Best movies like Dead or Alive

A daring exercise in ultra-violent extremes.

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Dead or Alive Starring Riki Takeuchi, Show Aikawa, Renji Ishibashi, Hitoshi Ozawa, and more. If you liked Dead or Alive then you may also like: The Yakuza, Yakuza's Law, Walking the Edge, Rage of Honor, Rainy Dog and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

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.

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Know any good movies to watch like Dead or Alive 1999. With a similar plot or stoyline. Suggest it.
7.1 / 10 1974 Action Crime Drama
suggested by: ThunderousTarantula

The Yakuza

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.

Walking the Edge

A Los Angeles taxi driver helps a distraught woman on the run from gangsters after they murder her husband and young son.

Rage of Honor

A Japanese cop, Shiro, and his partner Ray are after a bunch of drug dealers. But they are betrayed by an insider and Ray is killed. Shiro follows the murderer, a sadistic drug lord, up to Argentina

Rainy Dog

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.

Kill the Irishman

Over the summer of 1976, thirty-six bombs detonate in the heart of Cleveland while a turf war raged between Irish mobster Danny Greene and the Italian mafia. Based on a true story, Kill the Irishman chronicles Greene's heroic rise from a tough Cleveland neighborhood to become an enforcer in the local mob.

The French Connection

Tough narcotics detective 'Popeye' Doyle is in hot pursuit of a suave French drug dealer who may be the key to a huge heroin-smuggling operation.

Ichi the Killer

As sadomasochistic yakuza enforcer Kakihara searches for his missing boss he comes across Ichi, a repressed and psychotic killer who may be able to inflict levels of pain that Kakihara has only dreamed of.

Violent Cop

A detective breaks all rules of ethical conduct while investigating a colleague’s involvement in drug pushing and Yakuza activities.

Fudoh: The New Generation

In order to settle a business dispute, a mob leader murders one of his own teenage sons. The surviving son vows to avenge his brother's death, and organizes his own gang of teenage killers to destroy his father's organization.

Sonatine

Murakawa, a Tokyo yakuza tiring of gangster life, is sent by his boss to Okinawa along with a few of his henchmen to help end a gang war, supposedly to mediate between two warring clans. He finds that the dispute between the clans is insignificant and whilst wondering why he was sent to Okinawa at all, Murakawa’s headquarters are bombed and he and his gang are ambushed.

Gang Related

Two corrupt cops have a successful, seemingly perfect money making scheme- they sell drugs that they seize from dealers, kill the dealers, and blame the crimes on street gangs. Their scheme is going along smoothly until they kill an undercover DEA agent posing as a dealer, and then try to cover-up their crime.

Chaos

In Seattle, detective Quentin Conners is unfairly suspended and his partner Jason York leaves the police force after a tragic shooting on Pearl Street Bridge, when the hostage and the criminal die. During a bank heist with a hostage situation, Conners is assigned in charge of the operation with the rookie Shane Dekker as his partner. The thieves, lead by Lorenz, apparently do not steal a penny from the bank. While chasing the gangsters, the police team disclose that they planted a virus in the system, stealing one billion dollars from the different accounts, using the principle of the Chaos Theory. Further, they find that Lorenz is killing his accomplices.

The City of Lost Souls

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.

Hollow Point

Livingston is trying to merge the Russians, Chinese and Italian gangsters into one group with huge amounts of money and power. FBI agent Susan and DEA agent Max are trying to stop them.

Dog Bite Dog

A young Cambodian man who has been trained to fight for money in his country is hired to kill someone in Hong Kong. He performs the hit and then flees from Hong Kong police, who are wrestling with internal problems of a model cop and his son, who is also on the force and who was told by his dad not to become a police officer.

Graveyard of Honor

A self-destructive man becomes a powerful member of the Japanese mafia but quickly loses his self control. Based on the true story of Rikio Ishikawa.

Graveyard of Honor

A barkeeper saves a Yakuza boss' life and thus makes his way up in the organization. However, his fear of nothing soon causes problems.

Ley Lines

The story follows a trio of Japanese youths of Chinese descent who escape their semi-rural upbringing and relocate to Shinjuku, Tokyo, where they befriend a troubled Shanghai prostitute and fall foul of a local crime syndicate. Like many of Miike's works, the film examines the underbelly of respectable Japanese society and the problems of assimilation faced by non-ethnically Japanese people in Japan.

Mob Town

Based on the true story of the notorious 1957 ‘mob summit’ in upstate New York. Spearheaded by Vito Genovese, more than 50 leaders of the organized crime syndicates from around the country converged on the sleepy town to discuss upcoming expansion plans. Their plans are foiled when local police trooper Ed Croswell discovers their activities and, consequently, exposes the mob to the American public. Croswell’s actions shed light on the massive web of corruption and changed the face of law enforcement forever.

Shottas

A raw urban drama about two friends raised on the dangerous streets of Kingston, Jamaica. Biggs and Wayne take on the "Shotta" way of life to survive. As young boys, they begin a life of crime, eventually moving to the US where they begin a ruthless climb from the bottom. They remain bound to each other by their shottas loyalty as they aggressively take control of the Jamaican underworld.

Shinjuku Triad Society

Tatsuhito, a cop, pursues Chinese warlord Wang through the underworld of Shinjuku and over to Taiwan.

5.7 / 10 1993 Crime
suggested by: user897gonkbyje

American Yakuza

When Nick Davis leaves prison after one year in solitaire, he is hired to operate forklift in a warehouse in the harbor owned by the Japanese Yakuza patriarch Isshin Tendo. The place is assaulted by the Italian Mafia leaded by Dino Campanela and Nick rescues and saves the life of Shuji Sawamoto, who is the representative of Yakuza interests in America. Shuji hires Nick to work for Yakuza and becomes his godfather in the family after his oath to join Yakuza. However, Nick is a lonely FBI undercover agent assigned to penetrate in the criminal organization. When the FBI discovers that Campanela is organizing a massive attack to destroy the Yakuza, Nick's boss Littman calls off the operation to leave the dirty work to the Italian Mafia. But the connection of Nick with Shuji and his goddaughter Yuko forces him to help his Japanese family.

American Dragons

Murders in Seoul, Korea and in America pair two cops from each of the countries together to solve the crimes. The investigation leads to a gang war between the Mafia and the Yakuza, but one that may not be of either of their making. A shadowy assassin is killing the leaders and an Italian assassin may have his own agenda.

Dead or Alive: Final

Set in a post apocalyptic Yokohama where the population is kept under rigid control by a homosexual megalomaniac mayor. The citizens are administered drugs to suppress heterosexual urges. Officer Takeshi Honda is a hard boiled cop enforcing the mayor's agenda, and Ryō is a mellowed out drifter that hooks up with a gang of rebels. When the gang kidnap Takeshi's son, it begins a series of events leading to an inevitable showdown.

The Killing Zone

Convict is recruited from a chain gang to help capture a Mexican drug lord.

Gangster Land

The story of America's most famous mobsters and their rise to power. Examine Al Capone's ascension through the eyes of his second in command, “Machine Gun” Jack McGurn.

Outrage Coda

Five years after the all-out war between the Sanno and Hanabishi crime families, former yakuza boss Otomo works in South Korea for Mr. Chang, a noted fixer. When tensions rise between Chang and the Hanabishi, and Chang's life is endangered, Otomo returns to Japan to settle things once and for all.

Beyond Outrage

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.

Deadly Outlaw: Rekka

After Kunisada's Yakuza leader and father figure is brutally murdered, he and his best friend go on a two-man mission to avenge his death, killing other Yakuza leaders leading to a final confrontation by the old man's killers.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon

Former yakuza underling Kazuma Kiryū 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, Kiryū's problems slowly escalate as he is pursued by a former associate, the baseball-bat-wielding psycho Gorō Majima, who has a grudge to settle with Kiryū.

Street Mobster

After serving time, a defiant street thug is incensed to find his town overrun by two yakuza factions. He gathers his crew and takes them on.

Sleepless Town

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.

Backfire

After a botched robbery escalates to homicide, a north Philly gun runner has to escape or outsmart the south Philly Italian mob as they close in for vengeance.

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