The best Kenji Imai’s action movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best Kenji Imai’s movies, although you may have ordered them differently. In any case, we hope you love it and with a little luck discovering a movie that you still don’t know about Kenji Imai.
Super Gun Lady: Police Branch 82
5.4/10
Mika Hino is a sharp-shooting investigator that belongs to the infamous "Gator Branch.” When an executive board member of a trading company is accused of being involved in a bribery, Mika is assigned to keep watch over him. A few nights later her target is found dead outside of his 30 floor office building. With an apparent suicide note as evidence, local police conclude the case as a suicide. Mika’s assignment may have ended in failure, but her mission has just begun...
Graveyard of Honor
7.1/10
A look at the life of renegade yakuza, Rikio Ishikawa, particularly the years from 1946 to 1950 when his violent antics get him in trouble with his own clan, Kawada, and then with the clan of his protector, Kozaburo Imai. In these years, he can rely on Chieko, a young Tokyo courtesan who gives him shelter. He's banished to Osaka, where he picks up a drug habit. Through it all, he keeps his friends and enemies off balance with unpredictable behavior - and he seems indestructible.
Sympathy for the Underdog
7.3/10
A yakuza gang gets driven out of Yokohama by a big gang from Tokyo. They relocate to Okinawa to violently start over.
Terrifying Girls' High School: Lynch Law Classroom
6.7/10
Three new students at a super-strict girl's school must face off with a repressive school administration, the sadistic, murderous student discipline brigade and corrupt politicians over the murder/suicide of one of their friends. They're approached by a blackmailer (Tsunehiko Watase) who promises to help them exact vengeance in exchange for setting up a corrupt local politician, and aided by a independent Yakuza biker chick (Reiko Ike).
The Last Samurai
7.4/10
The film follows the story of Sugi Toranosuke, a ronin, who returns to his home town of Edo many years after his attempted suicide as a sickly child. Rescued and adopted by a master swordsman, he has grown into a master swordsman and a very kind gentleman. The time is around 1868 the year that the nails were finally put into the coffin containing the feudal system that nurtured and sustained the samurai. Sugi is confused and unsure about what is happening but his teacher wants him out of the chaos of the multiple power struggles between the various clans.
Yakuza Graveyard
7.1/10
A police investigator cracks down on yakuza business, but once he realizes the police are in negotiations with certain factions, he sides with his own syndicate of choice.
The Tattooed Hitman
6.4/10
The most dangerous hired gun in Tokyo's underworld has managed to trigger a vicious gang war, and now, there's a contract on his life. Though nobody is more skilled in the arts of dealing death, can the tattooed hitman fend off the entire Japanese mafia as he searches for the man who wants him dead?
Organized Violence II
7.2/10
Violent Fraternity
6.5/10
Set in Shibuya in 1949, this is another film based on real life former yakuza boss Noboru Ando's memoirs.
The Machine Gun Dragon
6.5/10
Ryu, a low life thug, along with his mother, steals a shipment of drugs. Now with his machine gun and a gang of hoodlums, he must face the yakuza and the mafia.
Whipmaster: Ballad of Murder
6.5/10
Ryotatsu, the wayward Priest blinded by Shinkai, the Wicked Priest, has his own story in this ultra-violent tale from the era of the Meiji Reconstruction. When a woman leaves her blind son at the Monastery, Ryotatsu is forced to teach the boy how to cope as a blind person in old Japan. When he takes the child with him on the road to find the boy's mother, they run afoul of not only yakuza gangsters, but some corrupt army officers have been trying to sway public opinion against the Satsuma rebels by posing as members of Saigo Takamori's group. It's a bloody mistake for them to underestimate the strength of the Blind Priest, and he'll make them pay with their lives!
Outlaw Under a Blue Canopy
Sheriff Goro goes undercover to investigate drug smugglers.
Target
5.8/10
Two killers revenge a wirepuller of the underworld in Yokohama.
Outlaw Killers: Three Mad Dog Brothers
6.8/10
The great Bunta stars as a gangster who is sent to jail for the sake of his gang, but when he’s released he finds everything completely changed and his gang has swept him aside for being too violent. He tries to start a new life with his two ”brothers” but can’t seem to escape old affiliations
Black Panther Bitch M
5.9/10
An assassin trained as a ninja carries the code name M. Hayami is a yakuza boss and a divorced father who is not allowed to come near his and her young daughter Mutsumi from his ex-wife Kazuko. In the big port city of Yokohama, M has to see Hayami, who with his practices has thrown angry blood at the president of the yakuza group.
Shinobi No Mono 6: The Last Iga Spy
6.4/10
[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.
Karate Bullfighter
6.6/10
Sonny Chiba plays Kyokushin Karate founder Masutatsu Oyama, who unexpectedly arrives at a karate tournament in rags, but wins the tournament. After turning down the chance to fight at future tournaments he returns to his simple village life. He reluctantly returns to karate for a final showdown against the students of a rival school.
The Homeless
5.5/10
The Homeless is a picaresque tale in the truest sense of the word. Two inmates are simultaneously released from jail, but go their separate ways, only to cross paths again in the nearest brothel. There they make the acquaintance of a would-be prostitute with a childlike mind and serious problems with the yakuza. They help her escape from the mob-infested cathouse and decide to guide her on her quest for sunken contraband somewhere off the coast, whose location only she knows, but which the yakuza are very eager to learn about. It is a remake of the French film The Last Adventure (1967).
Game of Chance
6.7/10
Bungo becomes a single parent when his wife leaves him because of his drinking and gambling. Deciding to quit his vices, he works menial jobs, drifting from city to city. However, not completely losing his gambling tastes, he became a hunted man and must escape to Tokyo after he was found cheating at dice. Bungo and his son Kenichi comes upon the Kizaki Family in Asakusa, where more troubles are awaiting them...
Contemporary Tales of Chivalry: The Traitor Shall Die
6.7/10
The ninth and final film in the Contemporary Tales of Chivalry series.
