Keyword Summary Execution

Two short stories set in Edo during the Shogun era. The first, during a time when Christians are persecuted vehemently, Iori falls in love with a young Christian girl. When she and her family are captured during a raid, his sadistic master takes her as his personal slave to torment Iori. The second follows Sutezo who, forced to serve the barbarous master of a brothel in order to repay his debts, befriends a young girl. Together, they both escape and struggle to get by on scams and petty theft.

A man takes the law into his own hands when his wife's rapists are released from prison on a technicality, only to be possessed by the spirits of the criminals.

An account of the peasant turned mythical military hero Vasily Chapayev, charting his campaign in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War.

A condemned man manages to avoid being hanged from a bridge over a river when the rope breaks. He falls into the water and his escape attempt ensues.

During the Paris Commune, a boy runs across trouble at the barricade. The film is now attributed to Alice Guy-Blaché by the Gaumont company, although there is some debate about whether it was directed by Étienne Arnaud.

A major political, historical, human and economic fact of the 20th century, the Gulag, the extremely punitive Soviet concentration camp system, remains largely unknown.