Best movies like A Killer's Key

Meiko Kaji reprises her role as Nami, a vengeful female gang leader, in the second installment of this high-action series that casts a new actor -- martial arts legend Sonny Chiba -- in the role of Nami's loyal friend Ryuji. This time around, Nami is looking for Hoshiden, the man who murdered her father and shattered her once-hopeful childhood. But living under an assumed name, Hoshiden could stay hidden forever.

A Japanese assassin stranded in Taiwan must take work from a local crime boss to make ends meet when suddenly a woman from his past delivers a son to him.

Kiba is back again, but this time he has fallen from grace and sent to prison for all the violent acts he has committed. Once he's out, he begins working as a bodyguard in a club that is crawling with gangsters.

After botching his latest assignment, a third-ranked Japanese hit man becomes the target of another assassin.

A sex-obsessed young woman, a suicidal young man she meets on the street, a gun-crazy wannabe gangster—these are just three of the irrational, oddball anarchists trapped in an underground hideaway in Oshima’s devilish, absurdist portrait of what he deemed the “death drive” in Japanese youth culture.

A former soldier, reduced to working at a restaurant post-war, becomes a contract killer for the yakuza gangs he's in contact with.

Repeatedly beat to a pulp by gamblers, cops, and gangsters, lone wolf Shoji Yamanaka finally finds a home as a Muraoka family hitman and falls in love with boss Muraoka's niece. Meanwhile, the ambitions of mad dog Katsutoshi Otomo draws our series' hero, Shozo Hirono, and the other yakuza into a new round of bloodshed.

Wandering samurai Nemuri Kyoshiro (Raizô Ichikawa) finds a bulls-eye on his back after befriending the shogunate's tightfisted financial adviser, Asahina, who's earned the wrath of the shogun's self-indulgent daughter for cutting off her allowance. The enraged princess promptly hatches a scheme to have Asahina bumped off -- along with his protector, Kyoshiro. Shiho Fujimura also stars in this installment of the enormously popular film series.

[Period covered: 1582-1594]. As the film opens, the warlod Nobunaga Oda rides to Iga Ayanokuni shrine. He is asked if he thinks he has destroyed all the ninja who opposed him and answers that he suspects that there may be more. A servant brings water and tests it first. The paige dies and we hear gunshots as two ninja flee the scene. His suspicions confirmed, Nobunaga oversees the execution of captured ninja and decides that, in the future, he needs a much crueler method of execution. The daimyo Hideyoshi comes to visit.

[Period covered: 1616] Kirigakure Saizo (Mist Saizo) returns for the final time as he sets out to assassinate Tokugawa Ieyasu in order to avenge the death of Lord Sanada Yukimura. But first he must contend with Ieyasu’s own ninja group led by the powerful Fuma Daijuro, who has a score to settle with the men of Iga that dates back 280 years to the war between the Genji and the Heike at the Battle of Dan-no-Ura. Tremendous fighting and great plot twists highlight this exceptional look into the lives of the mysterious ninja of Japan.

[Period covered: 1595-1600] Third film in the famous shinobi no mono series. We last saw ninja Ishikawa Goemon (Raizo Ichikawa), as he was about to be boiled alive. But a good ninja is both hard to find, and even harder to kill. With the help of the enigmatic Hattori Hanzo, Goemon lives to skulk another day, and sets his sights on bringing down the warlord who tried to turn him into soup – Toyotomi Hideyoshi. And as always, in the background, the suble hand of Tokugawa Ieyasu is pulling strings as he plots to rule all of Japan!

[Period covered: 1637-1651] This is one of the most complicated plots of any of the Shinobi no Mono films! This film tells the story of Saizo’s son, Kirigakure Saisuke, who after seeing his father die at the Battle Of Shimabara, grows up to be an expert ninja. Before he dies, “Mist” Saizo tells his children Saisuke, and Yuri that they are not really brother and sister. She, in fact, is the daughter of the late lord Sanada Yukimura, and must be saved from the shogun’s forces. In the chess match of spy versus spy, can Saisuke defeat the shogun’s chief strategist, Matsudaira Izunokami at his own game? Showing many exciting ninja tactics, it is not to be missed.

Akira is the legendary killer known as the Fable. Following the order of his boss and due to being overworked, he lives peacefully with his partner, Yoko, as ordinary siblings. Akira still works part-time at design company Octopus with CEO Takoda and employee Misaki. CEO Takoda and Misaki are unaware of Akira's background as an assassin. Meanwhile, Utsubo is a representative for an NPO. But, Utsubo works with contract killer Suzuki to set people up for extortion purposes. They target someone at design company Octopus.

Returning to the village where a year before he had killed Hirate, a much-admired opponent, Zatoichi encounters another swordsman and former rival in love.

A young yakuza hitman named Goro does a job and needs to hideout away from Tokyo for a while. He hangs out with loose women and hard men and always manages to stay one step ahead of the law. In his exile, he comes under suspicion for a murder and meets the girlfriend of the murdered man. They develop a strange bond while unbeknown to Goro, another hitman is after him for the job he did in Tokyo.

Kuroda 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 and aspiring boxer Saburo, the trio escalate their mob retaliation to all-out turf war where no one will stop until one faction emerges victorious.

“I like shady dealings,” purrs undercover superspy Yabuki en route to infiltrating a sadistic, trigger-happy gang of international jewel thieves. Gone renegade from the shadowy espionage bureau that honed his killer instincts to a razor’s edge, the implacable Yabuki teams up with fellow mercenary crime fighter Yamawaki. Together, they follow a trail of stolen gems leading from the final days of WWII to a contemporary conspiracy that reaches into the highest corridors of corporate power and nefarious international villainy.

The second movie of Tôru Murakawa's "Game" trilogy. After making a sensational hit, a hitman has gone into hiding for five years. When he comes back he bumps into two women that he has spared five years ago. Two rival yakuza bosses hire Narumi to kill the other. Will Narumi's sense of chivalry entrap him again?

Oichi may have met her match as she vies against the evil beauty that has set her sights on destroying her. She must face numerous other challenges before confronting her greatest rival. While longing to live and love like other women, she realizes that she can never have a normal life, her sword which she holds on to like a security blanket will always come between her and such a life...

Attacking Asao Uchida's lonely, clifftop mansion in no-holds barred massacre.

Isazo is a traveling gambler and living legend in the world of yakuza, known for his swordsmanship and bravery, his impeccable manners, and his brilliant talent in gambling. One late fall at an inn in Kiso Fukushima, Isazo befriends a young boy whose mother turns out to be his old love Yoshino, with whom he was not unable to consummate a marriage due to the class differences between them.

In the mountain regions of Hida, the dreams of a peasant named Kyonosuke, who longed to be a samurai, come true when he becomes one of three doubles, of shadows, of Lord Yasutaka. After months of intense and cruel training, he faces his destiny when the Lord and the other two shadows are killed in battle and he must take on the role of Lord Yasutaka....

A decapitation at the hands of the shogun's monstrous misbegotten son kicks off the action and draws nomadic Nemuri Kyoshiro (Raizô Ichikawa) into more sword-fighting adventures when he's blamed for the beheading. Meanwhile, the head-chopper's mother is busy knocking off the shogun's lawful heirs to secure the shogunate for her son.

The Son of the Black Mass returns in this ninth installment in Daiei's longstanding Nemuri Kyoshiro series. This time Raizo Ichikawa as Nemuri is called to see that a gold statuette of the Virgin Mary gets safe passage to Kyoto from the prying hands of a sect of murderous Christian ronin that call themselves the Black Finger Group.

The Domain: Where The Blade Enters

Disguised as a beggar monk, Ryunosuke is harassed along the road by the rowdy members of a country dojo or fencing school malingering outside their fencing hall. The third film in the Satan's Sword trilogy.

After a yakuza boss is assassinated by a rival, his naval officer son returns home to take over the gang.

Set in 1926 when Japanese tradition was much stronger, this drama looks at the inner workings of a small family, especially the relationship between a sister and brother.

The widow of a murdered yakuza boss serves jail time for attacking the man she believes killed her husband. After her release, as she is shadowed by a hitman, she returns to thoughts of revenge.

Legendary yakuza Shimizu Jirocho and his 28 henchmen travel the unruly path from a 'Fire Festival' in Akiba to a decisive battle by the Fujigawa.

Once upon a time, Okuro (Ayako Wakao), a young female racoon, lived poorly with her drunken father. One day after they disguised themselves as parasols, they were wrongly brought to the Racoon Palace, where the young racoon princess (also Ayako Wakao) made a mess of her arranged marriage with the beautiful racoon prince (Raizô Ichikawa). Pretty princess ran away. In order not to spoil the promising marriage, people tried to make use of resemblances between Okuro and the princess. Before long, Okuro and the Prince fell in love with each other...

Ichikawa Raizo’s last film. He plays a Yakuza enforcer who kills a man on his boss's orders. He’s then sent to a provincial town to lie low, only to be caught in another war orchestrated by his original boss who has set him up.

Hikaru Genji, the haunted romantic hero of Lady Murasaki Shikibu’s “Genji Monogatari” (Tale of Genji) comes to life in this new tale of his further romantic adventures. Young Genji, the emperor’s illegitimate son cuts a swath through the women of the imperial court, while still mourning the spirit of his late mother who died while he was still a child. Driven to an obsession with the emperor’s new concubine, Lady Fujitsubo, whose resemblance to his late mother originally caught the eye of the emperor, young Genji embarks upon a reckless affair with her that could cost him his life.