Best movies like Tough Guy

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.

After arriving in the town of Shimonita, Ichi finds that a price has been put on his head by a local yakuza boss. He's drawn into a trap, but after hearing of the slaying of a former love, Ichi furiously fights his way through the entire clan to face the killer, a hired ronin.

With a price on his head, Ichi seeks tranquillity in a favorite village. Since his last visit, it has fallen prey to Boss Masagoro, the son of a merchant rumored to have stolen gold from the shogunate. The boss has hired Yojimbo as his hard-drinking enforcer, but Yojimbo is both a spy for the shogunate, trying to find the gold, and in love with the merchant's unwilling mistress, Umeno. Ichi hires on as the merchant's masseur and buys Umeno's freedom with his employer's own money. This embarrasses Yojimbo who withdraws from a pact with Ichi to stir up trouble between father and son and their gangs. As the two sides fight, Ichi finds the gold and sets up a final set of confrontations.

Kanichiro Yoshimura is a Samurai and Family man who can no longer support his wife and children on the the low pay he receives from his small town clan, he is forced by the love for his family to leave for the city in search of higher pay to support them.

A once notorious gunfighter takes a respectable job on a ranch. "Nevada" is charged with protecting the ranch owner's pretty daughter, arousing the enmity of ranch foreman Clan Dillon, who is in love with the girl. The villainous foreman leaks a rumor of his rival's dark past to the sheriff, and the former outlaw is soon on the run again.

Onimasa is the egocentric boss of a small yakuza clan on Shikoku Island, whose criminal duties conflict with his self-image as a chivalrous samurai. His struggles with his boss, the Shikoku Godfather, and the tumultuous life of his adopted daughter, Matsue, form the backdrop of this epic tale of justice, obedience, and bloody vengeance.

Scottish orphan David Balfour is betrayed by his wicked uncle Ebeneezer, who arranges for David to be kidnapped and sold into slavery so that he cannot claim his inheritance. The boy is rescued and befriended by Alan Breck, a Scottish rebel fighting on behalf of his country's independence from the British.

Seiji and Yoshifumi are the only members of the Muto branch of the Date Family. The two respect and love their leader, Mr. Muto, like a father and the three share a firm bond. But their fate is sealed when the Family is involved in a conflict. Muto is unable to pay his share of funds for the oncoming battle but tells executives of the Family that he would fight at the front line instead. In the wish to protect Muto, Seiji has him arrested by the police. Ignoring the Family executives' mocks of "Muto escaped to prison", Seiji prepares for the battle and attacks like a demon on behalf of his boss...

On his release from prison a young yakuza, along with his brother, decides to turn his back on criminal life instead of taking over the position of his recently deceased father, boss of the Asahina clan. But their exit proves more difficult than planned when their rival clan steps in to exact revenge.

Toshiro Mifune swaggers and snarls to brilliant comic effect in Kurosawa's tightly paced, beautifully composed "Sanjuro." In this companion piece and sequel to "Yojimbo," jaded samurai Sanjuro helps an idealistic group of young warriors weed out their clan's evil influences, and in the process turns their image of a proper samurai on its ear.

Gengobe Satsuma, an exiled samurai cast out as an Asano clan retainer is given a second chance to join his brothers in arms to become the 48th Ronin against the Shogunate. His faithful servant gathers the 100 ryo required for his acceptance. Gengobe is also in love with a greedy geisha named Koman. About to be sold to another man, Gengobe learns that for him to keep her, her debt is exactly 100 ryo.

Yokiro was the most successful Geisha house in Western Japan during the first half of the 20th century and remains open to this day. At its peak, it was home to over 200 geisha, however behind the fabulous facade, there were many battles - between family members, men and women, and with the Yakuza. Momokawa was sold to Yokiro at age 12, and despite being the top geisha, her many complicated relationships provide unending challenges throughout her glamorous but turbulent life.

Reiko Ike stars as the daughter of a man who has been pushed into drug dealing by the local Yakuza mob. Having outlived his usefulness to the gang he is murdered and Reiko is gang raped, leading her to attempt a knife attack on the Yakuza boss (Ryoji Hayama) at a swank nightclub. Failing to kill him she ends up in prison, where she befriends a crew of other malcontents (including Yumiko Katayama and Chiyoko Kazama) and meets the Yakuza boss's girlfriend (Miki Sugimoto). Upon release Reiko reassembles her mob and launches a Machiavellian scheme to engineer a gang war between Hayama's Oba Industries and the formerly dominant Hamayasu Clan. The rival gangs begin killing each other off and Reiko works her way closer to her ultimate vengeance.

Famed movie director Paul Robaix breaks with tradition by not casting his actress-comedienne wife, Lucy Dell, in his latest film production, a version of Madame Butterfly. Undaunted, the resourceful Lucy wings her way to Tokyo and, masquerading as a Japanese geisha, lands the coveted role from her unsuspecting husband! But in front of the cameras (and behind the pancake makeup), Lucy faces greater challenges: her lecherous leading man - and a husband who is beginning to realize that his talented new "discovery" seems vaguely familiar...

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.

One rainy night in the Edo period, Kotono (a geisha) confronts samurais who killed her father. The samurais attack her one after another, but she fights hard against samurais with her sword. Kotono tries to chase the samurais who scramble to escape. Yet now three ninjas stand up against her. Kotono drops her sword by their wave of assaults. Can she beat them?

A Japanese detective, Kikuchi, is framed for a murder and sent to prison. When he is paroled, he joins a private detective agency to investigate his case and investigates Mitsue Takazawa, the wife of a local trading firm whom is really a crime lord responsible for Kikuchi's imprisonment and now sets sights on Setsuko, a woman Kikuchi becomes romantically involved with.

The young and beautiful Sada Abe, the daughter of a rich merchant, is banished for losing her virginity after being raped by a college student. Sada wanders the city, becoming a geisha and eventually meeting Kichizo, a posh restaurateur who falls under her spell. Together, they embark on a week-long sexual escapade filled with dangerous obsessions. Their complete descent into each others desires culminates in a shocking crime of passion which captures the city's headlines. Based on a real event from 1936.

Okoma (literally, Red Cherry) was a woman gambler until she retired from the yakuza world. Two years later, she returns home, and finds that the big boss has been assassinated and his daughter is having trouble keeping things in line against the rival gang headed by the men who killed her father. Okoma decides to avenge her former boss and help his daughter, a former friend of hers. She recruits her own gang, starting with an expert knife-fighter, her former lover. After a fight, the new Gang Leader captures and tortures Okoma sadistically.

A look at the lives of a troupe of geishas working in a small seaside resort town. For the most part, their lives consist of greeting boatloads of oversexed businessmen and providing bawdy entertainment through the evening followed by private companionship at night, interspersed with occasional catfights with the rival geisha house. Their routine is suddenly thrown off by the appearance of an abandoned baby in the geishas' dormitory, followed by its disappearance only a short time later. Who could be responsible for such a thing?

Ohno plays the role of Tarui Shotaro, an ordinary guy who dreamed of becoming a hero when he was a child, but now gets by as a part-time worker. The unexpected story unfolds when one day, the daughter of a yakuza boss asks him to plan a make-believe kidnapping. Sato Ryuta plays Shotaro's co-worker who helps him with the kidnapping. Kanjiya Shihori plays Satsuki, the eldest daughter of the Hanazono yakuza clan, while Narimiya Hiroki plays Satsuki's college senpai who joined the Hanazono clan after graduation. Takahashi Katsumi plays the head of a rival organization who has fallen in love with Satsuki. Kitaoji Kinya plays Satsuki's father and the head of the Hanazono clan.

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.

A once-powerful yakuza clan disbands as a result of a police crackdown, but one small group refuses to bow to police pressure, and launches a campaign to take over Tokyo's drug, prostitution, and gambling rackets. Someone wants to stop them. Is it the police? Rival gang members? Or is it an entirely new group of hired killers who will stop at nothing to gain complete control of Tokyo's "bloody territories"?

When a clever, carefree gangster is recruited to help an overseas crime lord take down a rival, he is caught off guard by the moral dilemmas that follow.

Yataro Tanigawa, a one-eyed hired assassin, impresses yakuza boss Gomyo Kiyoemon with his skill. Gomyo hires Tanigawa as his bodyguard, or yojimbo, to protect him during an inter-clan conflict. Tanigawa quickly rises in stature in the clan, but finds his boss's enemies almost overwhelming.

In the 1970s, the Japanese youth emancipation also found its 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.

An undercover cop insinuates himself into a yakuza family. Managing to avert an assassination attack on the boss he is assigned to kill a rival boss.

Young geisha Koshizu's wish of reuniting with the man, Yukichi, who helped her ten years ago comes true. When she learns of the trouble Yukichi's business is facing, she stands ready to come to his aid, and thus repay a debt that's long overdue.

A Yakuza boss's wife and the widow of a rival crime syndicate's murdered leader bond over a common purpose: to seek vengeance.

Chiba, looking gnarly, and acting as animalistic as ever, stars alongside Matsukata as violent gangsters battling their way through fight after bloody fight with rival yakuza on the streets of Okinawa.

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.

The wife of a yakuza lieutenant tries to keep the peace when the clan's heir suddenly dies and a succession conflict threatens to break out.

A young yakuza in love with the girl who's to marry his clan oyabun, kidnaps the girl before fleeing with her. In Tokyo, he hides under the identity of a worker while the young woman becomes a waitress in a restaurant.

Popular geisha Shinji (Fuji Junko) must defy a gang who plot to steal a lucrative coal business from struggling miners during the turbulent Meiji Era. With a stellar all-star cast, thrilling story and Takakura Ken's violent swordplay, makes this into a classic Yakuza movie!

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.

Tokijiro has the unfortunate duty according to the code of the gamblers to join in the fighting when afforded a night’s stay and meals at the home of a town boss. Though he dislikes killing, the strength of his swordsmanship will be tested time and time again in the bloody tale.

This suspense drama set in the mid 1700's depicts the plan of the Tokugawa rulers to send a number of homeless men to a remote island Sado to perform forced labor. Living conditions on the island are terrible and the men soon become rebellious. Based on a short story by Seichō Matsumoto.

Oman travel from Shanghai to Japan in search of her mother, only to be betrayed by her companion and sold to a brothel, where she becomes a geisha and gambler.

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

Nonaka Tetsugoro, a substitute for the Aoi group, held a flower party to celebrate the complete recovery of his boss. However, three rival bosses, trying to steal the Aoi's territory, made take-over plans in the shadows. The second in the two part Daimon series movies.

Based on real-life events, this erotic thriller tells the sad and sadistic tale of a Japanese geisha whose behavior spiraled out of control.

Tokyo, 1934. The boss of the clan that controls gambling agonizes and some of his followers propose to Nakai to take his place, but he refuses the offer.

When the boss of a yakuza clan in 1920s Osaka is assassinated, Oryu, his mistress, vows revenge. Her search for the killer takes her out of the city. The old boss' son proves a poor leader, only interested in Omitsu, his high-class girlfriend. Yajima, the second-in-command, is taking advantage of the situation to accumulate power for himself...

Otsuta is running the geisha house Tsuta in Tokyo. Her business is heavily in debt. Her daughter Katsuyo doesn't see any future in her mother's trade in the late days of Geisha. But Otsuta will not give up. This film portraits the day time life of geisha when not entertaining customers.

Charles Farrell stars as a British working stiff named Niba, who hopes one day to attain a Parliamentary seat. Niba's life is permanently altered when he rescues forlorn American girl Ann (Charlotte Henry). Though forced to give up his political dreams, Niba contentedly sets up house with Ann, eventually falling in love with her.

Toku, a factory worker gives food to a starving woman, Tsuru, who then follows him home. He shares a shack in a shanty village in Kawasaki with his friend Pin-chan. The two men try to get rid of her but then let her stay when she gives them money. Tsuru tells the people of the village that she lost her job due to a strike, then was robbed of her severance pay, then sold to a brothel in Tsuchiura. She ran away with a friend from Kawasaki. Toku and Pin-chan sell her to a geisha house and spend the money. She is thrown out. The owner demands his money back. Tsuru earns the money to pay their debt by working as a prostitute outside the station. The other prostitutes beat her. She fends them off with a policeman's revolver and is then shot dead by the police.

A period mystery in which an unconventional priest exposes the truth behind the bizarre death of a maid in the shogun's harem. Kinuyo Tanaka stylishly plays a constantly intoxicated geisha in this all-star entertainment film.

Yasuo Furuhata directs this romantic yakuza flick based on a book by popular romance novelist Tomiko Miyao. Set in 1932, the film centers on Peony (Yoko Minamino), a geisha who was forced into the business at a young age by her dissipated father.

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.

A young woman must choose loyalty to a historical Asian clan, and her non-traditional love, amidst the deaths of her dance partners being investigated by her new lover.