IzoMovies like Izo
- Key Features:
- Samurai, Revenge, Time travel, Violence-high, Assassination, Cult classic, Japanese cinema, Historical setting, Supernatural elements, Existentialism, Brutal, Anger
- Tone:
- stylized, gritty, serious
- Target Audience:
- Fans of Japanese cinema, Action enthusiasts, Viewers interested in samurai films, Cult film aficionados
- Emotional Arc:
- Rage → Violence → Despair
Izo

Izo is an assassin in the service of a Tosa lord and Imperial supporter. After killing dozens of the Shogun's men, Izo is captured and crucified. Instead of being extinguished, his rage propels him through the space-time continuum to present-day Tokyo. Here Izo transforms himself into a new, improved killing machine.
Izo
A bravado period action film set at the end of Japan's feudal era in which a group of unemployed samurai are enlisted to bring down a sadistic lord and prevent him from ascending to the throne and plunging the country into a war-torn future.

Japan, 1860. The men of the Mito clan, victims of the Ansei purge, anxiously prowl around the Sakurada Gate of Edo Castle with the intention of assassinating Naosuke Ii of Hikone, tairō of the Tokugawa shogunate and responsible for their misfortune.

A Shogun who grew paranoid as he became senile sent his ninjas to kill his samurai. They failed but did kill the samurai’s wife. The samurai swore to avenge the death of his wife and roams the countryside with his toddler son in search of vengeance.

In 1879, Kenshin and his allies face their strongest enemy yet: his former brother-in-law Enishi Yukishiro and his minions, who've vowed their revenge.

Tells the story of the samurai Gengobe, who seeks revenge after falling prey to the schemes of a geisha and her husband.

Pursued by formidable Chinese assassins, young Kotaro and his dog run into No Name, a mysterious stranger who gets pulled into the chase. The unlikely companions form a bond over saving the dog from a poison attack, but chaos erupts when the assassins find Kotaro, and No Name must face his past before a horrible fate is met again.

Ryunosuke, a gifted swordsman plying his trade during the turbulent final days of Shogunate rule, has no moral code and kills without remorse. It’s a way of life that leads to madness.

When a tough yakuza gangster is betrayed by his bosses, it means all out war. Bodies pile up as he takes out everyone in his way to the top in a brutal quest for revenge.

Kenshin has settled into his new life with Kaoru and his other friends when he is approached with a request from the Meiji government. Makoto Shishio, a former assassin like Kenshin, was betrayed, set on fire and left for dead. He survived, and is now in Kyoto, plotting with his gathered warriors to overthrow the new government. Against Kaoru's wishes, Kenshin reluctantly agrees to go to Kyoto and help keep his country from falling back into civil war.

In the Sengoku period, a woman and her daughter are raped and murdered by soldiers during a time of civil war. Afterwards, a series of samurai returning from the war through that area are found mysteriously dead with their throats torn out. The governor calls in a wild and fierce young hero to quell what is evidently an Onryō ghost. He encounters the two beautiful women in an eerie, beautiful scene. After spiritual purification, he meets the demon in a thrilling fight.

In 1868, after the Bakumatsu war ends, the ex-assassin Kenshin Himura traverses Japan with an inverted sword, to defend the needy without killing.

Manji, a highly skilled samurai, becomes cursed with immortality after a legendary battle. Haunted by the brutal murder of his sister, Manji knows that only fighting evil will regain his soul. He promises to help a young girl named Rin avenge her parents, who were killed by a group of master swordsmen led by ruthless warrior Anotsu. The mission will change Manji in ways he could never imagine.

Shishio sets sail in his ironclad ship to bring down the government. In order to stop him, Kenshin trains with his old master to learn his final technique.

Before he was a protector, Kenshin was a fearsome assassin known as Battosai. But when he meets gentle Tomoe Yukishiro, a beautiful young woman who carries a huge burden in her heart, his life will change forever.

Official Shogunate executioner Ogami Itto has been framed for disloyalty to the Shogunate by the Yagyu clan, against whom he now is waging a one-man war, along with his infant son, Daigoro.

A pair of down-on-their-luck swordsmen arrive in a dusty, windblown town, where they become involved in a local clan dispute. One, previously a farmer, longs to become a noble samurai. The other, a former samurai haunted by his past, prefers living anonymously with gangsters. But when both men discover the wrongdoings of the nefarious clan leader, they side with a band of rebels who are under siege at a remote mountain cabin.

Two seriously wounded samurai find refuge from a storm at an isolated temple, the home of a swordsman and a mysterious young woman. One samurai awakes to find that not only has his comrade died, but that his wounds have miraculously healed. He discovers that he has been given the power of immortality by the swordsman, a man once known as the legendary Miyamoto Musashi, who now lives an endless existence as Aragami, a "god of battle".

In war-torn Japan, the Tokugawa Shogun, desperate to restore peace to his people, orders the assassination of the hostile warlords. A beautiful young woman is raised from birth with nine other orphans, to become an assassin. Her name is Azumi, the ultimate assassin.

Ogami Itto is challenged by a quintet of warriors, each armed with one fifth of Ogami's assassin fee and one fifth of the information he needs to complete his assignment.

The war against the Tokugawa Shogunate ended years ago. But there are some who are not happy with the outcome. Shigure Takimi watched his friends and family get slashed down in the name of freedom and prosperity. Now he and a band of desparate rebels have sworn to settle one final score. Only one man stands in their way: Rurouni Kenshin. Will the former assassin take up his sword to fight again? When Shigure discovers Kenshin's true identity and his fight becomes a personal vendetta, the young hero will have no choice.

Batman, along with many of his allies and adversaries, finds himself transported to feudal Japan by Gorilla Grodd's time displacement machine.

A ruthless criminal operative has less than 24 hours to exact revenge on her enemies and in the process forms an unexpected bond with the daughter of one of her past victims.

Ninja Assassin follows Raizo, one of the deadliest assassins in the world. Taken from the streets as a child, he was transformed into a trained killer by the Ozunu Clan, a secret society whose very existence is considered a myth. But haunted by the merciless execution of his friend by the Clan, Raizo breaks free from them and vanishes. Now he waits, preparing to exact his revenge.

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.

A nameless ronin, or samurai with no master, enters a small village in feudal Japan where two rival businessmen are struggling for control of the local gambling trade. Taking the name Sanjuro Kuwabatake, the ronin convinces both silk merchant Tazaemon and sake merchant Tokuemon to hire him as a personal bodyguard, then artfully sets in motion a full-scale gang war between the two ambitious and unscrupulous men.

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.

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

Ogami Itto is hired to kill a tattooed female assassin and battles Retsudo, head of the Yagyu clan, and his son Gunbei.

With most of his family already dead at Ogami Itto's hands, Retsudo launches one final plot to destroy him, and when that fails, unleashes the fury of every remaining member of the Yagyu clan.

Struggling to elevate himself from his low caste in 17th century Japan, Miyamoto trains to become a mighty samurai warrior.

Sisters Yoshie and Kikue are two Geisha who are abducted by a mysterious organization to be transformed into murderous cyborg assassins.

Ogami Itto battles a group of female ninja in the employ of the Yagyu clan and must eliminate a traitor who plans to sell his clan's secrets to the Shogunate.

In a poor district of Edo lives a young samurai named Soza. He has been sent by his clan to avenge the death of his father. He isn't an accomplished swordsman however, and he prefers sharing the life of the residents, teaching the kids how to write etc. When he finally finds the man he is looking for, he will have to decide whether he follows the way of the samurai or chooses peace and reconciliation.

Feeling unhappy with his gun, Jigen is looking for the world’s best gunsmith. He finally finds out that Chiharu, who runs a watch shop, is the person he’s been seeking. Then, Jigen meets Oto, who comes to Chiharu’s shop looking for a gun. Jigen finds out about Oto's secrets and the mysterious organization that’s after her. After Oto is kidnapped, Jigen gets into a desperate battle to save her.

Blind swordsman/masseuse Zatoichi befriends a young woman returning home with her baby. When gangsters mistake her for Zatoichi and kill her, Zatoichi determines to escort the baby to its father. He gains the reluctant help of a young pick pocket and together they travel to find the baby's father. But they do not reckon on the father's reaction to their arrival, nor on their own growing feelings for the child.

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.

Sawa, orphaned as a child by murderous thugs, now targets the scourge of society as a trained killer for a mercenary syndicate. Coquettish and capable of unimaginable violence, she's grown into the perfect weapon — but doubt takes hold in Sawa's mind when her fellow assassin, Oburi, decides he wants out.

An unemployed man learns that his ex-girlfriend was murdered. He suddenly finds himself travelling through time to his middle school years and has chance to change the future and save the girl. He aims to rise to the top of the most brutal delinquent gang.

A westerner named Casey, studying Ninjutsu in Japan, is asked by the Sensei to return to New York to protect the legendary Yoroi Bitsu, an armored chest that contains the weapons of the last Koga Ninja.

A man brutally murders a married couple and leaves the word “ikari” (“rage”) written with their blood. The killer undergoes plastic surgery and flees. At three different locations in Japan, a male stranger appears. People suspect that the stranger might be the murderer.

Paul Racine, a high-powered American business executive in Japan, is catapulted into a maze of danger and intrigue after he and his sexy companion are the targets of assassins hired by the ruthless Kinjo. To survive, Racine must join forces with a powerful samurai and together they will fight the force of evil in an awesome battle rooted in centuries of brutal conflict.

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.

Masaki, a baseball player and gas-station attendant, gets into trouble with the local Yakuza and goes to Okinawa to get a gun to defend himself. There he meets Uehara, a tough gangster, who is in serious debt to the yakuza and planning revenge.

When young protege Akira Kageyama is bitten by his dying vampire boss, Genyo Kamiura, he must get used to his new powers before seeking revenge.

A Japanese salaryman finds his body transforming into a weapon through sheer rage after his son is kidnapped by a gang of violent thugs.

A secret military project endangers Neo-Tokyo when it turns a biker gang member into a rampaging psychic psychopath that only two teenagers and a group of psychics can stop.

A tale of revenge, honor and disgrace, centering on a poverty-stricken samurai who discovers the fate of his ronin son-in-law, setting in motion a tense showdown of vengeance against the house of a feudal lord.

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.

Afro Samurai avenged his father and found a life of peace. But the legendary master is forced back into the game by a beautiful and deadly woman from his past. The sparks of violence dropped along Afro’s bloody path now burn out of control – and nowhere are the flames of hatred more intense than in the eyes of Sio.

After being brutally murdered in a gangster-style execution, Kensuke Hagane finds himself brought back to life by a mad scientist and rebuilt as a robot-human hybrid with a serious thirst for vengeance and the tools to carry it out.

Follow the infamous ninja bandit named Ishikawa Goemon (Yosuke Eguchi) in an epic story. One night while looting treasure from Nanban (Southern Barbarians), Goemon finds a mysterious box hidden inside a secret grave. A forgotten relic from the past containing untold powers.

In Edo period Japan, a lone ronin lives in a village helping the farmers tend to their land. One day, a group of outlaw swordsmen enter the village.

A Japanese Yakuza gangster's deadly existence in his homeland gets him exiled to Los Angeles, where he is taken in by his little brother and his brother's gang.

A detective investigates a series of murders. A possible serial killer might be on a rampage, since they all are in the same vicinity and by the same method, but as the evidence points toward the detective as the prime suspect, a ghost in red follows him, and he begins to question his identity. His realization of what seems to have really happened results in something much more sinister and larger in scope, and it leaves his psyche scarred.

A teenager discovers an electric pylon growing out of his back and is soon forced to battle cyborg vampires over the future of humanity.

The year is 2071. Following a terrorist bombing, a deadly virus is released on the populace of Mars and the government has issued the largest bounty in history, for the capture of whoever is behind it. The bounty hunter crew of the spaceship Bebop; Spike, Faye, Jet and Ed, take the case with hopes of cashing in the bounty. However, the mystery surrounding the man responsible, Vincent, goes deeper than they ever imagined, and they aren't the only ones hunting him.

The mother of a feudal lord's only heir is kidnapped away from her husband by the lord. The husband and his samurai father must decide whether to accept the unjust decision, or risk death to get her back.

Ogami Itto volunteers to be tortured by Yakuza in order to save a prostitute and is hired by their leader to kill an evil chamberlain.

In 1604, Miyamoto Musashi attacked the Yoshioka family at their dojo and defeated master Seijūrō and his younger brother Denshichirō in two duels. To save their reputation, the Yoshioka family decides to fight back with all 100 family members and hire an additional 300 samurai. Now Musashi sets out to defeat all 400 enemies in his most famous battle.

Fearless Edo-period police inspector Hanzo Itami, nicknamed The Razor, has developed his own unique way of extracting information for his inquiries. His first adventure sees him investigating his superior officer's mistress, whom he suspects of having ties with a reputed criminal on the loose.

Minami mistakenly kills a gangster associate of his named Brother. Almost as soon as the murder takes place, the body of the deceased man is gone, prompting Minami to conduct a search. While looking, he finds a mysterious isolated hotel where he decides to take a rest. Not only are the front desk clerks a bit strange, but even the ambiance feels unusual. Minami soon realizes he may have gotten more than he bargained for.

In 16th century Japan, peasants Genjuro and Tobei sell their earthenware pots to a group of soldiers in a nearby village, in defiance of a local sage's warning against seeking to profit from warfare. Genjuro's pursuit of both riches and the mysterious Lady Wakasa, as well as Tobei's desire to become a samurai, run the risk of destroying both themselves and their wives, Miyagi and Ohama.

Framed for his family's murder and left for dead, an ex-hitman will stop at nothing to exact revenge on the masked "demons" who have taken over his city.

Gurus in the late Goryeo dynasty try to obtain a fabled, holy sword, and humans in 2022 hunt down an alien prisoner that is locked in a human's body. The two parties cross paths when a time-traveling portal opens up.

Blind traveler Zatoichi is a master swordsman and a masseur with a fondness for gambling on dice games. When he arrives in a village torn apart by warring gangs, he sets out to protect the townspeople.

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.

In Edo Japan, a kabuki actor seeks revenge against the three men who drove his parents to their deaths years ago.

Zatoichi is sworn to protect the life of a young girl and without any real allies finds himself in the middle of a bloody turf war.

Returning to their lord's castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the spirit's prophecy comes true, Washizu's scheming wife, Asaji, presses him to speed up the rest of the spirit's prophecy by murdering his lord and usurping his place. Director Akira Kurosawa's resetting of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" in feudal Japan is one of his most acclaimed films.

While attempting to win the affections of a beautiful rival, a master thief risks death to learn the secret intentions of a wealthy and seemingly immortal, but certainly ruthless, recluse.

Shiba, a wandering ronin, encounters a band of peasants who have kidnapped the daughter of their dictatorial magistrate, in hopes of coercing from him a reduction in taxes. Shiba takes up their fight, joined by two renegades from the magistrate's guard, Sakura and Kikyo. The three outlaws find themselves in a battle to the death.

A detective starts spiraling out of control when a wave of gruesome murders with seemingly similar bizarre circumstances is sweeping Tokyo.

Legendary swordplay filmmaker Hideo Gosha's Sword of the Beast chronicles the flight of the low-level swordsman Gennosuke, who kills one of his ministers as part of a reform plot. His former comrades then turn on him, and this betrayal so shakes his sense of honor that he decides to live in the wild, like an animal. There he joins up with a motley group who are illegally mining the shogun’s gold, and, with the aid of another swordsman, gets a chance not just at survival but to recover his name and honor.

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.

Kai—an outcast—joins Oishi, the leader of 47 outcast samurai. Together they seek vengeance upon the treacherous overlord who killed their master and banished their kind. To restore honour to their homeland, the warriors embark upon a quest that challenges them with a series of trials that would destroy ordinary warriors.

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.

When a billionaire gives a group of young scientists unlimited resources to study the science of matter transfer, the scientists unlock the secrets of time travel. But they soon find out that the project is backed by a militant extremist group, and the billionaire plans to go back in time and prove that Jesus never rose from the dead.

After years on the road establishing his reputation as Japan's greatest fencer, Takezo returns to Kyoto. Otsu waits for him, yet he has come not for her but to challenge the leader of the region's finest school of fencing. To prove his valor and skill, he walks deliberately into ambushes set up by the school's followers. While Otsu waits, Akemi also seeks him, expressing her desires directly. Meanwhile, Takezo is observed by Sasaki Kojiro, a brilliant young fighter, confident he can dethrone Takezo. After leaving Kyoto in triumph, Takezo declares his love for Otsu, but in a way that dishonors her and shames him. Once again, he leaves alone.

When Japanese organized crime imbeds itself within LA, the police turn to one man to take down the deadly Yakuza — Joe Marshall, aka "The Samurai." With his fearless swagger and rock hard jaw, The Samurai tears a two-fisted hole through the mob and doesn't stop until the job is done.

The life of a young, Japanese schoolgirl is destroyed when her family is killed by a Ninja-Yakuza family. Her hand cut off, she replaces it with various machines-of-death, and seeks revenge.

In future Tokyo, a young woman in the privatized police force tracks down her father's killer while battling against mutant rebels known as engineers.

An assassin is shot by her ruthless employer, Bill, and other members of their assassination circle – but she lives to plot her vengeance.

An ancient cult embroiled in a sinister blood trade makes the deadly mistake of abducting a young woman with a violent, shocking past.

A "metal fetishist", driven mad by the maggots wriggling in the wound he's made to embed metal into his flesh, runs out into the night and is accidentally run down by a Japanese businessman and his girlfriend. The pair dispose of the corpse in hopes of quietly moving on with their lives. However, the businessman soon finds that he is now plagued by a vicious curse that transforms his flesh into iron.

Young assassins Azumi and Nagara continue their mission to prevent a civil war. In their hunt for Masayuki Sanada, who is protected by both an army and a dangerous clan, they meet Ginkaku, a person who shows a remarking resemblance with former friend Nachi.

A thief, a murderer, and a charming lady-killer, Iwao Enokizu is on the run from the police.

Sex & Fury chronicles Ocho's exploits as she searches for her father's killers, each identified by unique tattoos on their backs (a deer, a boar, and a butterfly). Along the way, she also crosses paths with Shonusuke, a radical set on murdering prominent politician Kurokawa and Christina, an American spy posing as a gambler.

Set in 19th Century Japan a young samurai who finds himself in love with a farm girl leaves his home to begin a new life. He has to take stock of his new life when he is put to the test and ordered to kill a traitor who just happens to be his dearest friend.

A vicious sniper has appeared in Tokyo, rendering the people too scared to go outside, once again it's up to Conan to figure out the meaning behind the killings and capture the mysterious sniper before more lives are lost.

A nameless gunfighter arrives in a town ripped apart by rival gangs and, though courted by both to join, chooses his own path.

Takuma Tsurugi takes on the government, the police, the mafia and an international ring of kidnappers who aim to dispossess a beautiful young heiress of her millions.

Following some trauma in her past that has since been repressed, a young woman is trying to recover her memories with the help of a psychiatrist. During her hypnosis sessions, she repeats the name "Tomie" but is unable to recall where she knows it from. Meanwhile, a police detective is investigating a string of brutal murders, where he also runs across the name "Tomie." How are the two connected?

Ichi is a blind entertainer that travels the countryside with her traditional Japanese guitar and walking stick. She’s in search for the kind man that brought her up as a child, but because of her beauty she encounters problems every step of the way. Fortunately for Ichi, she is also a gifted swordswoman and carries a lethal blade within her walking stick.

An old swordsman, his former comrade and a young braggart are hired by prostitutes to track down bandits who mutilated one of the women.

A figure known as "The Assassin" descends from the heavens into a nightmarish pit full of monsters, titans, and cruelty.

A warrior-in-training and his bumbling friends go in pursuit of a stolen sword.

Yuki's family is nearly wiped out before she is born due to the machinations of a band of criminals. These criminals kidnap and brutalize her mother but leave her alive. Later her mother ends up in prison with only revenge to keep her alive. She creates an instrument for this revenge by purposefully getting pregnant. Yuki never knows the love of a family but only killing and revenge.

In feudal Japan, during a bloody war between clans, two cowardly and greedy peasants, soldiers of a defeated army, stumble upon a mysterious man who guides them to a fortress hidden in the mountains.

