Best movies like The Woman Sharper
Last updated March 2024
Looking for movies similar to The Woman Sharper? Provide your expertise to navigate others to tv series and films you've viewed before that might similarly immerse them. Aid in expanding the group of people raising videos between one another. We encourage your participation!
Plot Summary:
Handsome young Katsuta tries to follow the yakuza code, but even his boss doesn't believe in it. Diamond Fuyu is less ethical, and allows the idiotic Tetsu to trick a schoolgirl he fancies, Hanako, into a type of bonded prostitution. Because of gang conflict, the Izu family (to whom Katsuta belongs) has their last gambling den taken over, and he seeks revenge. This brings him back into contact with a former lover who is also a card trickster - she is also Diamond Fuyu's sister, and is now married to Okaru-Hachi, who has mastered a clever card cheating trick called Okaru, which involves the deft use of mirrors.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 426
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: offbeat, serious, realistic, suspenseful, stylized
Best tv shows and movies like The Woman Sharper (1963):
Similar in 90%
Pale Flower (1964)
Plot Summary:
Muraki, a hardboiled Yakuza gangster, has just been released from prison after serving a sentence for murder. Revisiting his old gambling haunts, he meets Saeko, a striking young upper-class woman who is out seeking thrills, and whose presence adds spice to the staid masculine underworld rituals. Muraki becomes her mentor while simultaneously coping with the shifts of power that have affected the gangs while he was interred. When he notices a rogue, drug-addicted young punk hanging around the gambling dens, he realizes that Saeko's insatiable lust for intense pleasures may be leading her to self-destruction.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Action, Crime
Country: Japan
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: neo noir, noir, cynical, black and white, existential, crime drama, tense, atmospheric, offbeat, serious
Similar in 85%
Pistol Opera (2001)
Plot Summary:
As one of Suzuki's last fims, it is related to his 1967 Branded to Kill, either as a remake or sequel. The plots of both films involve a third-ranked hit man deposing the top-ranked hit man to claim the top rank.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime, Action, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: surreal, psychedelic, atmospheric, realistic, serious, experimental, stylized, crime drama, cult classic, offbeat
Similar in 77%
Blood on the Streets (1974)
Plot Summary:
Marseille. Heaps of flowers and funeral wreaths... "A man who no longer defends his colors is no longer a man.".
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama
Country: France, Italy, West Germany
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: exciting, tense, rough, bleak, serious, neo noir, realistic, suspenseful, cynical, stylized
Similar in 81%
The Gunrunner (1989)
Plot Summary:
1926. The Chinese Civil War. Drifter Ted Beaubien is captured and forced to witness his girlfriend's execution. He finally escapes and vows to avenge her death by taking on a deadly mission to buy guns abroad and smuggle them back. Arriving in his hometown, Ted is shocked to find his elderly mother and younger brother George are penniless. But time is running out, and before he can help them, he's got to get the guns. In setting up the deal, Ted meets and falls for the seductive nightclub owner Maud Ryan who introduces him to the treacherous gangsters who will sell him the artillery. For a gun-runner, falling in love is like pointing a pistol at your heart - and pulling the trigger!.
IMDB Rating: 3.9
IMDB Votes: 715
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful, independent film
Similar in 81%
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 80%
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 86%
Yakuza-Busting Girls: Duel in Hell (2010)
Plot Summary:
Asami returns exhausted after three years of intense training to become a yakuza hunter. She decides to visit her old master, Inokuma, who runs a bar. However, she finds his place in ruins and nothing is as it was when she left. As it turns out, the local yakuza had turned it into a gambling house and laid claim to the entire area with the help of a cold-blooded killer named Akira. Akira is relentless, and utilizes cruel tactics when anyone dares get in her way.
IMDB Rating: 4.5
IMDB Votes: 118
Genere: Action
Country: Japan
Duration: 73 min
Plot tags: exciting, stylized, tense, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, splatter
Similar in 81%
The Divine Move (2014)
Plot Summary:
Professional baduk (go) player Tae-seok loses a high-stakes game to infamous underground gambler Sal-soo, and ends up framed for the murder of his own brother and locked up in prison. He vows revenge and trains ferociously. After serving his seven-year sentence, he gets in touch with his brother's former associate "Tricks," hermit and blind master player "The Lord," and skillful junkyard owner Mok-su; together, they begin formulating a plan to get back at Sal-soo and his men. Tae-seok slowly penetrates Sal-soo's inner circle and his gambling joint, and eliminates Sal-soo's men one by one. But Sal-soo discovers Tae-seok's true identity and engages him in one final game that will seal the fates of the two men involved.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Action, Crime
Country: South Korea
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: exciting, rough, serious, suspenseful, suspense, realistic
Similar in 89%
Open City (2008)
Plot Summary:
Jo Dae-yeong is a police officer investigating a pickpocket ring with ties to the Yakuza. One day he rescues Baek Jang-mi from danger, only to discover that she is the boss of the gang he has been tracking.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 846
Genere: Action, Crime
Country: South Korea
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: exciting, tense, rough, suspenseful, serious, realistic, stylized
Similar in 77%
Graveyard of Honor (1975)
Plot Summary:
A look at the life of renegade yakuza, Rikio Ishikawa, particularly the years from 1946 to 1950 when his violent antics get him in trouble with his own clan, Kawada, and then with the clan of his protector, Kozaburo Imai. In these years, he can rely on Chieko, a young Tokyo courtesan who gives him shelter. He's banished to Osaka, where he picks up a drug habit. Through it all, he keeps his friends and enemies off balance with unpredictable behavior - and he seems indestructible.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Action, Crime
Country: Japan
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: crime drama, rough, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful, stylized, gloomy
Similar in 86%
The Yakuza Papers, Vol. 4: Police Tactics (1974)
Plot Summary:
As Japan gears up for the 1964 Olympic games, the cops start to crack down under pressure from the public and the press, adding a new dimension in the war for power among the yakuza families of Hiroshima. Akira Kobayashi's Takeda tries to keep a lid on things, but hotheaded underlings create chaos, with one boss whacked in neutral territory, and the craven boss, Uchimoto, informing on an assassination attempt by his own minions. While the police round up hundreds of yakuza foot soldiers, Bunta Sugawara's Shozo Hirono plots to finally take out longtime nemesis, boss Yamamori.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: queer cinema
Similar in 80%
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 90%
The Five (1995)
Plot Summary:
Five men plot to steal a large sum of money from the local yakuza, but everything does not go as planned and the men find themselves hunted down by contract killers.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Action, Drama, Crime
Country: Japan
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: neo noir, crime drama, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, stylized, tragic ending, gay cinema
Similar in 89%
Tokyo Drifter (1966)
Plot Summary:
After yakuza boss Kurata dissolves his own criminal empire, a rival kingpin offers a position to Kurata's top operative, Tetsuya "Phoenix Tetsu" Hondo. When the fiercely loyal Tetsu declines, Otsuka taps unstoppable Tatsuzo the "Viper", a ruthless gun-for-hire, to assassinate him. As the Viper trails his target through the countryside, the agile Phoenix Tetsu grows concerned that one of his former associates has betrayed him.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Action, Crime
Country: Japan
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: surreal, neo noir, absurd, avant garde, art house, hood, neo western, aesthetic, colorful, atmospheric
Similar in 83%
No Blood No Tears (2002)
Plot Summary:
Gyung-sun is a washed-up cab driver who has been trying to go straight after years in trouble with the law after being a big-time safecracker. Soo-jin wants to be a famous singer, but lives the life of a trophy girlfriend to her vicious gangster boyfriend. An unlikely situation cause these two different women to meet where they plan a daring solution to both their problems that will escalate and threaten the wrath of many powerful and corrupt people around them.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 686
Genere: Action, Comedy, Crime, Drama
Country: South Korea
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, suspenseful, stylized, crime drama, exciting, neo noir, realistic
Similar in 80%
Street Mobster (1972)
Plot Summary:
The Japanese yakuza films certainly have a well-earned reputation of being violent and chaotic. Some are more frenetic than others and Street Mobster is unbelievable high on savagery and energy. It dawned the re-birth of the genre, telling the story of low-level punks who will do anything without compromise and little sense of honor.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Action, Crime
Country: Japan
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: crime drama, bloody, exciting, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, stylized
Similar in 84%
Family (2001)
Plot Summary:
When the mobster Iwaida Nishikawi is executed by the hit man Takeshi, his family chases the killer. Takeshi's brothers Takashi and Hideshi Miwa try to find Takeshi, who is hidden with the nurse Rie Ishibashi, to protect him and Hideshi discovers that Takeshi was secretly sent by their Yakuza boss to eliminate Iwaida. Meanwhile, the mobster Kenmoshi abducts Takashi's wife Mariko and rapes her, trying to force Takashi to deliver his brother to him.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 296
Genere: Action, Crime
Country: Japan
Duration: 111 min
Plot tags: exciting, rough, serious, suspenseful, bloody, crime drama, realistic
Similar in 82%
The City of Lost Souls (2000)
Plot Summary:
Brazilian-Japanese gangster Mario rescues his Chinese girlfriend Kei as she's about to be deported from Japan. Desperate to escape, he hides in Tokyo's booming Japanese-Portuguese community and seeks passage from the country from a Russian mobster. To meet his price, they hold up a bigtime drug deal between the Chinese Mafia and the local Yakuza.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Japan
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: disturbing, atmospheric, harsh, exciting, rough, suspenseful, realistic, stylized, crime drama, serious
Similar in 84%
New York Cop (1993)
Plot Summary:
Allegedly based on a true story, this film follows the life of Toshi, a Japanese man living in America and working with the New York City police. After being recommended for undercover work, Toshi decides to go after a gang lead by Hawk. Hawk and Toshi soon become friends, although Hawk's second-in-command, Tito, is suspicious of the newcomer. Will Toshi be able to bring the gang down, or will his cover be blown before he can finish the assignment?.
IMDB Rating: 4.2
IMDB Votes: 249
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama
Country: Japan, USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: crime drama, independent film, exciting, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 84%
Sleepless Town (1998)
Plot Summary:
Kenichi is a half-Japanese, half-Chinese man of the underworld. You can sell him anything except children's organs. His domain is in Kabukicho, a gangland controlled by various Shanghai gangs intent on taking control. His former partner-in-crime, Fu-Chun, is rumored to have returned to Kabukicho, having fled years earlier after killing the number two of gangland boss, Yuan. Yuan wants to get even and attempts to do so by using Kenichi.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 700
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Hong Kong, Japan
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: exciting, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 78%
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 75%
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 78%
The Big I Am (2010)
Plot Summary:
A cruel twist of fate catapults small time crook Mickey Skinner into the big league, as head of a brutal London gang poised on the brink of a lucrative human-trafficking deal.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Action, Crime
Country: UK
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: tense, rough, serious, suspenseful, realistic, neo noir
Similar in 80%
The Bodyguard (1973)
Plot Summary:
Karate master and anti-drug vigilante Chiba returns to his home in Japan, where he holds a press conference announcing his intention to wipe out the nation's drug industry. He also offers his services as a bodyguard to anyone who is willing to come forward and provide information about the drug lords' activities. He is soon approached by a mysterious woman claiming to have important information and asking for Chiba's protection. She seems to be legitimate, but is she really what she appears to be?.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 545
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 87 min
Plot tags: grindhouse, exciting, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, fast, neo noir
Similar in 86%
The Last Tycoon (2012)
Plot Summary:
Set in Shanghais Gangster era of the early 1900s, THE LAST TYCOON tells the tale of CHENG (Chow Yun-Fat), a young man who is set up by the chief of police (Sammo Hung) and must leave the life he knows and QIU (Monica Mok), the woman he loves, to start again. After escaping prison CHENG quickly and violently moves his way up the ladder of Shanghais criminal underworld to become on the most powerful mob bosses in Shanghais history. But fame and notoriety take their toll when CHENG finds himself stuck between the looming Japanese army and the scheming local secret service. Matters are only made worse when he bumps into the love of his life QIU, along with her writer husband. Will love re-kindle in the dusk of an era?.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Action, Adventure, Crime, Drama
Country: Hong Kong, China
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, suspenseful, exciting, captivating, retro, heroic, crime drama, rough, realistic
Similar in 76%
Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman (1989)
Plot Summary:
This 26th film installment of the Zatoichi series sees Shintaro Katsu return to this classic role after a 10 year hiatus. The blind masseur Ichi gets caught between rival Yakuza clans.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Action, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: cult classic, exciting, tense, atmospheric, rough, serious, captivating, realistic, suspenseful, stylized
Similar in 80%
Beyond Outrage (2012)
Plot Summary:
As the police launch a full-scale crackdown on organized crime, it ignites a national yakuza struggle between the Sanno of the East and Hanabishi of the West. What started as an internal strife in Outrage has now become a nationwide war in Outrage Beyond.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: tense, rough, serious, realistic, psychological, noir, neo noir, bloody, hood, crime thriller
Similar in 82%
Triad (2012)
Plot Summary:
Three childhood friends join the Hong Kong Triads only to discover that fame and fortune will ultimately break them apart as only one can become the leader of the gang.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 430
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Hong Kong
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 88%
Battles Without Honor and Humanity (1973)
Plot Summary:
In the teeming black markets of postwar Japan, Shozo Hirono and his buddies find themselves in a new war between factious and ambitious yakuza.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: grindhouse, exciting, rough, serious, captivating, realistic, suspenseful, stylized
Similar in 80%
Outrage Coda (2017)
Plot Summary:
Ôtomo gets involved with new Yakuza battles after he comes back the Yakuza society.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: exciting, tense, captivating, suspense, disturbing, neo noir, hood