he slumps in agony on the goban. 
          

33) Jing Wu Ying Xiong (Fist of Legends)
    Year: 1994
    Directed by: Gordon Chan
    Cast: Jet Li, Siu-hou Chin
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: The film is set in pre-Japanese invasion China. It contains 
      a two minute scene (about 75 minutes in) where the Japanese Ambassador 
      is seated at a Go ban with Uncle Funakushi, who is described as samurai 
      clan. 

      However they are clearly playing 5-in-a-row not Go (White wins on 
      the second move shown), however the ban is black with white lines and 
      white decoration on the sides, and they have Chinese-style stones and  
      brown bowls. They discuss impending war as they tidy the stones 
      (different amounts are tidied depending on camera angle). Later the ban 
      is briefly seen again in a fight sequence. The film is dubbed English, 
      but a subtitled version refers to the game as Chess.
             

34) Five Fingers of Death (Tian Xia Di Yi Quan)
    Year: 1972
    Directed by: Chang-Hwa Jeong
    Cast: Lieh Lo, Wang Ping
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: A Hong Kong martial arts film about two rival dojos, with minimal 
      Go content, if any.

35) Ninja and the Warriors of Fire
    Year: 1987
    Directed by: Godfrey Ho
    Cast: Peter Davis, Jeff Houston, Glen Carson
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: A cheesy Hong Kong film with western ninja-fighting action. At one point
      of this gruesome film one of the main characters speaks with a Kung Fu master 
      who is studying a game on the Go board.

36) Three Friends (Sechinku)
    Year: 1996
    Directed by: Soon-Rye Yim
    Cast: Hyun-Sung Kim, Hee-Suk Jung, Jang-Won Lee
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: Korean film about three young friends. One character is obsessed with
      Baduk.

37) The I-go King and His Son (Qi Wang He Ta Er Zi)
    Year: 2008
    Directed by: Wei Zhou
    Cast: Hai-Yan Meng, Song Sun, Cheng-Yang Wang
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: His friends call Liu Yishou, an amateur Go player, "the King of Go."
      Liu was laid off, and with no other skills to make a living, teaches the 
      strategic board game in a humble training school for children. Life has been 
      hard for Liu, but his son, Xiaochuan, has chosen to stay with him through the
      difficulties. On an unexpected occasion, Xiaochuan displays an amazing talent 
      for Go, and his father vows to encourage the further development of his game. 
      Along the way the father and son are confronted with challenges, but with courage, 
      persistence and profound love, they eventually arrive at the destination toward 
      which they were headed.

38) Fist of Fury (Jing Wu Men) also known as The Chinese Connection
    Year: 1972
    Directed by: Wei Lo
    Cast: Bruce Lee, Nora Miao, James Tien
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: In one scene characters can be seen putting stones on a board. In a fight
       scene the board is on a spindly table and the board is thrown in someone's face.
       

39) The Man from Nowhere
    Year: 2010
    Directed by: Jeong-Beom Lee
    Cast: Taek-Sik Cha
    Source: IMDB
    Watch: YouTube
    Comment: A Korean thriller about the drug trade in which at 20:40 in a man follows a girl 
      into a corner shop to find the old owner at his counter reviewing a game on his board. 
      He is holding a folded baduk magazine in his left hand and placing stones from wooden 
      bowls with his right. We see him a few times over the next minute and also a close up 
      of the edge of the board as money is placed on the counter. (English dubbed version 
      available.)
          

40) Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (Di Renjie zhu tongtian diguo)
    Year: 2010
    Directed by: Hark Tsui
    Cast: Andy Lau, Carina Lau
    Source: IMDB
    Watch: YouTube
    Comment: A Chinese detective thriller with lots of CGI and martial arts (English subtitles).
      Dee has to solve the mysterious deaths by fire that stop the inauguration of 
      Empress Wu. In one scene the Prince is sitting on a terrace with staff around him
      playing music and attending to him. He is seen clearing the board after a game and is
      discussing how he is going to succeed. As he talks an assassin kills him with an arrow
      from the roof above and he slumps on to the board revealing the stones are turquoise 
      and orange crystals. The board is the kind with black and white ornate sides, and a brown
      top with white lines.
          

41) 13 Assassins (Jusan nin no Shikaku)
    Year: 2010
    Directed by: Takashi Miike
    Cast: Koji Yakusho, Takayuki Yamada, Yusuke Iseya
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: A Japanese (with English subtitles) period Samurai movie, a remake of a 1963 film.
      13 samurai assassins set out to kill the ruthless Lord Naritsugu. No Go board can be seen,
      but two protagonists talk about continuing a series of games of Go.

43) There was a Father (Chichi Ariki) 
    Year: 1942
    Directed by: Yosujiro Ozu
    Cast: Chishu Ryu, Shuji Sano, Shin Saburi
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: A story about the relationship between a widowed father and his son, 
      spread over several years. The father, a teacher, plays another at Go during a 
      school outing, whilst the unattended children go out on a boat with one of 
      them getting killed. This tragedy leads to the father and son being separated.
      

43) The Yakiniku Movie: Bulgogi (Yakiniku Muubii: Purukogi) 
    Year: 2007
    Directed by: Su-yeon Gu
    Source: IMDB
    Watch Clip: YouTube
    Cast: Ryuhei Matsuda, Yu Yamada, Arat
    Comment: A Japanese Comedy about a small-town traditional restaurant trying to make
      it big in a TV cookery contest. In the restaurant scenes the old master cook and 
      his friend are seated at a table with a goban and wooden bowls in it. They are
      constantly pondering the game, without a single move played during the movie. 
      

44) The Host (Gwoemul) 
    Year: 2006
    Directed by: Joon-ho Bong
    Cast: Kang-ho Song, Hie-bong Byong, Hae-il Park
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: A Korean monster movie. Go can briefly be seen about 26.5 minutes into the movie,
      when a large TV set is turned on and before the channel is changed. A large image of a
      demo board with a game reviewer playing a stone is seen behind the man in rescue clothing
      who is operating the TV. The game shown is believed to be a review of O Meien (white) 
      verses Pak Yeong-hun in the 1st Zhonghuan Cup from 2004.
      

45) Duelist (Hyeong-sa) 
    Year: 2005
    Directed by: Myung-se lee
    Cast: Ji-won Ha, Sung-kee Ahn, Dong-won Kang
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: Joseon dynasty Korean sword-fighting movie where the villain, who conspires
      against the government, plays Go. About 70 minutes in he is seen capturing a white 
      stone. At about 90 minutes he plays a move, but is disturbed by a noise tips the 
      ban over scattering stones.
      

46) When the Last Sword is Drawn (Mibu Gishi Den)
    Year: 2002
    Directed by: Yojiro Takita
    Cast: Kiichi Nakai, Koichi Sato, Yui Natsukawa
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: Japanese samurai movie in which at 46:03 minutes we see a goban with two bowls 
      of stones on top of the board, in the background. At 48:51 we see the local lord playing
      Go on a goban, whilst conversing about his opponent's impending marriage. 

47) Onmyoji II 
    Year: 2003
    Directed by: Yojiro Takita
    Cast: Mansai Nomura, Hideaki Ito, Kiichi Nakai
    Source: IMDB
    Watch: YouTube
    Comment: Japanese historical movie in which demons dismember Japanese nobles. At 6:39 in the
      main character, Abe no Seimei, plays Go against a spirit (a shikigami) in the form of his
      friend Minamoto no Hiromasa, a monk. The goban has tall thin legs and they have bowls
      on the floor. As a white stone is played with a click, the opponent turns into a small 
      paper cut-out man.
      

48) Men Behind the Sun (Hei Tai Yang 731)
    Year: 1988
    Directed by: Tun Fei Mou
    Cast: Gang Wang, Hsu Guo, Tie Long Lin, Zhaohua Mei
    Source: IMDB
    Watch: YouTube
    Comment: Set in Manchuria during WWII at the notorious Japanese experimentation camp 731,
      Go equipment appears in a couple of scenes. 38.5 minutes in, Ishikawa and the medical
      painter are playing Go at the side of a room where the soldiers are eating and drinking. 
      They argue over the morality of their squadron's experiments on the Chinese people, or 
      "maruta" as they were often called. There is no good view of the board as people sit
      in the way. At about 44 minutes, there is a goban on the floor of the geisha house 
      General Ishii visits. He plucks hair from the armpits of a young courtesan which causes
      her to kick a bowl of stones off the goban and the white stones spill all over the 
      floor as the white ceramic bowl breaks; this inspires his "low temperature pottery bomb".
          

49) Thousand Miles Escort (Ren Ba Zhao)
    Year: 1977
    Directed by: Teng Hung Hsu
    Cast: Liang Chia, Ying Bai, Michelle Yim 
    Source: IMDB
    Watch: YouTube
    Comment: A low budget Kung Fu movie which features, among other villains, a pair of 
      Go-playing brothers who are hired to kill the protagonist and the orphan he protects. 
      At 56 mins in they are sitting at a round table, with a thin board and a large lamp on 
      it, when a man comes to hire them and dumps his chest of gold on the table. When it is 
      removed, their first move as assassins is mapped out on the board.
      

50) Tenchi: the Samurai Astronomer (Tenchi Meisatsu)
    Year: 2012
    Directed by: Takita Youjirou
    Cast: Okada Junichi, Miyazaki Aoi, Sato Ryuta
    Source: IMDB
    Trailer: YouTube
    Comment: Also known as "Insight Into the Universe", this is a Japanese film about Yasui 
      Santetsu, a Go player and famous Japanese astronomer, better known as Shibukawa Shunkai. 
      The creator of the Japanese Jokyo calendar and the author of many books about astronomy, 
      he also played with his friend and rival, Honinbo Dosaku, in castle games. The famous 
      game between Dosaku and Santetsu, where Santetsu opened on tengen, is depicted in the film. 
      It stars Okada Junichi, a Japanese actor who is also a member of the pop group V6. The 
      trailer starts with shots of him holding a Go stone and playing the tengen move.
      

51) New World
    Year: 2013
    Directed by: Park Hoon-jung
    Cast: Lee Jung-jae, Choi Min-shik, Hwang Jung-min
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: This Korean gangster movie looks at the conflicts between the mob and the police 
      through the eyes of an undercover cop. In the trailer, a lady is seen sitting at a Go 
      board and later her opponent smacks the board sending the stones flying. 
      

52) Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale (Sai De Ke Ba Lai)
    Year: 2011
    Directed by: Te-Sheng Wei
    Cast: Masanobu Ando, Umin Boya, Chi-Wei Cheng
    Source: IMDB
    Trailer: YouTube
    Comment: Taiwanese film set in the Japanese occupation of Taiwan when in 1930
      the local Seediq people rebelled. Visible in the extended film trailer 
      (4:21 in), in one scene an injured man talks leaning over a Go board with
      stones on. (Japanese and Seediq language with Chinese and English subtitles.)
      

53) Rough Cut (Yeong-hwa-neun Yeong-hwa-da)
    Year: 2008
    Directed by: Hun Jang
    Cast: Ji-Sub So, Su-Hyeon Hong, Ji-Hwan Kang
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: Korean film about a gangster who wants to be an actor and an
      an actor who wants to be a gangster. In one scene a visitor in jail
      sticks a transparency of a Go game on the window between him and the
      inmate, and the inmate indicates moves that result in the capture of
      a stone which is then crossed out.  

54) Hana - the Tale of a Reluctant Samurai (Hana Yori Mo Naho)
    Year: 2006
    Director: Koreeda Hirokazu 
    Cast: Okada Junichi, Miyazawa Rie
    Source: Wiki
    Trailer: YouTube
    Comment: In this period drama the main character, Sozaemon "Soza" Aoki, moves to an Edo slum 
      seeking revenge after the death of his father, but gets involved with the locals and has
      second thoughts. Go has a small but very important part to play, as it forms the link 
      between Soza and his deceased father. The first Go scene is 21 minutes in where Go is 
      played with shabby equipment consistent with the slum, for instance the Go ban sits straight
      on the tatami and at 40 minutes Soza manages to balance 5 thin stones on each other whilst
      contemplating. Another game is in progress at night, about 98 minutes in, mostly with 
      distant views or head shots of the players talking, but also one close up of the board 
      position. (Japanese, dubbed English version available.)
         

55) Ten Nights of Dreams (Yume Juu Ya)
    Year: 2006
    Director: Various - Dream 9 Miwa Nishikawa
    Cast: Tamaki Ogawa, Pierre Taki
    Source: IMDB
    Watch: YouTube
    Comment: This film is based on a short story collection by Natsume Soseki. It is split into 
      ten dreams; each bizarre and often gory dream sequence is by a different director. The 
      ninth dream (starts at 85 mins) is about the affect of war on a family. In it the mother
      is seen clapping to start prayer, but then taking a white Go stone from a pouch and
      laying it on the floor. As in all good dreams, this happens more than once. At the end
      of the dream (at 90:35 mins) we see a photo of the family, on the floor, next to black
      and white stones. (Japanese language, English subtitled version available.)
         

55) Stray Dog (Nora Inu)
    Year: 1949
    Director: Akira Kurasawa
    Cast: Toshiro Mifune
    Source: IMDB
    Comment: This film features a homicide detective looking a criminal. Ten minutes before 
      the end he scans a room for suspects. The two men who best fit the description are both
      reading newspapers which are claimed to have Go diagrams visible. (Japanese language.)

56) Dragon Inn (also Dragon Gate Inn, orig. Long Men Kezhan)
    Year: 1967
    Director: King Hu
    Cast: Lingfen Shangguan, Chun Shih, Ying Bai
    Source: IMDB
    Watch: YouTube
   Comment: This Taiwanese sword-play classic is set in 15th century China where an evil
      faction tries to elimiate the family of an executed rival. The clash occurs at the inn
      in the title when the evil gang come in contact with expert swordsmen on the side of good.
      At 14:45 in, the we see the local army camp with two soldiers seated with a Go board balanced
      on rocks and playing Go. The camera pans in for a couple of seconds as two moves are played,
      before a swordsman from the evil faction downs them with a single sword blow. One of the 
      players slumps over the board and second swordsman steps over the board to find their next 
      target. (Chinese Language with subtitles.)