Best movies like Stray Cat Rock: Machine Animal
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Two Japanese men help a Vietnam war deserter escape from Japan for Sweden. They plan to fund the escape by selling LSD pills. After word of the drug deal gets spread around they find themselves fending off rival gangs.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 410
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Japan
Duration: 82 min
Plot tags: crime drama, psychedelic
Best tv shows and movies like Stray Cat Rock: Machine Animal (1970):
Similar in 79%
Stray Cat Rock: Crazy Rider '71 (1971)
Plot Summary:
Toshiya Fujita brings the five film Stray Cat Rock series to a highly enjoyable end. Like his previous instalment, Wild Jumbo, Beat ’71 is an easy going youth drama that does not follow Yasuharu Hasebe’s wild gang film path. Instead Fujita deals with social issues. The film follows a hippie community lead by Yoshitaro (Yoshio Harada). They decide to leave their trailer in Shinjuku and travel to countryside by bicycle to save their friend Furiko (Meiko Kaji) who has been falsely accused for murder. The real killer – although it was mainly self defense – is Furiko’s boyfried Takaaki (Takeo Chii) who is being controlled by his politician father. Takaaki would rather live free as a hippie, but his father is forcing him to become a businessman.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 362
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Japan
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: crime drama
Similar in 82%
Stray Cat Rock: Delinquent Girl Boss (1970)
Plot Summary:
The first part of the Nora-neko rokku ("Alley Cat Rock") series was originally Nikkatsu Studios' answer to the rivaling Toei Studios' Delinquent Boss series, but spawned four sequels thanks to its popularity. Onna banchô, the first movie in the series, takes place in Shinjuku, Tokyo where rivaling youth gangs are constantly trying to one-up each other in toughness. An all-girl gang led by Mei (Meiko Kaji) gets involved in dangerous circles when Mei's boyfriend Michio (Kôji Wada), wants to join a powerful yakuza organization called Seiyu but inadvertently loses the gangsters' money in a fixed boxing match. Of course, Mei's gang is not going to leave him to the gangsters, especially when helped by an enigmatic and independent female biker called Ako (Akiko Wada).
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 817
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Japan
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: crime drama, cult film
Similar in 75%
Girl Boss Blues: Queen Bee's Counterattack (1971)
Plot Summary:
In the 1970s, the Japanese youth emancipation also found it's way into the yakuza (crime) societies. A Girl Boss may have a choice between bikes, and between boyfriends. But she has to defend her choices the hard way, as her triumph and power over the girls' gang is questioned by her female rivals, and the all powerful Yakuza Boss. She inspires loyalty to her girls, and to men to the extent of many of them literally giving their lives for her - in a world of knife and gun fighting, bike and car chasing, and violent death.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 180
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: grindhouse, cult film
Similar in 77%
Zero Woman: Dangerous Game (1998)
Plot Summary:
In this installment of the Zero Woman series, Rei, the number-one assassin of the Tokyo Police Department's secret Zero Division, has been assigned to take out a notorious gangster responsible for dozens of murders. At the same time, she must protect the gangster's mistress from the hitmen who want to keep her from telling the police what she knows. At first, both women are upset about the arrangement, but they eventually come to appreciate each other.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 106
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Japan
Duration: 80 min
Plot tags: crime drama
Similar in 79%
Rica 2: Lonely Wanderer (1973)
Plot Summary:
Rica wanting a fresh start leaves her friends and past life behind or at least that is what she thinks as trouble always seems to find her. Rica looks into a ship that exploded and everyone who survived this disaster who comes in contact with her dies. Rica only chance of solving the mystery of the sunken ship is if she can locate a old friend of hers who just happened to be on that ship the night it blew up.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 131
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: grindhouse
Similar in 84%
Yakuza-Busting Girls: Final Death-Ride Battle (2010)
Plot Summary:
The story is about a woman named Asami who is tortured and left for dead by a Yakuza group, only they failed to finish her off, and she staggers back from the grave, literally. Bruised and battered, Asami seeks refuge at her old gang until such time she is ready to take on the Yakuza and go face to face with Junko.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 141
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Japan
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: splatter
Similar in 76%
Zero Woman: The Accused (1997)
Plot Summary:
Rei, the deadly but reluctant assassin for the Zero Division of the Tokyo Police Department, befriends a young man after she sees him cruising a gay bar looking for johns. After he gets beaten up by a group of street thugs, she takes him in to live with her. When a series of vicious murders takes place, she begins to suspect that the killer may actually be her friend taking revenge on everyone who has abused him. Will she uphold her duty to the police, or protect her only friend?.
IMDB Rating: 4.2
IMDB Votes: 88
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Japan
Duration: 77 min
Plot tags: crime drama
Similar in 81%
Black Angel 2 (1999)
Plot Summary:
Mayo, the Black Angel, is ordered to assassinate a powerful syndicate leader. The hit goes awry, however, as the crime boss' bodyguard steps in the way. It's none other than Yamambe, who once rescued Mayo from a rape and has lived in her heart since then.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 397
Genere: Action, Drama, Crime, Thriller
Country: Japan
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: crime drama
Similar in 88%
New Female Prisoner Scorpion: Special Cellblock X (1977)
Plot Summary:
A nurse is framed for her involvement in the hospital murder of a politician who was threatening to expose corrupt practices. She escapes from jail but is captured and sent back, resulting in the rest of the inmates being punished, added to which of a new, tougher, head of security arrives to take up her new job.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 124
Genere: Crime, Drama, Horror, Thriller
Country: Japan
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 89%
Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter (1970)
Plot Summary:
Mako and her girl friends enter a dispute with rival street gangsters The Eagles, a band of racist macho pigs led by the evil Baron, who hate half-breeds (descendents of afro-American and Japanese couples). When one of the girls start dating a half-breed, they start a terror campaign to take all of them out of town. Mako and her gang fight back, helping their new friend Kazuma find his long gone sister.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 859
Genere: Crime, Thriller
Country: Japan
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: crime drama, atmospheric, serious, realistic, suspenseful, stylized, campy, cult film
Similar in 75%
Wandering Ginza Butterfly (1972)
Plot Summary:
Gang leader Nami (cult film legend Meiko Kaji) kills a member of a yakuza group and goes away to prison. Upon her release three years later, she’s a shamed woman confined to living in the shadowy world of sex clubs and street gangs. She returns to the city to live with her uncle, a billiard-hall owner, and after befriending pimp and ne’er-do-well Ryuji (Tsunehiko Watase), she gets a job working at a hostess club in the chic Ginza neighborhood, where the expensive shops and neon lights conceal a dark world of crime and sexual slavery. But when a rival gang attempts to muscle in on the club, Nami becomes enmeshed in a violent struggle that forces her to wield a skilled pool cue to defend her uncle’s business, and eventually a short sword to wreak bloody vengeance upon her enemies.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 316
Genere: Action, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: cult film
Similar in 80%
Massacre Gun (1967)
Plot Summary:
Kuroda (Jô Shishido) is a mob hitman who turns on his employers after being forced to execute his lover. Joining forces with his similarly wronged brothers, hot-headed Eiji (Tatsuya Fuji) and aspiring boxer Saburô (Jirô Okazaki), the trio escalate their mob retaliation to all-out turf war where no one will stop until one faction emerges victorious.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 533
Genere: Action, Crime
Country: Japan
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
Another Lonely Hitman (1995)
Plot Summary:
After serving 10 years in prison due to a drug-induced assassination of a rival gang boss Tachibana (Ryo Ishibashi) enters a world that's nothing like it was when he went in. Once a respected and feared Yakuza mastermind, he now must try and adapt within the confines of the new generations vision of honor. As he still garners a somewhat decent amount of respect he just tries to get by. Hooking up with a prostitute he's been in passing by with he begins to feel some sense of comfort. Upon stumbling across her being beaten down by her pimp, Tachibana can't just sit by and do nothing. So he commences in putting down an old school Yakuza ass whipping, thus beginning a showdown with the "now" boss, Sato.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 198
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Japan
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: crime drama
Similar in 87%
New Female Prisoner Scorpion: #701 (1976)
Plot Summary:
Once again we focus on Nami Matsushima. This time she has a sister who goes missing and after getting too caught up in doing something about it, our innocent heroine is given a fifteen year sentence for a murder she didn't commit. She's sent to an all women prison where she's not exactly welcome. Her fellow inmates torture, humiliate and try to kill her; but the Scorpion prevails long enough to get some justice.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 175
Genere: Crime, Drama, Horror, Thriller
Country: Japan
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
Black Angel Vol. 1 (1998)
Plot Summary:
Tokyo is a dark technopolis, a city of faceless chrome and cold marble. It is ruled by Nogi, a yakuza boss specializing in drugs and murder. He gained absolute power by executing the former boss and marrying his daughter, Chiaki. Only the mysterious Ikko, Chiaki's half-sister threatens him. Inspired by a legendary hit-woman, Ikko calls herself the Black Angel and plans to wash away her father's murderer with a deluge of blood.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 912
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Japan
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: neo noir, crime drama, exciting, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, stylized
Similar in 87%
Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs (1974)
Plot Summary:
Agent Zero (Miki Sugimoto) is a cop that uses her own methods for dealing with criminals. After she unlawfully kills a rapist in a violent fashion, she is sent to prison and stripped of her badge. But very soon after, a rich politician's daughter is kidnapped by a ruthless gang. Agent Zero is let out of prison with the mission of going undercover to find the politician's daughter and return her safely. Using her deadly red handcuffs, she disposes of the criminals one by one.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 961
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Japan
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: grindhouse, disturbing, controversial, exciting, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, fast, cult film
Similar in 84%
Sex and Fury (1973)
Plot Summary:
Sex & Fury chronicles Ocho's exploits as she searches for her father's killers, each identified by unique tattoos on their backs (a deer, a boar, and a butterfly). Along the way, she also crosses paths with Shonusuke, a radical set on murdering prominent politician Kurokawa and Christina, an American spy posing as a gambler.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Japan
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: grindhouse, erotic, sensual, bloody, disturbing, controversial, crime drama, cult classic, action thriller, exciting
Similar in 78%
Story of a Wild Elder Sister: Widespread Lynch Law (1973)
Plot Summary:
Ocho is accidentally captured by a drug trafficking cartel who use Chinese women to smuggle drugs into Japan by hiding it in their vaginas. She is tortured, and manages to escape, fighting both the male yakuzas and a gang of female thieves.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 920
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Japan
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: grindhouse, disturbing, controversial, serious, realistic, suspenseful, suspense, cult film
Similar in 76%
The Streetfighter's Last Revenge (1974)
Plot Summary:
Terry Sugury is hired to recover one of two tapes containing a formula for making heroin for a price of 200 dollars a pound. But he gets double crossed. So he wants the tape back.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: grindhouse, crime drama, rough, serious, realistic, stylized, fast, psychotronic
Similar in 78%
Return of the Street Fighter (1974)
Plot Summary:
Martial artist Takuma Tsurugi returns to take on a Yakuza family that may be embezzling money from charities to finance their own operations. Both the police and the Yakuza find themselves battling Tsurugi, but Tsurugi's fight ultimately is with the mob, and he concentrates on them.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: grindhouse, disturbing, crime drama, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, fast, psychotronic, independent film
Similar in 75%
Cops vs. Thugs (1975)
Plot Summary:
In at least 6 movies by director Kinji Fukasaku, Bunta Sugawara played a yakuza thug. This time, he carries a badge but his character hasn't lost his distaste for double-dealing bosses and authority figures who are out to cover their own butts. Detective Kuno is balanced between the law and pragmatism. Cops didn't enforce the law to the point of pushing gangsters over the edge. In return, the gangsters mostly stayed out of the public eye. Some of them even became friends with cops, sharing a mutual desire to keep-down trade unions and leftists. When that balance is upset, Kuno has to decide where his loyalties lie. In this gray world, cops aren't always good and gangsters are thoroughly bad.. although there's no reward for good men who drink from the cup of corruption. "Cops Versus Thugs" has that trademark Fukasaku camera-work.. constantly moving, zooming, and putting you right in the middle of the action, changing loyalties and political maneuvering between cops and criminals.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 909
Genere: Action, Crime
Country: Japan
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: crime drama, detective
Similar in 78%
The Wolves (1971)
Plot Summary:
After going to prison for killing the boss of the Kanno gang, Seji Iwahashi (Tatsuya Nakadai) gets released early -- only to find that his former gang has merged with the Kannos. But with bitter resentments lingering on both sides, how long will it be before the bloodshed begins anew? Set in 1926 Japan, this serpentine crime thriller from director Hideo Gosha also stars Toshio Kurosawa and Isao Natsuyagi as Iwahashi's closest ally.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 612
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 131 min
Plot tags: crime drama, atmospheric, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, stylized
Similar in 75%
The Yakuza Papers, Vol. 5: Final Episode (1974)
Plot Summary:
Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Final Episode is part five and the final installation of a series of yakuza films directed by Kinji Fukasaku. In the wake of a big police crackdown, Akira Kobayashi's icily sun- glassed Takeda attempts to transform the Hiroshima yakuza families into a legitimate political organization: The Tensei Coalition. When the young Matsumura ascends to the chairmanship of the coalition, the older, hardened yakuza led by Jo Shishido (BRANDED TO KILL) seize one last opportunity to stir up chaos and bloodshed. Culminating with the arrests, deaths, or retirement of the first postwar yakuza generation, this milestone series draws to an ambivalent close.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 80%
Gamblers in Okinawa (1971)
Plot Summary:
A yakuza gang gets driven out of Yokohama by a big gang from Tokyo. They relocate to Okinawa to violently start over.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: grindhouse, crime drama
Similar in 87%
Outrage (2010)
Plot Summary:
The story begins with Sekiuchi, boss of the Sannokai, a huge organized crime syndicate controlling the entire Kanto region, issuing a stern warning to his lieutenant Kato and right-hand man Ikemoto, head of the Ikemoto-gumi. Kato orders Ikemoto to bring the unassociated Murase-gumi gang in line, and he immediately passes the task on to his subordinate Otomo, who runs his own crew. The tricky jobs that no-one wants to do always end up in Otomo’s lap.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 14000
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Japan
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, cynical, rough, realistic, bloody, psychological, sincere, neo noir, disturbing
Similar in 81%
Yakuza: Like a Dragon (2007)
Plot Summary:
Former Yakuza underling Kiryu Kazuma, who has recently been released from prison after a lengthy incarceration, and is trying to piece his life together and distance himself from his Yakuza past. Unfortunately Kiryu's problems slowly escalate as he is pursued by a former associate, the baseball bat-wielding psycho Majima Goro who has a grudge to settle with Kiryu.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama
Country: Japan, South Korea
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: exciting, tense, captivating, suspense, heroic, crime drama, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 77%
Graveyard of Honor (2002)
Plot Summary:
A barkeeper saves a Yakuza boss' life and thus makes his way up in the organization. However, his fear of nothing soon causes problems.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Action, Crime, Thriller
Country: Japan
Duration: 131 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, bleak, realistic, bloody, hood, crime drama, weird
Similar in 88%
Dead or Alive (1999)
Plot Summary:
Ryūichi and his small gang of Triad vie for control of the Japanese underworld in a crime-ridden Shinjuku quarter while Detective Jojima tries to bring it down. Jojima attempts to start a gang war between the Triad and yakuza. Ryūichi and Jojima meet.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Japan
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: disturbing, serious, suspenseful, surreal, controversial, stylized, mind bending, psychedelic, heroic, hood
Similar in 80%
The Yakuza (1974)
Plot Summary:
Harry Kilmer returns to Japan after several years in order to rescue his friend George's kidnapped daughter - and ends up on the wrong side of the Yakuza, the notorious Japanese mafia.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 10000
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Japan, USA
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: neo noir, tense, intense, harsh, serious, realistic, retro, spiritual, fast paced, crime drama
Similar in 89%
Unforgiven (2013)
Plot Summary:
Set in Hokkaido, Japan in the 1880s. Jubei Kamata (Ken Watanabe), who is on the side of the Edo shogunate government, kills many people. His name is infamous in Kyoto. When the battle at Goryoukaku is about to be finished, Jubei disappears. 10 years later, Jubei lives with his kid in relative peace. He is barely able to make a living. Protecting his dead wife's grave, Jubei has decided to never pick up a sword again, but due to poverty he has no choice but to pick the sword again. Jubei becomes a bounty hunter.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama, History, Thriller
Country: Japan
Duration: 135 min
Plot tags: tense, psychological, atmospheric, captivating, period piece, crime drama, serious, realistic, contemplative, jidai geki