20 Great Japanese Cult Films That Are Worth

Watching
03 JUNE 2014 FEATURES, FILM LISTS BY IAN CAHOON

The post-WWII Japanese film industry has seen a slew of genres and massive changes
throughout the decades from the new wave movement to the vitality of digital filmmaking
devices reinventing the economic and cinematic approach therefore the studio systems and
financial structure of filmmaking itself. In this time period many styles of “cult” films and genres
came about by means of budgetary constraints, changing demographics, availability, and
cinematic trends reaching from North America to Eastern Europe all had their effects on
Japanese filmmakers and audiences.

From the notorious pink genre and its deviations such as the pinky violence genre, etc to the
revenge jidai-geki pieces harkening back to a time when moralistic integrity was vastly different
in pre-industrial Japan the films on this list span decades, studio systems, genres, and
ideologies to create a broad look at the cinema of Japan that continually pushed the
boundaries in both cinema and society.

Whether it be the radical use of inventive cinematography and editing or the appropriation of
aesthetic qualities from established styles or the exploitative nature of a societies cruelties
under scrutiny, these films and the ever evolving Japanese film industry that at least marginally
embraced them influenced generations to come and still hold up in their shock and awe as
both an entertaining and revolutionary endeavor.

1. Fighting Elegy by Seijun Suzuki (1966, Nikkatsu)

In the 60’s Seijun Suzuki would make B-billed pictures for Nikkatsu to play after films of larger
status by more established directors. In this slew of genre pictures he made up until he was
fired from the company in 1967 Fighting Elegy is one of if not his most original and personally
invested film. The main character of the film Kiroku, and his trails going through boarding
school and gangs, is an allegory to the creation of a fascist and the mindset within Japan
during the 1930’s that easily manipulated teenage boys.

With the adaptation of the original source material by Kaneto Shindo to the screen and Seijun’s
die hard intent on bring this bombastic story of youth in revolt against himself and the system to
life he defied the standards of Nikkatsu and made a daring success. It was only decades later
Seijun Suzuki would be realized for his talents.

2. A Colt Is My Passport by Takashi Nomura (1967, Nikkatsu)

Another Nikkatsu B film, this time revolving around a Yakuza gangster story and one of the
early leading roles of iconic actor Joe Shishido; Takashi Nomura’s A Colt Is My Passport is a
true emulation of the aesthetics of American style noir coupled with Japanese new wave
pastiche. Shishido plays a hitman who sets out to kill a rival gangs boss and gets captured in
true pulp fashion before escaped and entering war.

The utilization of jump cut editing techniques and allegorical representations of Japan in
change mirrored the new waves tropes of Godard and even Japans on Masahiro Shinoda. This
coupled with the gritty realism and biting dialogue in the vein of American noirs to capitulate a
terse and entertaining story of Yakuza warfare lends the viewer over to a certain amount of
finesse in the story telling while establishing the troubles of gang warfare and mentality in a
Japan that is rapidly changing.

3. Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell by Hajime Sato (1968,

Shochiku)
One of the best and long standing horror films released by Shochiku studios in the late 60’s is
Hajime Sato’s comical and biting Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell. After a plane crashes that
had a slew of passengers onboard including a hijacker the group begins to be manipulated and
torn apart from the inside by a mysterious alien force that enters your brain through a vaginal
like slit in between the eyes.

Starring the formidable Hideo Ko as the hijacker and Tomomi Sato as the stewardess the film
utilizes special effects and extraterrestrial paranoia as a stepping stone for not only engaging
cinema but also a parable on Japans relationship with the west and the state of world affairs
during the Cold War. The film, stuck in relative obscurity in the western home video market
until recently, has still managed to have widespread influence from Quentin Tarantino to
modern Japanese horror.

4. Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion by Shunya Ito (1972, Toei)

The first true exploitation film on the list, Shunya Ito’s Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion is a
Women in Prison genre film that plays on the tropes of said style with one large difference, a
large part of the film is focused on the female prisoners getting revenge after their subjected
torture. This inherently lends to a different interpretation of stances than the British video
nasties of the same genre, in where as the purpose of the acts isn’t titillation thinly veiled by
allegorical summations of a society changing it’s views and forgetting history.

As with many Japanese exploitation pictures the original source material was a comic and it’s
star Meiko Kaji is set up by her boyfriend and raped before being sent to jail. Once in jail the
depiction of her and her fellow inmates being subjected to various forms of torture and rape by
male prison guards and fellow female inmates is the reason for their attempt at escape.

5. Hanzo the Razor: Sword of Justice by Kenji Misumi (1972,

Toho)
Hanzo the Razor is a fictional character that was original the title and central character of a
manga series that was developed into a cinematic trilogy starring Shintaro Katsu and released
by Toho studio in the mid 70’s. Sword of Justice was the first of the three films and reunited
Katsu with director Kenji Misumi who worked together on the Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman
film series.

Hanzo Itami is a police officer in Edo period Japan whose unconventional methods of sexual
practices and blunt investigative tactics specifically go against the corruption so rampant within
not only his local police department but the reigning magistrate that dictates laws and justice
within Japan. In Sword of Justice Hanzo is seen as a puritanical character who inflicts torture
upon himself and others in the quest for justice and his own vilification of morality in a corrupt
and broken society.

6. Lady Snowblood by Toshiya Fujita (1973, Tokyo Eiga/Toho)

Toshiya Fujita’s 1973 cult hit Lady Snowblood is a story of vengeance and femininity based on
the manga Shurayukihime and stars Meiko Kaji (who was also the star of Female Prisoner 701:
Scorpion). Set in early Meiji era, the story follows Yuki (Lady Snowblood) as she seeks
revenge on the criminals who raped her mother and killed her husband and son, eventually
putting her mother in jail for killing the man who takes her away to work for him.

Yuki is born in the woman’s prison and told the story of her conception by her mother Sayo,
setting her on a cinematic quest for vengeance laced with unique color schemes and aesthetic
qualities that lend to a modern rumination on the conditions and idolization of classical Japan.
The film has influenced many films and filmmakers both aesthetically and structurally from
Yermek Shinbaraev’s Revenge to Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill films.

7. Sex and Fury by Norifumi Suzuki (1973, Toei)

Starring the popular pink film actress Reiko Ike, Norifumi Suzuki’s Sex & Fury is a film that
transcends any one type of genre to create a complex mash-up of yakuza film, pink film,
exploitation story, and violent thriller. Suzuki’s film is another film that deals with a highly
sexualized female protagonist who becomes involved in a quest for vengeance and life after
witnessing the murder of a man in a gambling den.

Sex & Fury was the start of a very prolific period in Suzuki’s career as he would go on to make
the wildly popular Torakku Yaru ten-film series as well as the next film on this list…

8. School of the Holy Beast by Norifumi Suzuki (1974, Toei)

School of the Holy Beast was a staple of the pinky violence films released by Toei in the mid-
70’s and one of the most prolific nunsploitation films ever released. With solid acting by the
large cast including the leading lady played by Yumi Takigawa and a stunning visual palate
that accentuated the violence and moral ambiguity of the film, Norifumi Suzuki’s tale of sadistic
nuns and the decrepit power of isolation of young women at the Sacred Heart Convent is camp
of the highest order.

As the young woman (Takigawa) discovers the various dark secrets of the convents and its
inhabitants she being to realize the severity of the self-sadomasochistic behavior the women
delve into as well as her own torture by the nuns. Beast is a scathing indictment of religions
moral grasp on Japanese youth and the puritanical veil it throws over society.

9. Fall Guy by Kinji Fukasaku (1982, Shochiku)

One of only two straightforward comedies on this list, Kinji Fukasaku’s Fall Guy also might be
the most sublimely absurd film in this lineup as well. Aging film star Ginshiro (Morio Kazama)
deals with the tribulations of a changing film industry with his entourage comprised of lackeys.
When Ginshiro gets a fan, Konatsu (Keiko Matsuzaka) pregnant he asks his head lackey Yasu
(Mitsuru Hirata) to take the fall for him and raise the child since he is worthless and Ginshiro
still has a long and fruitful career ahead of him. Yasu agrees and takes up a job as a stunt man
to make ends meet.

Fall Guy turns the camera back directly onto the Japanese film and studio systems with
scathing satire and hilarious rhetoric. Nothing is safe from its lenses whether it be the star
system or popular culture idolizing not only the stars but the film industry that works its
employees to the bone.
10. Tampopo by Juzo Itami (1985, Toho)

Juzo Itami’s directorial career started well into middle age as he was a prolific actor throughout
his early life, and throughout the small amount of films he directed during the rest of his life,
Tampopo is probably his most well rounded comedic endeavor. The story of a truck driver
Goro (Tsutomu Yamazaki) and his young sidekick Gun (Ken Watanabe in an early role) who
stop at a roadside noodle shop owned by the widowed Tampopo (Nobuko Miyamoto) and end
up staying to help the restaurant turns out to be a story deeply entwined in the marriage
between food and eroticism.

The comedic representation of individuals connection to food and love is an examination of

human nature that helped launch Ken Watanabe to star status and a humorous exploration of
one of humans oldest fetishes.

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20 Great Japanese Cult Films That Are Worth

Watching
03 JUNE 2014 FEATURES, FILM LISTS BY IAN CAHOON
11. Death Shadows by Hideo Gosha (1986, Shochiku)

Death Shadows was Hideo Gosha’s final return to the jidai-geki genre which initially made him
famous after a prolific period working in the gangster and modern crime genres throughout
most of the 1970’s. The intriguing aspect that sets Death Shadows apart from Gosha’s other
jidai-geki films is the fact that the movie takes place during no specific time period or setting,
borrowing elements from modern times and various eras of Japanese history to make a yakuza
thriller based without a specific time period.

This impressionistic style borrows from everything from German expressionism to French
poetic realism as the camera sweeps throughout an almost mythical landscape of Japans
history spanning anachronistic elements borrowed throughout not only history but cinema itself.

12. Princess From the Moon by Kon Ichikawa (1987, Toho)

Based on a traditional Japanese folklore (with some elements changed liberally), Kon
Ichikawa’s fantastical Princess From the Moon is a story that brings together traditional
Japanese setting, morals, and theology with fantastical tales of extraterrestrials to create a
story steeped in allegory about the relation between old and new Japan as well as their
continuing friendship with the west.

Starring the great Toshiro Mifune in one of his later roles, the story of two hard working
peasants who one day find a young girl has mysteriously appeared at their deceased
daughters grave and raise the child. As the child Kaya (Yasuko Sawaguchi) grows at an
alarming rate she thwarts off the advances of the villages men and ends up returning to space
via an orbital spaceship that appears at the end of the film. Princess was released as Toho’s
55th anniversary film and one of Ichikawa’s only fantasy genre pieces.

13. Tetsuo, the Iron Man by Shin’ya Tsukamoto (1989, JHV)

Tetsuo, the Iron Man is Shin’ya Tsukamoto’s most infamous film, and the one that put him on
the international map. The story of the Metal Fetishist being hit by a car driven by a
businessman (who eventually becomes the Iron Man) played by Tomorowo Taguchi and his
girlfriend (Kei Fujiwara) after running out into the street, then discarded into a ravine by the
couple is a grotesque and engaging story of the transformation of society and seen through the
guise of physical transformation.

The Metal Fetishist inhabits the businessman after his seeming death and transforms his body
into a metal forms complete with giant iron drill penis used to impale his girlfriend. The
metamorphosis of mind and body is seen as a representation of modern capitalist society and
its molding of young men and women into machines of society and morality that juxtapose
creation and thought.

14. Kekko’s Mask by Hikari Hayakawa (1991, JHV)

Hikari Hayakawa’s Kekko Mask was the first live-action transposition of the manga series
following the title character Kekko Kamen and a prime example of the cult sensibilities of the
pink film as the title character protects the young girls of the Spartan School against its ruthless
male teachers and directors by stunning them with her private parts and then proceeding to
beat them up. Kekko wears a red mask, cape, boots, and nothing else as she fights for the
rights and protection of young females in the nude.

Rather than being objectified by her female form she uses it as her main weapon against those
suppressing her in order to save the young girls of the school from continual abuse. Released
by Japan Home Video the film is a crossover of pink films with exploitation pieces in the vein of
many other Japanese films in similar veins by utilizing a strong female lead to redeem not only
themselves but other against a male dominated patriarchal modern Japan.

15. Cure by Kiyoshi Kurosawa (1997, Daiei)

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 1997 film Cure stands out from many of the films on this list in the fact that
it is a truly grisly horror story with gritty tonal qualities and straightforward crime thriller
aesthetics that would become commonplace in East Asian cinema throughout the 90’s and
2000’s. Detective Takabe (Koji Yakusho) is investigating a slew of murder where the victims
are killed by having an X carved into their necks and the perpetrators are found nearby but
can’t remember the killing.

Finally a young man Mamiya is found near the scene of one of the crimes and is discovered to
be a master of psychology who is implanting thoughts into peoples minds. As the story unfolds
the intentions become more diluted as the lines between reality and impairment become
blurred and the audiences own interpretations of invents become more real than the events
themselves.

16. Versus by Ryuhei Kitamura (2000, KSS)

Ryuhei Kitamura’s 2000 action epic Versus was first introduced to me as “a two hour class in
how to film extreme stylized violence” and years later that is still the best summation I can think
of for this film. As escaped convict Prisoner KSC2-303 fights off everyone from yakuza thugs to
demonic and zombie-like creatures at the 666th portal to another dimension in the forests of
Japan, the violence never stops and becomes increasingly more extreme and stylized as
various styles of martial arts, bad acting, and weapons enter the picture.

By steeping the film in a mythos of otherworldly connotations and creatures directly tied into
the local yakuza boss being a vampire who brings about the undead, the film is a true exercise
in entertainment and genre filmmaking that doesn’t let down or let up for one minute.

17. Visitor Q by Takashi Miike (2001, CineRocket)

Made as the final part of the six-part Love Cinema series by CineRocket, Takashi Miike’s
Visitor Q is a low budget bitingly black comedy about a severely dysfunctional family who
finally falls apart when a mysterious young man (Kazushi Watanabi) enters their lives, not
dissimilar from the basic plot elements of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Teorema.

As the father pays to sleep with his prostitute daughter to the son being picked on by school
bullies and mercilessly taking out his frustrations on his heroin addicted mother, the absurdist
portrayal of this family in disarray is given a shock by the strange Visitor Q who embraces and
utilizes their moral downfalls to further himself and make them examine their own realities.

The film is notable for its use of the then budding digital camera technology which allowed for
minimal lighting and less controlled shooting conditions to create a darkly humorous film that
juxtaposes its content with a realistic aesthetic.

18. The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai by Mitsuru Meike (2003,

Shintoho)
Mitsuru Meike’s The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai is interesting in that it was originally
developed and pitched as a pink film that then was allowed by Shintoho to be evolved into a
feature length narrative that utilized linear storytelling aspects as well as dynamic character
development. The film stars the famous pink film actress Emi Kuroda in its title role who gets
shot in the head after recording a gun fight between a North Korean and a Middle Eastern
man.

The bullet gives her superior mental powers that helped her to solve a crisis that could end the
world, nuclear war. In one particular scene, Sachiko comes into possession of an exact replica
of George W Bush’s finger which then becomes animated and could spell the end of the world.
The clashing of political ideologies and regimes creates a view of Japan saving the world from
nuclear holocaust.

19. L’amant by Ryuichi Hiroki (2004, Arcimboldo YK)

Ryuichi Hiroki’s career started in the pink film industry, becoming prolific in his output within the
genre. The director then started to make complex personal dramas revolving around the power
of sexuality and morality within Japanese society. 2004’s L’amant is about a 17 year old school
girl Chikako who signs a one year sex contract with three middle aged men who only go by A,
B, and C (with A being played by the star of Tetsuo, the Iron Man, Tomorowo Taguchi), to be
null in void on her 18th birthday.

The films careful treatment of sex and the exploration of the young girls relationship that builds
with her three suitors explores a side of society often not traversed on screen.

20. Love Exposure by Sion Sono (2008, Omega Project)

Sion Sono’s 4 hour epic exploring the culture of upskirt photography and the effect of strict
catholic morality on the youth of Japan follows Yu (Takahiro Nishijima) as he sets out to
commit sins in order to properly confess to his father Tetsu, a priest.

As a devout catholic Yu believes he has hardly sinned so he seeks out acts and people who
can help him to commit sins in order to confess and fulfill what Yu sees as a pivotal part of his
religion. As Yu traverses the landscape of upskirt photography and youth culture in modern
urban Japan he becomes easily susceptible to influence and even others views on his own
morality. The film is the first (and longest) part of Sono’s Hate trilogy.