The course offers an introduction to moving image cultures in modern Japan with a focus on how technological aesthetic media has transformed the experience and understanding of action. While emphasis is placed on the production and reception of popular action film genres from Japan, the course also explores the relationship of those films to international film cultures in the context of broader historical transformations in media practices and in modes of distribution and reception. We will engage with ethical and political questions concerning issues such as gendered and racialized representations of action and the aesthetics of violence.