Best movies like An Ode to Yakuza

A hit-woman goes after the Japanese mafia with a mad-on after her sister is killed. Beautiful, seductive Ran (Kaori Shimamura) harbors a secret: By night, she's the deadly assassin known as the Black Orchid. Her newest assignment started as an ordinary hit, but now it threatens to pull her into a nightmare world of sex and murder. Toshiharu Ikeda, creator of the Evil Dead Trap series of films, directs this erotic, violent tale of underworld deception.

Zatoichi is mentored by the blind leader of a secret organization as he contends with both the Yakuza and a jealous husband.

A teenager named Noriko Shimabara runs away from her family in Toyokawa, to meet Kumiko, the leader of an Internet BBS, Haikyo.com. She becomes involved with Kumiko's family circle, which grows darker after the mass suicide of 54 high school girls.

Isabella, the daughter of the noble York family, is enrolled in an all-girls academy to be groomed into a dame worthy of nobility. However, she has given up on her future, seeing the prestigious school as nothing more than a prison from the outside world. Her family notices her struggling in her lessons and decides to hire Violet Evergarden to personally tutor her under the guise of a handmaiden. At first, Isabella treats Violet coldly. Violet seems to be able to do everything perfectly, leading Isabella to assume that she was born with a silver spoon. After some time, Isabella begins to realize that Violet has had her own struggles and starts to open up to her. Isabella soon reveals that she has lost contact with her beloved younger sister, whom she yearns to see again. Having experienced the power of words through her past clientele, Violet asks if Isabella wishes to write a letter to Taylor. Will Violet be able to help Isabella convey her feelings to her long-lost sister?

A businessman, Tsuda, runs into a childhood friend, Tajuki, on the subway. Tajuki is working as a semiprofessional boxer. Tsuda soon begins to suspect that Tajuki might be having an affair with his fiancée Hizuru. After an altercation, Tsuda begins training rigorously himself, leading to an extremely bloody, violent confrontation.

A woman named Fujiki Asuka arrives as an acquaintance of a sister in law for a day under the bar master Tamura who had guided Yakuza's escaping as a shoji. Tamura who lives on the second floor of the store for the time being the son who wants to work here. A few days later, Tamura finds a handgun from Yuko's baggage and holds a suspicion ....

After a draining December, Sakuta is quickly nearing the end of his second year of high school. Since Mai is a third-year student, they don't have much time left together before graduation rolls around. Meanwhile, his sister, Kaede, is slowly but steadily venturing outdoors again. Just as she begins to find her footing, she announces her most ambitious goal yet—attending her brother's high school! Sakuta knows better than anyone how difficult this will be for Kaede, and he's ready to support her however he can. He's just not sure if that's what's best for her...or what she really wants...

Living by the sea, protecting the sea, and journeying across the sea…They’re the BLUE MERMAIDS! Because of a shift in tectonic plates around 100 years ago, Japan lost much of its area to submergence. To preserve Japan’s territories, Coastal Cities sprung up, one after the other. Eventually, they became Marine Cities, and along with the expansion of sea-lanes to connect them, the need arose for a sizable staff to protect the seas. At the same time, maritime jobs were becoming more popular among women. Hence, the BLUE MERMAIDS had become every female student’s dream job.

Shinnosuke is introduced to Shizu as a prospective marriage partner, but he falls in love with her widowed sister Oyu. Convention forbids Oyu to marry because she has to raise her son as the head of her husband's family. Oyu convinces Shinnosuke and Shizu to marry so that she can remain close to Shinnosuke.

This Japanese melodrama chronicles the exploits of a geisha's beautiful daughter. The daughter is the geisha's pride and she spares nothing to insure that she has a bright future. But the hard-working young woman's dreams of becoming a dressmaker are shattered.... She then becomes a nightclub hostess who plays cards with male patrons using her body as the prize.

In the near future, the economy has collapsed and the country has turned into a ghetto. A secret agency, Gokuraku, has been created by the government. Secret agents Aya and Chinatsu's mission is to fight against one of the largest international companies, Kuroda Group. Secret agents are called 'Lady Ninja', and they use a traditional Japanese umbrella-like tool called 'sangoku' to defeat evil.

A group of sinners involved in interconnected tales of murder, revenge, deceit and adultery all meet at the Gates of Hell.

When Koryu's childhood friend Shurei is abducted by gangsters, the desperate young woman recruits a female martial artist and a tough-as-nails stranger to join her for a dangerous rescue mission.

Fresh out of jail, a smart-mouth wise guy Goro takes the name “Big Brother Katsumata.” Not fitting in well with established gangs, he forms a rag-tag gang called “the Shinjuku Brothers.” The members of their gang are thugs who only wish they were traditional yakuza. When they turn up at the funeral for a gangster, they are not welcomed, but a senior boss intervenes to keep things calm. The boss of bosses invites them to join a respected local council of warlords. Katsumata is suspicious of why such powerful men would extend an invitation to lowlife like himself.

Ichijoji is a street punk who stumbles across Mari and her cat. Mari and Ichijoji immediately fall in love but are chased by both yakuza and corrupt cops.

Ohyaku is a grifter who falls in love with a thief, who recruits her for his plan to rob a shipment of government gold. When this plan goes wrong and Ohyaku ends up in prison, she resolves to do anything to escape and claim revenge on the ones who betrayed her and her lover.

With his penultimate film, Uchida revisited one of his popular prewar titles, 1936’s Theatre of Life, an adaptation of Shiro Ozaki’s eponymous novel. Three-time Seijun Suzuki collaborator Goro Tanada wrote a gangsterized adaptation of Ozaki’s story for Uchida at a time when the yakuza had eclipsed the samurai genre as Toei's main cash crop. Protagonist Hishakaku murders a man in a quarrel over a barmaid and goes to jail. In his temporary absence, his girlfriend Otoyo, a former geisha, falls for Hishakaku’s brother, inciting a dangerous love triangle that, in typical yakuza fashion, ends tragically.

After having served a prison sentence Oman is released only to find that her sister is in the clutches of a group of Yakuza lowlifes. Once again Oman has to take action.

Just released on parole, one young man hurtles towards a face-off with the gangsters controlling Shinjuku and its lucrative prostitutes.

Monjiro, reunited with his long lost sister, is pursued by a yakuza gang because he killed their boss. He also meets a fellow gambler who idolizes Monjiro. The gambler and Monjiro's sister are pulled into a conspiracy to get to Monjiro, but do things go as planned?

Osaka, 1907: Asajiro lives between a rock and a hard place: he has to keep his business clean and running, tame his late oyabun’s hot-blooded son and suffer the throes of his impossible love for beautiful geisha Hatsue.

A yakuza man is released from prison after serving a long sentence. He immediately sets about creating a new gang and attempts to pull off a huge ransom score.

Katsuji takes revenge on evil Tamaru who forcefully took control of the fishery business run by Katsuji’s friend.

Dancer Lucille Le Jambon (whose real name is Lucy Higgins) loses her job when the morals committee of Sycamore, Kansas, headed by the self-righteous Deacon John Griswold, forces the Merry Models Burlesque show to close. Having grown fond of Sycamore, Lucy opens a combined ice cream parlor and dance hall, where she teaches the young people all the latest dances. ...

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.

In Okinawa, a down-and-out middle-aged yakuza underling named Shidara kidnaps and confines a high school girl named Yui, the daughter of a fellow yakuza’s mistress.

Ritsuko is a popular madame of a nightclub but, ever since her gangster husband got caught and imprisoned, her life has taken a turn for the worst. Now, in order to pay off his debts to a yakuza loan shark, Lady Ritsuko is forced to engage in private sex shows for the VIP clientele. After a year of these special shows, the loan is almost paid off.

A young woman plans to kill herself on her birthday, but a chance meeting with a depressed salaryman in Shinjuku Station changes her path.

Because of the desolate landscape, Kobayashi chose snow-covered Hokkaido (the most northern island of Japan) as the setting for Amazing Story, a light-erotic drama about a lonely man, Kenji, who kidnaps the woman of his dreams. The woman is Harumi, a hairdresser in the deserted town where Kenji has just arrived. It's never really busy in her business. Harumi's husband is a gambling addict and spends all Harumi's money. Maybe that's why Harumi doesn't try very hard to escape when Kenji kidnaps her. His concern about her and his boundless worship probably help, too. Something strange and beautiful blossoms between the kidnapper and his victim, but can this be the basis of a long and happy encounter?

Shocking scenes are revealed in the Nagasaki Women's prison.

When a single mom hires a tutor to help her daughter graduate high school, the tutor becomes dangerously obsessed.

Yakuza Zombie opens with an introduction to a mysterious Yakuza graveyard deep in the forest, and a story of the baddest Yakuza of them all, Naruo Ryuuji (shown in cut scenes played by Ozawa Hitoshi). Naruo Ryuuji was a fearless killer who eventually got into heroin and, exactly like Ishimatsu Rikuo in Takashi Miike's Graveyard of Honor, eventually leaps to his death from the top of a prison, claiming he'll be back. I'm assuming this is a reference to real life crazy Yakuza Ishikawa Rikio, whom the original Graveyard of Honor was based on. It's established that the corpse of the fierce Yakuza Ryuuji is buried in the graveyard beneath a marker with the Japanese characters "Jingi" (Honor), and then we are taken to the modern day.

Hikaru and Ichiro are close friends in high school. Hikaru's elder brother Tadashi fell in love with Ichiro's elder sister, Mikako at first sight. Although she gave the cold shoulder to Tadashi, she gradually became fond of Tadashi.

University student Akira meets the lovely 14-year-old Yumi, whom he had tutored years ago. Her mother is told by her doctor that the schoolgirl has leukaemia and has only 6 months to live.

Richshaw man Tatsu has wandered to Osaka from Tokyo. He has quarrels with Kimiyakko, a geisha, and throws her into the river. But later, he falls in love with her. Yasaburo, the oyabun of the Nishikawa Gang, loves her very much too. However, as he likes Tatsu's dynamic personality, he volunteers to become a go-between for their marriage. Yasaburo gets tipped off by Yajima who wants to take over the territory of the Nishikawa Gang, and is arrested and imprisoned. After his release, Yajima tries to kill him. Ginjiro, a lover of Tamaryu respects Kimiyakko as an older sister and a follower of Tatsu, is murdered. After the third marriage ceremony just between Tatsu and Kimiyakko, Tatsu goes off to the place of fighting.